Tony, Could you elaborate a little on how you manage a typical trade. When you enter what are you looking at to determine if you take a quick profit or let it run (I'm assuming you let a lot of them run since you hold overnight). What kind of stops do you typically use, mental or otherwise? And how do you handle the inevitable gap openings against you, as with SEBL this morning. Thanks.
Tony, If you have the time, I would like to see a trading journal that is something like Hitman's journal.
I bought some shares this morning and sold for $2705.60 profit. I have a stop loss at 29.50 for the 6000 shares I bought yesterday. The open P&L reads as of yesterday's close and not from my original entry. I'm so tired that I decided to leave an open stop and go to bed. The long trip is catching up to me. I will answer your questions later. Tony PS, Do not trade when you are tired!
I woke up from my 30 minute nap and did not like what I saw, so I sold SEBL at 30.002. I actually made it break through 30, sorry. Although the P&L shows negative, I made money on the trade, because my entry was better than my exit So, I booked a little bit over 5K today. But, I wish I sold it all yesterday ... I was very tired today and missed many entries on great setups off the scanner. It was very frustrating, but I couldn't fall asleep last night. My hours are all messed up from the trip I will try to answer your questions later tonight. Gonna go to Burke Williams and get a massage. Tony
Glad to see that someone else has gone through some "scrutiny" on the board, and also glad to see you post an honest response. I'll be joining everyone in NYC in February for the Expo, and hope that we run into some of the "elite traders" there. Looking forward to seeing you in Vegas....
Tony, We are all glad you came back !! The words are useless, only Learning Curve is the Queen ! Thank you for sharing and especially that you did not forget : the baby will learn first to sit, then stand up, walk and only then he will run... some of them become even olympics team members... and get gold medals !!! And all of us admiring you and your technique, are right behind you, trying to cope... Please go on, and don't change !!! Good Trading, MD-doc
Hi Neil, Scanner will only be available through RealTick. I like the reliability they offer and when you have your name attached to a product you want nothing but the best As to future threads, I have a few threads in mind I would like to start next year. I will start one at a time and see how many I can handle time wise. Tony
Wow, I wrote four books on the subject, where do you want me to start In short, I bought SEBL yesterday when I saw it on my scanner. I placed a stop loss for the original shares. My price target was 34-37 in two weeks. Next, I liked the liquidity and momentum on it, so I started day trading it off both the intraday chart with BB and Level II. The stock closed at the top 10% of its trading range which suggested an 85% chance of going higher the following day, so I held it overnight. Then came the gap. I used the opening price as a new entry (got to forget where it closed yesterday.) I was going to let it go down 0.50 from the open before selling it. So, my risk at the open was 0.50. Why? Because I could sell it at the open at 29.79 or give it a chance. If my stop is not triggered within the first 45 minutes of trading, I will adjust my stop to the intraday low. Normally, 0.25 below that. Since I had 6000 shares, I used 29.50 in hope there will be liquidity there if my stop would trigger rather than going below 29.50. If I can watch the trade carefully (meaning I don't have several open positions at the same time) or if the size of the trade is significant for that stock, I use mental stops. If I can't watch it, I use mechanical stops. If the size is not a problem (5000 shares for a MSFT type of stock or 3000 for AMAT type of stock or 500 for MRVL type of stock) I use mechanical stops as well. Tony
Tony My firm switched our B/D and we are now members of the Pacific Stock Exchange, consequently we use Arca and I get Real Tick for free - so I switched to it. So far it seems great. (I am sure we get it free because we do certain volume) I bugged the rep Will Thatcher (great guy) to get me your scans. I now have them. I spent months trying to get First Alert to do similar stuff and I never got it to work right. Congratulations on getting scans to work. It already makes me happy knowing my tools work. I suspect I will usually only scalp trade the usual suspects. (Since that is probably the equivalent to First Alert's volavg% >1.x) Your other scans seem logical and I look forward to seeing how to bring them into my trading arsenal.