I like trading the dow but its a matter of taste. A few remarks: Your stops may be too high or profit targets too modest. A lot of guys suggest 2-1 or 3-1 potential profit vs stop. Premarket trades are dangerous, it may be best to wait until shortly after the open, to see how the market is acting.
Yep I thought about this so let me give you an example. Say my FIRST trade is a BUY and its Targets and StopLoss is 30 points and in the trade, then after entry (say +5 points later) I receive a SELL signal however this SECOND signal has a different set of Rules only 20 point Target and SL. Now I also have to take this trade because the mkt could go down and possibly achieve this SELL. Therefore I just made 20 points and NOW the market REVERSES and goes back UP, as I will still be in my FIRST Trade there is a possibilty I can also achieve my 30 points on my buy...thats a total of 50 points. Thats why you need seperate accounts as you dont want to close your trade by doing a buy BUY/SELL and it not achieveing its target. PLease correct me if I am wrong in anyway or if there is better way of doing this with one account, as Yes I would love to do this with one account and also because I am a newbie and need help in other areas as I admit I dont have knowledge of everything. I am trading 1 Min time frame. So far two good trades today.
If you are long and get a sell signal go flat, when the smaller target or stop is hit for the short, go long at the original parameters. Take the money you save in commissions and give it to charity
YOu had two good shorts which gave you maybe 40 points or so. With the market moving so far, why go short again for 20 more with a 34 stop loss. Once YM got above 12630 things looked quite bullish. Take it from someone who has overtraded in the past, you are overtrading after a nice set of trades. Next time take the 40 points and paper trade the rest of the day for practice. Also use a 5 minute chart or other time frame along with 1-minute for confirmations. I hope the market turns around since you have such a wide stop but sometimes it is best to take the profit and sit back. Overtrading is the biggest obstacle of daytraders
option coach, thank you for the advice and to be honest with you I am paper trading at the moment anyway as work tasks do not enable me to keep an eye on the market at all times. Regarding Trade3, if you see my original post, as below, please note the time of post as I posted this Real-Time within 45 seconds of my Signal. Also Note the word "when 12619", at no point after this did the market fall to this level, therefore did not enter this trade. 02-08-07 05:08 PM Trade3: STOP LOSS 12654 ready to SELL when 12619 TARGET 12596
I believe what you are using is a SELL STOP. If so, it may be easier to put SELL STOP or BUY STOP on your postings to make it clearer. Just a suggestion.