Ok, I posted about how I was a newbie and I'd figured out a system, and asked some questions. Got one good answer, and four flames. I'm not day trading, but riding market trends over multiple days with the same holdings. So I put it in practice, and I've made a little money. 10% in a couple weeks. Might have made more, but I made a freshman mistake and didn't set my stop low enough and got stopped out on "noise". Today was the icing on the cake. I picked up a sell signal for my long position. So I sold at about 12:30. You guys know what happened after that. Feel like I dodged a bullet because I was levered long. Gotta wait 3 days to play again because I let all my money ride on one big bet...but no worries...its a "play money" account. I'm waiting to see if the weak "short" signal I'm getting is confirmed over time. But it looks like the rally is over and we're going to go down a while. Seems like it was a 'bear trap". Again, can't confirm until next week. But if you see the market dropping, think of the newbie who asked for help. And if any of you pros also picked up a signal that the rally is over in the medium term, please confirm. SM
#1 Not trying to bash, just curious, but why have you been registered since 2004 and still consider yourself a newbie? Have you just never gotten serious until now? #2 good job on the trade #3 that t+3 clearing shit is really annoying and fucking stupid. I mean seriously, in this day and age how long does it take to "clear" funds. Should be not even take 1 day, if not instant.
Thanks on the "good job"s. Thanks for confirmation on the downtrend. It may only last a week for all I know, but I'm 75% certain. If Monday and/or Tuesday are tepid or down, ll be 95% certain. I've been here since 2004 haunting the economics forum. There are some guys there that really know their stuff. I'm deep into real estate investing...a real estate "permabull" and thought of it as "the way" until now. The tax advantage will be helpful with my TA trades in the shortrun. FWIW, I would have laughed at some of the "eureka" statements I've made in the last couple weeks about TA. I didn't really think it could work and tried to figure it all out on a micro and macroeconomic scale. Now there's a twinge of sadness within my happiness because I realize that much of the knowledge base that I've amassed over a few decades of study is pretty much useless next to the power of TA. No sense trying to figure out how I can make a fortune anymore...and I kind of enjoyed that. Now I'm in this for the duration. The wife and I are restructuring finances. Its an exciting time in our lives. The T+3 clearing is annoying. We (wife and I) had that on our Merrill Lynch account too. I'm guessing its a mandatory law, or is it something that the brokerages can elect to do and do so to their advantage? (interest on the funds?). Right now I'm trading through a small IRA account at USAA which has a fairly decent internet trade portal, but we'll be moving additional funds into an "e-trade" account or something like that. I'd like to find an account that doesn't do T+3 clearing and has low trading fees. Does one even exist? SM
"FWIW, I would have laughed at some of the "eureka" statements I've made in the last couple weeks about TA. I didn't really think it could work and tried to figure it all out on a micro and macroeconomic scale. Now there's a twinge of sadness within my happiness because I realize that much of the knowledge base that I've amassed over a few decades of study is pretty much useless next to the power of TA." TWO WEEKS and you are eureking? In this twisted market? Unless you are talking about price action, the only power TA has, is to cause lots of newbies to waste a lot of time and money You will likely realize that soon, when your fascination with a brief lucky streak winds up on the rocks.
Meddling Government! I think we would have been down, if not for the government buying up bad assets. Didn't hurt me because I was long and sold on Friday, then I have to wait 3 days. But if I didn't have to wait, I'd have gone short and gotten stopped out. Really drives home the point to always use stops! Makes you wonder though...if you think, as I do, that the market should have went down today, but because of this euphoria, it went up, will we see a repeat of last week where the euphoria of the announced bad debt buy-up lead to a "how we going to pay for this" hangover? My guess is the hangover will come quicker, and be more severe. Guess the charts will tell us. SM
Okay. I'll make fun of it! ...The S&P 500 gained 7.1 percent to 822.92, its biggest increase since Oct. 28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 497.48 points, or 6.8 percent, to a five-week high of 7,775.86... Just kiddin' Who'd a thunk we'd tack on an instant 7%??? Good trading to all.