I read your journal with interest. But I'd like to ask a question. How do you determine if it was a "distribution selloff" rather than a "fear driven sell off". I've read this term before and I'm trying to get my arms around it and wonder how is that determined? Forgive me for sounding noob-ish, but I am.
i can tell by the way the price stays within the envelopes ... i look for the break of these envelopes to get my entries .. usually when price trades outside these bands ..i consider it an irrational move .. everyones was a noobi at sometime ..ask away ....
Hi Sobemark, Exactly how do you know when to exit with a profit.. is it from a preexisting stats from your past trade or experiences or just when it 'returns to the normal deivation'. ? Also since this is a countertrend, besides what you mentioned as gut feeling do you have any quantitative measures to know when you are wrong to exit with a loss or a stop loss because as you know you can actually get 'kill' if it keeps going down.? Or just purely gut feeling? Also, What's your initial account size (as in starting capital)? These are the 3 questions I'm wondering about.. as I was reading about this thread, because I have to say I just realized that your strategy is very similar to mine.. yet I play on a different market... it's also based on price acceleration, distance from EMA and bollinger bands and distance away from the standard dev. Yet, I'm just breaking even or even lose a bit to the point I stopped for a while wondering whether it's a good way to trade (since all we hear are mostly trend following..or never catch a falling knife,etc )..But it's a 'pattern' I keep seeing over and over again based on research....but just never really grasp the details to make it consistent.. Although my entries seems to be almost perfect pinpoint bottom based on experience, my exits sometimes kills me BIG.. because sometimes it reached just SLIGHTLY BELOW hitting my target and then BOOM, it went back down to hit my stop loss for a loss. If I put in a bigger stop loss, sometimes it works as it went back up to hit target, but sometimes it surges past the stop loss for a huge loss before the setup came again..and then I was afraid to go in.. yet.. this 2nd or 3rd time around it bounce back HUGE. It happened numerous times...what the heck. Anyways..any info is appreciated.Thanks.
hey bwc ... my exit strategy is not mechanical ..its more much more feeling .. half the time i'll leave money on the table... half the time the price will move back down (or up) and head to lower lows (or higher highs) ... but i definitely use EMA as a target... but i never wait for price to actually touch the MA for exit... again ..this is pure experience ..i have gotten killed with this pattern ..though very rarely ... but it is expected ... normally if i scale into a larger position than anticipated..i am already in trouble ... if the snapback is shallow and price starts heading against me again ...this is where i will exit most of the position at a loss ... and possibly will re enter again if the signal is there .. you can easily trade this style with 25-50k ... your scales just need to be sized correctly ... my account size is more ... --mark
no trades today ... i would have had a short ER trade into the bernanke pump but i was at lunch ... im also on holiday here in south beach til the 20th so my focus may not be 100% on the markets in the afternoon ... cheers ! --m
Thanks for the info, mark. So basically to confirm, the size of the each trade loss is big compare to the gains of each of your trade .. yet the number of total trade losses are rare as oppose to the frequent (80%) gains to still maintain a positive expectancy right. (Reward to Risk of each single trade is low (as oppose to the conventional, high reward to risk). But then overall expectancy is positive) btw, if you don't mind telling, what's your reward to risk ratio on the average of a single trade. Mine currently is 1/3.
yes you are correct ..however, at this point in the game ...i won't take a trade unless i am 95% sure i am going to make money ... i would rather sit on my hands for days and be 95% sure ..than be exposed just to get into the action .. 1/3 is about right ... give or take ..