Is it stupid to short the top % gainers of the day?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by koonsdawg, Jan 4, 2007.

  1. I actually tested your strategy today on paper and it did phenomenal. Exactly as you described it. I can't understand why you are revealing this strategy so much. You are very generous and more people should be appreciative of what you are doing here... God bless you buddy.

    one question: why did you leave out zmh?
     
    #51     Jan 30, 2007
  2. You can't trust trade-ideas to give you decent numbers.

    John
     
    #52     Jan 30, 2007
  3. gkadir

    gkadir

    Yesterday I shorted MMM, the stock sudenly jumped $.70 in few mins. Hit me badly. But later on it gave everything back and ended up lower (of course I didn't take that trade). Did anyone else trade that stock?
    Thanks to UPS I ended up $400 up.

    I have decided that I will give up buying 3M products and buy of the internet and get it shipped by UPS! :)
     
    #53     Jan 31, 2007
  4. Hey Scalper007,

    I really appreciate your post. Very kind words sir.

    The reason I posted my strategy is for one basic reason.

    I was hoping that by sharing it, I would get some useful ideas or reasons why my strategy is flawed.

    I had posted something about 1-2 years ago about this idea I was working on and talked with a handful of folks one on one.


    Honestly, I do not think my strategy is that earth shattering and should be kept secret. Also, I may be wrong, but I don't think that by telling the ET public about it that it will hurt my results. Very few if any will trade like this.

    I think that by sharing my thoughts with many others who are pursuing this kind of work will help me. I realize that by sharing it others will gain much more than I will but that is the chance I take.

    One thing I have gained, albeit may seem little, is that by using IB instead of Scottrade, my results will improve and it opens up other approaches that wouldn't be possible by paying $7/trade.


    One thing that some folks have sort of mentioned is this:

    If buying the top gainers at 10am is better than 10:30am, why not do even better and buy them at 9:45am or even at the opening bell? One guy I had talked to gets a subscription for about $100/month that gives him streaming quotes of stocks that have gapped up on the opening.

    Or, why limit it to the NYSE? Wouldn't the NASDAQ or AMEX do as well if not better?

    Or, perhaps the most interesting thing to consider is this:

    What makes these stocks (top 6 gainers) any better than a random selection of 6 other stocks, say the #7-12 gainers, or shorting the top 6 losers of the day?

    It might just come down to that my strategy is able to eek out a small profit just because of one simple concept-letting the winners run.

    If you notice with my strategy, I don't sell until the end of the day. Many daytraders look at trendlines, MACD's, 3 wizemen, etc. etc. to determine when to get in and out of a stock.

    I have had some success doing this myself, but overall not as well as sticking to my simple approach.

    One last thing-
    Believe it or not, my most successful trades were just buying stocks that were hammered down to almost nothing, buying more and more as they dropped and getting gigantic returns as they recovered. I realize how crazy and stupid it may have been to buy these stocks at the time, but I made a ton of money with them. Here are some of them. Take a look at the charts on these and when I was buying them. Looking back now, I look like a genius.

    I was buying AMR back in 03 when it dropped from 5 down to1.25.

    I was buying ACF back in 03 when it dropped from around $3 down to 1.55.

    I was buying TSO back in 03 when it was below $2.

    I was buying GT back in 03 when it dropped from $7 down to $3.

    I was buying HD when it was below$22/share in 03.

    I was also buying MXT and S in 03 but they got bought out.
    These are just a few, I have many others.

    Notice on these stocks that when I started buying, they kept going lower on me! I kept buying more and was actually buying at or very near their absolute bottom. I guess I got very lucky they didnt goto zero, but that was the chance I was taking and I was ready to ride them into the ground if I had to.

    One stock that I did get a little burned on was TWR (tower auto).
    At one point I had 63000 shares of it when it traded at 1.21/share.

    peace.
     
    #54     Jan 31, 2007
  5. ==================
    Koons;

    Yes, agree under conditions following [a-200]especially since CPSL has spent most of the year under its 200DMA
    [b-50 ] and most of the year under 50day moving average
    [c] gaps like that tend to not hold[good small time frame shorts]

    Personaly like to short stuff like DAL[Delta Air Lines, when it was NYSE ticker] and fundamentals line up with the above ABC pattern/ usually on percent decliners, not gainers.

    Or with all the hedge funds , using above ABC pattern on a weak stock/weak markek in a strong sector.:cool:

    Nice profit,be careful on some of those percent gainers that dont pull back much. Laugh out loud

    Wisdom is profitable to direct:cool:
     
    #55     Jan 31, 2007
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    #56     Jan 31, 2007
  7. Hey traderich,
    Can you repeat your strategy/trading setups? I guess I am not very clear just yet.
    Thanks.
     
    #57     Jan 31, 2007
  8. I am a fairly new user and have been having good results thus far. What should I be looking out for?
     
    #58     Jan 31, 2007
  9. jtrujillo

    jtrujillo

    hey traderich,

    I am new to the elite trader forum and pretty much new to day trading (actually only paper day trading now) but anyway, I like the simplicity of your strategy and it seems like you have been doing well with it (congrats).

    I have an observation, (please correct me if I am wrong) it seems that the focus of your strategy is Price % gainers that have a certain volume (over 100 k). And it seems that if you could identify just one bad seed your weekly gains would increase dramatically.

    So I paper traded six stocks (like you said)

    EL,
    GBX,
    SID,
    PPC,
    SIE,
    LEV

    not sure if those would have been your picks but they were mine this morning at 10:05 am based on your criteria.

    Now at 10:30 I ran another yahoo % gainers list and all the stocks were in the list except for PPC . I guess what I am wondering is if you are getting the list really from 9:40 data and you are buying at 10 am some of the stocks (like PPC) could no longer be in the % gainers.

    It just happens to be that PPC has not recover (and it may recover by the end of the day) but I was wondering it that is at all a consideration.

    I just ran another yahoo % gainers are there are 3 others that are not on the list but clearly PPC was off right away this morning. Any thoughts ?? I will continue to paper trade/track this theory. Thanks
     
    #59     Jan 31, 2007
  10. DAM_YT

    DAM_YT


    Yes, it is not a good idea. I've made a backtest in the period of 2018-2023 and the results shows that there are sereval risks in doing it. For example it is to possible that one day you lose more that the 100% of your cash. This is becuase you are investing in short, so if the price continues growing the next sesion more than a hundred per cent you will lose all your money and you will have debt. It is true that while the strategy is working correctly, it makes high returns, but in one to another you can lose everything.
     
    #60     May 30, 2023
    murray t turtle likes this.