curious as to why you didn't take the short just after 8 am PST? i'm not bragging that I took it or anything (cos I didn't), but it seemed to meet your entry criteria and def had confirmation from MACD. Thx KB
I did not take the short @ 8 because I wasn't in front of the computer at the time. In retrospect it was not that amazing of a trade, but would have been nice for a point.
Trades for 12-5-03 Trade #1 Long @ 1066.00, Stop @ 1063.5, Cover @ 1066.00, scratch 6:50, Trade taken off of not exactly a crossover more like the two averages moving in one direction. This is how I have been playing the 6:45-7:15 region. The trade did absolutely nothing and after about a half hour of nothing I got out at breakeven. Trade #2 Short @ 1065.25, STop @ 1066.5, Cover @ 1064.5 +.75 pts 7:50 This trade was also moving incredibly slow, Got out with what I could take after it didn't look like price was really going anywhere. Trade #3 Long @ 1066.25, Stop @ 1064.75, Cover @ 1068.25, +2 pts 8:20 This entry was perfect I then exited with a nice profit very quickly because I didn't think there was going to be enough momentum to even think about challenging the 1070 level. Trade #4 Short @ 1066.00, STop @ 1067.75, Cover @ 1064.5, +1.5 pts 8:50 I usually would not take a trade this close to lunch time, but I have been noticing that lunch lately has had some movement to it (see 10 o clock today) with the afternoons being pretty dead. Another nice quick profitable trade to wind up before lunch time. Trade #5 Long @ 1061.25, Stop @ 1060.25, Cover @ 1060.75 -.5 pts 11:15 look like the support was holding around this area, If I had wanted to I supposed I could have used a wider stop and walked away from this trade just to let it play out on its own, which right now it looks like would have worked. But all I could see was a lot of chop and I didn't feel like waiting aroudnd for it to clear up, so I exited at the first sign of weakness, which was pretty quick. Profit/Loss for day: 3.75 pts Overall Profit/Loss: 33.00 pts I traded ok today, the period where I racked up a lot of gains however was just me calling quick changes in the trend and capitalizing on them, this is good and bad. Will post chart later.
Today I only took one trade in the afternoon as I missed the morning session. I was not anticipating much action today due to the upcoming FED meeting. Trade #1 Long @ 1063.5, Stop @ 1061.25, Cover @ 1064.00 +.5 pts 11:40, This trade was the only trade I took today. After I got in I realized that 1064 had played significant resistance all day long. Therefore I was looking to get out with a quick profit at any sign of weakness. In hindsight this was really foolish, but I was not really thinking about a short squeeze when I took this trade. This is definetly one of those situations where it would have been nice to have multiple contracts in play so I could have taken profits and then let the others ride. While I like the idea of this, I think it is too soon for me to be playing with multiple contracts. Therefore I will continue to keep trading with just one contract. In hindsight there really was not a good reason to get out of this trade but I was nervous about giving back profits. I am looking into going live with my trading fairly soon. Probably sometime after christmas/new years it is looking like. I have opened an account with Open Ecry and am excited about trading with them. I plan to limit my trading to only one trade a day at first and will slowly scale into a full blown trading scheme. I have over a month off from school during this period so I will have tons of time to dedicate during this period.
Trades for 12-10-03 Today I had some issues with being able to stay in trades long enough as a result I got out of some good moves too early. As the day went on I focused on either my profit target being obtained or my stop being hit and tried to take only signals at those points. Trade #1: short @ 1060.25, stop @ 1062, cover @ 1059.25 + 1 pt 7:30 The original profit target for this move was 1.75 pts If I had been patient I could have reached this point however I was not instead I choose to take my profits early in the face of what I thought was weakness. Although this trade was profitable it was disappointing because of my lack of patience. Trade #2 long @ 1059.5, stop @ 1058, cover @ 1059 -.5 pts 8:20 THis trade just flat out sucked. If I had followed the game plan of either getting stopped out or taking a profit of equal or greater value than this trade would have been much better, however I got anxious when I saw the change in slopes in the MAS and decided I should get out before things could get any worse. This turned out to be an awful decision. Trade #3 long @ 1054.5, stop @ 1053, exit @ 1056.25 +1.75 pts This trade was executed in a much better manner and perhaps I could have held on for more gains, but my focus at the point of taking profits was to stick to the gameplan and I had achieved my profit target and slightly more so I got out of the trade, this last trade brings me to something I have been observing in my trading. Recently I have been noting that exits with one contract are very difficult to time perfectly and trading with multiple contracts maybe a nice solution to letting profits run. However I am not sure if I am ready at this point to begin trading multiple contracts. Instead I think what I will do is continue to trade 1 contract in the simulator, then when I go live I can trade just 1 contract, if no persistent problems arise in my trading then the time may come fairly quickly where I will allow myself to trade multiple contracts. In this situation with multiple contracts I would be looking for the profit target on the first contract and then the stop would be moved to breakeven for the second contract and I will be looking more points on this contract.
I think that was a great exit. There was a long lower shadow. That's support, man, the right thing to do was close up. If you had some other evidence at the outset to expect a big move, then at this point maybe better to move the stop up. Otherwise, nothing wrong IMO.