Starting to post my trades, just to get more focus, and become more disciplined. I try to look at historical outcomes of the pattern at hand (quantified if possible, but I am not so good at programming). Typical holding period is a few days. Mostly long trades. No specific price stops per se, but instead continously looking at what the pattern says about bullish or bearish bias, and controlling risk with my leverage instead. Ok, at the moment, I am caught long since a couple of days, bought in at 1054 and the contract has tanked to a low this morning of 1028. We have seen a bounce after a further sell off this morning, and I am still long at a price of 1034 now at tuesday 13.08 hours. My analysis says that as we are going down heavily into the middle of the week, we need some more up momentum to turn it around and not sell off further later in the week. If we can get that during the afternoon, then it looks good for the next few days and I will stay in the trade, otherwise I'll bail out.
I of course meant wednesday, in my last post, and an hour after that the price has climbed up to 1036, only 1.75 points from even on the day. Still looking as the trade will live a bit further. If the US markets starts higher, there might be some short covering and a rather strong close. S&P futures up 1.3 points right now, and wednesday is usually good for a turnaround over there. If I am lucky the US and European markets can feed off each other on the up side for a few days. We'll see about that. Ahh, the contract is down to 1035 again. Time is 14.09.
The rally has been faster than expected (short covering?) and I just sold at 1042, as I think there will be a pull back during before the close. We'll see. Time 15.42. Martin
1041.25 now, and if only the US markets could dip one more time that would lure a lot of new sellers into the market, and I would get a good entry before the close. As far as I can tell, we have seen the turning point, but hopefully not everybody agrees. Time 15.47.
Ok, so the market took my resting limit buy order at 1039.25, at 16.06 CET. I bought a bit hesitantly since we have quite a run up since this morning, not much of a pull back, and the US markets have opened up and might go down and test lows again during the day. This could put some pressure on the market tomorrow morning, but since I expect the market to be up the next few days, I don't have to have an up opening but can play it in a few different ways. Time is 16.10, and the market is at 1040.5.
The market closed at 1041.25 (High 1042.25, Low 1027.50) and I am long from 1039.25. Let's see how the US market does tonight. Too early to bet how the opening is gonna be tomorrow. Bias for the next few days though should be up, so strategy will be to work from the long side, and possibly sell into some rallies and buy back on pull backs. Martin
The US markets did not give us much to work with, neither did the Asians. I still think that we are headed higher in the days to come, but with the heroic turnaround yesterday, with only 3.5 points of pullback in a 15 point move, I think there might be some back and fill. I am hoping for a few shorts to scramble to get out in the morning, and push up the price another few points for a nice exit for me. But I am afraid that it might be south already in the morning. In that case, with a short trading day, I might have to just watch and wait. If we get a morning pop and a pullback, I can't see at the moment why not buy back and hold through the extended weekend. Such a long down move into the holiday would show some riskaversion among people, and there is were the profit is. We'll see. Time is 08.25, and it is Thursday.
Ok, we have some morning strenght and the market opened at 1045. It immediately fell back to 1043 were I added some to my position, since ash market has gone through the round number of 1050, and I think we just might see some further upside, withouth necessarily going back first. Now long from 1039.25 and 1043. Time is 09.09.
This is just great. Tried to put in a limit sell order a few points up, and the system bounces it. The line to the broker is busy, as I am probably not the only one with the problem. Let us just hope that it's fixed before I NEED to get out.
Still seems to be some problems with putting in orders through the system and while the pullback has been very shallow (1046 - 1044, now at 1045) and an exit probably would have done no good, there is still the frustration. Meanwhile, I need to think of the next few moves. The turnaround yesterday and rise into today has taken the market about halfway up the latest downswing. Many people will be making up thire minds of the probable next direction upon seeing the way the market closes today. Too early to tell, and while the bias for the next few days is still upwards as of now, this might change in an instant. We close at 12.50 today, and since the market is closed both tomorrow and on monday, while the US have closed only friday) players need to think about how to position for the long weekend. I need to think a bit more too....Time is 11.07 CET.