One of the things that I realised was that I need to look at the bigger picture even when I'm trading short-term.. For example, if the daily trend is up, I will take buy signals only and/or if I get a short signal, I'll look to fade it. Had I added this as a requirement, my P&L would have been much better. Friday's action tells me that we are at the start of a new downtrend. In order to confirm the down trend, we need another huge selling day. I found another journal here that WAS NOT based on indicators and if I combine my VRs with those strategies, I should be good. Here is the link. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53470
Based on the 1% true selling day and Friday-to-Monday follow through, I expect the market to decline on Monday. VR for Monday: 1303.5-1304.5
This is what I meant in my earlier post on your thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1018076#post1018076 This will definitely boost your profitability.
This is my post from 3-30-06. Just bumping it up to see if there is any similarities between 87 and 06.
regarding your 1987 comments.....I beleive Williams refers to this as the "Jaws of death" bonds in a downtrend signify the lower jaw of a crocidile, shark..whatever.....and stocks in uptrend signify the upper jaw..........then they snap shut bringing down stock prices...will it happen this time...? Too early to tell...these bulls won't go down easy so there will be plenty of good opporunities on the short and long side....that's what makes it so great...If I was a long term trader I certainly wouldn't be staying long anymore...I'd be cashing in my chips and let the pigs take whatever is left...
No, most of the black boxes that drive the markets today, were not trading in 87. Just go back to the terror attacks in London last summer, there was an intra day reversal. Also, the traders who trade in today's environment are a lot different than the ones of yester-year (and I mean that in a humble way).