in reply to joeyata1 agreed! lets hope this closing low-gap up little-closing high pattern stop and have some clear direction with real follow throughs. i have to also agree it is generally an aweful aweful market to be trading in for new incoming traders.
howard, Just two questions for you "Are we in a bull market?" or "Are we in a bear market?" That will answer your follow through question I believe!
I guess it is really bad compared to late 90's, when Dow ranges were like 300 points on a regular basis. Now you are lucky to get 100. So a lot of easy strategies don't work anymore. You have to come up with more intricate and riskier ones. Easy money is now harder to earn.
Spydertrader, I trade an equity system that takes about 4-5 trades/day from a universe of about 3500 stocks. I am having my worst year since I started trading in 1998.... I would guess by your name that your system focuses on trading the SPY? Regardless, if you don't mind, I have a couple of "non-intrusive" questions about your method: 1. Is your system more of a "breakout/momentum" based system, or is it more "buy weakness/sell strength"? 2. What is the avg holding period of your typical trades?
When not wasting my time blowing smoke in chit-chat... I primarily trade two long-only systems; one that makes money in uptrends and one that makes money in downtrends (countertrend trading). They both have a long backtest history and over 2 years of real time. One of the worst periods for both systems has been between last October and now. I think this will soon change; otherwise I'll have to think there has been a sea change in the markets and it's time to go back to the drawing board. m
Sorry to hear you have experienced reduced profits during this year. In December 2002, I experienced a similar situation while trading the SPY, DIA & QQQ. I empathize with the frustration you must feel. I used to exclusively trade the big ETF's - hence the alias under which I post. However, recent changes in the trading environment causing intermittent availability of certain ETF's for shorting has prompted me to educate myself on the futures markets. I plan to use my old ETF system to trade the YM or MR later this fall. Feel free to ask anything you like. Definitely, a breakout based system. If trading from the Long side, I currently use a 4 day hold period. I reduced the hold time from 6 - 8 days down to 4 last year in an effort to improve the number of profitable trades. Sometimes, I only hold for a day or two based on volume. For shorts, I rarely hold beyond intraday. I hope you find the above information helpful. - Spydertrader
Don't know about individual stocks but action in the indexes suck especially intraday, I made a few small (increasingly smaller) intraday trades these past 3 weeks sometimes out of boredom and lost on 100% of those. Less opportunities for big and swift upmoves overnight as well , other than scalps shorts in indexes are total waste of time and money . It's May traditionnaly the start of a tough period through summer for me -and many others I gather - I plan to trade as little as possible and do something else.