Love simple. Can't wait for simple. One of the guys said on another thread, "simple doesn't necessarily mean easy." All I know is....
Well I finally got back from dinner. It didn't go exactly as I had hoped. Here is some valuable advice for all. If you are going to get your credit card declined when paying for dinner, DON'T do it at a sushi joint. Those guys have pretty much no senses of humor, and they got a LOT of really sharp knives! And washing dishes to pay off a meal isn't like what I am used to when I usually do it at a local diner or pizza joint, or the occasional steakhouse for special occasions (how's THAT for a badly constructed sentence?). Not even close! I mean they hardly even HAVE dishes. That's no problem. But cleaning out those little saki cups.....thought I broke my fingers quite a few times. And cleaning up the fish entrails and bones....the worst. Now I can take a four hour bath, and my wife will still say I have to sleep in the dog house. And I hate that dog house. No A/C, and if you know what fire ants are here in Fla, well I need tell you no more!!! And worse, the damn dog will probably love the smell But I paid my debt, like I always do. You would think my family would have at least waited by the bar, but no. I had to walk home. So now it's really late, and I don't think I have a lot to offer in the way of advice right now. Except to say, ALWAYS keep it simple. I could have written a check, and they wouldn't have known squat until at least tomorrow. Simple. Silly me! Or I could have called that chump Menace to come take care of the tab. He owes me money. But no!!! He doesn't even get paid for his work, so he can't pay me back! Chas; my son doesn't play ball anymore (not seriously...just for his fraternity). Blew out his knee. He loves baseball and his life is sports. I think he wants to be Arliss now. He is trying to inveigle his way into the heart of Fred Wilpon's son (Fred owns the Mets, his son runs the Brooklyn Cyclones). Hey "inveigle"....good word. Haven't used it since I was in college and I knew that was what I was trying to do with all the girls there. But I digress! Daniel M, my friend....glad to see you here. No politics of religion here, or I will give your home address to Traderfut2000. He will bring a jihad and the wrath of Allah Himself upon you for any misbehavior. Great stuff by the way (my wife is an expert on the middle east, and she was impressed by your knowledge and intelligence...and that you did your homework. Only thing I ever printed from here for her to read. His stuff was also excellent. Great debate. Highly recommended. See "students blow up..." in Chit Chat if you missed it...you other people I mean). Now, I have to apologize for not disclosing my trading for simpletons wisdom right now, but I am too tired to think straight. Most people think this is because I am just not capable of thought. I myself blame my mother most of the time. When other mothers were singing "Rock A Bye Baby" to their infant sons, my mother was singing "Play That Funky Music White Boy", and it messed me up. But still, I am really tired, and I will talk about trading tomorrow for sure. But I will say this: if keeping it simple works for me, then it can work for you. Because almost certainly, every one of you has more brains and more common sense than me. And I can prove that statement! I will defend my certainty of my incompetence to the end. I may be dumb, but I am persistent. MrSub...what can I say? Five digits is better than 6? Tell Bubba you got a touch of Ebola. Hell, tell him you are a leper, which from what Eva has told me is somewhat accurate. But I don't really take her word as gospel, so who knows? Just get to the infirmary or whatever it takes. But bring your prison issued laptop with you so we can continue to "dialogue". MarcD, I will try to live up to your expectations. I will not be able to however. So if I were you, I would stop reading this thread right now, and just imagine how much fun it would have been. And how informative. Good night all, and Peace and Good Trading (as my ex-friend Publias who stiffed me for a signature would have said). Oh, and did you know that Publias is a bigot? He thinks people who are color blind should be kept separate and not equal. But he is young. Perhaps he will mature and accept my silent minority. RS7 (still devoid of signature)
That is honestly the first time in my years of reading message boards that I have actually laughed out loud sitting in a room by myself. Thanks, Sub. -JPB
Read his entire journal... I guarantee you will laugh a lot! I know I did. As would any normally demented person (translation: person who trades for a living). RS7 (where's that signature Publias...I am sorry I said bad things about you. You are the greatest! Where is it?)
Huh??? I can't tell if this is fact or fiction. Now my thoughts are going off into two different directions. On the one side if he is telling the truth, then why would anyone want to listen to trading advice from a broke SOB?!! But on the other side if he is lying then maybe he is a very rich man who is not afraid to humble himself and act as if he were the same as the rest of us. This could mean that his trading advice would be superb! For alas, it would have been his trading that made him his great wealth. Never the less I will continue to read every post of this thread. I just have nothing else to do. But I must know this, Rs7 do you drive a Mazda???
No ANCHOR, I drive a Saab Convertable, and a Lexus SUV. Why? (I did have a Mazda RX7 which I loved. But that was more than 20 years ago). I am not rich nor am I poor. Lot's of car payments make me feel poor sometimes. Two other cars for my sons. My daughter doesn't have a car. Just a 40K a year college expense (Northwestern) which I have bitched about here before. The dinner thing was an attempt at humor Gotta get ready to get to work. I will continue to gather my thoughts and write about "simple trading" during the "doldrums". RS7 (a guy who's signature is to not have one, I guess)
To get started.... Stocks can do three thing. Go up, down, or stay unchanged. Simple. For now, I will disregard trading the open. As I am today. Which I will explain along the way. But basically, today is a flat open, dow and s&p marginally down. Nasdaq marginally up. Not my kind of market to trade. Not yet. Ok, so during the day, the market itself will be either strong or weak. Within the market, there will be stocks that will be strong and weak. We have all heard "the trend is your friend". As daytraders, we are concerned of the "trend" for the day only. Lots of us (not me) trade the e-minis, and the naz minis, etc. I will not be alluding to these trades here. I do trade the qqq's and other ETFs occasionally, which is a similar experience, but for now, I am talking about stocks. It is important to watch sectors within the market. Over time, I have found the best way to trade (the most consistent results) are by trading relative strength. So ideally, (lets use the long side for simplicity sake...everything is converse on the short side), the market is up. The dow and s&p and nasdaq are all up. We see for example the strongest group is the financials. But the brokerages are stronger than the banks. So now I am looking for the strongest of the brokerages. Now lets assume you haven't access to any sophisticated software. You see that Merrill Lynch is up more than Morgan Stanley on a percentage basis. (we all at least have a calculator). But Lehman is up even better. Lehman is the strongest in the group. It is relatively strong within it's group, and the group is relatively stronger than the market. So I want to buy Lehman. But when? That is the tricky part. Feedback time. What do you guys do? I will tell you how I do it in the next post. Which is about timing. But I think the most effective way to address this is by hearing what others think first. Maybe I can learn something. My timing isn't perfect. I don't think there is such a thing (which contributes to my not trading the futures). But I have my style, which I will explain. RS7 (still waiting Publias)
RS7, I don't want to rain on your party but here are some questions for you regarding your approach to relative strength: 1. Relative strength is relative over some time frame. You imply that a sector/stock is strong/weak relative to the previous close. Why not relative to its open or a rolling time window? Obviously, RS will change throughout the day. How do you recognize a directional change in RS? Are percentage changes better than logrithmic changes or doesn't it matter> 2. How do define a stock's sector? Someone else's definition like Bloomberg or IBD? Do you create your own sector definitions? e.g. what sector is C in? 3. How do you rank all the sectors then all the stocks within all the sectors. It is by eyeballs, brains and experience or mechanical scan? Just some thoughts? Guerilla