Lets take the 5 days of the past week (Mon Oct 26 to Fri Oct 30 2009). They produced sequentially per day (9am-2.30pm) 811,801,869,1127 and 1476 points in NG. Thats a total of 5084 points in 73 'legs'(swings) each at a mean average of 70 points on a minimum of 35 points per 'leg'. The size of each 'leg' varied between 40 and 222 points over the week. Of course you must apply a valid and robust methodology to exploit these gyrations (buying the upmoves and selling the downmoves as they follow each other). Bottom line: its there for the taking. You go where the fruit is juiciest. When you have a choice, you wouldn't stay in an orchard of small dry fruit unless you were subject to a prolonged brain malfunction, now would you?
Yes, the ocean also has all the water you'll ever need, but it won't do any good for a thirsty man to drink it. It might even kill him.
Actually the fact that you find this market difficult says alot about your methods. This market was remarkable last year, and has continued that this year. Down sharply to new lows January, February and a few days in March. Then up virtually non-stop to the peaks here recently...over a 60% rally. We've had good rallies in commodities, like oil and gold for instance. Great rallies in financial stocks in general, from JPM to BAC and everything in between. Then there was Apple. GS. Evidently what you're saying is that you need a market that jerks back and forth sharply to make money. If I were you, and I was looking at one of the best rallies in recent years and calling it difficult, I would instead take a hard look at how I was trading and see what the problem was and what I could do about it. It isn't like there haven't been some really great opportunities. The markets change. You're going to have to learn to change with them if you expect to have longevity. OldTrader
Dustin, good industry feedback as always. I understand your style to be volatility, news type plays. Have you not been seeing these lately? I guess what your saying is we'll get the gap up or down and then flat line?
I haven't been around for 12 years without adapting once or twice The point of this thread wasn't to say I can't make it in this market, I'm doing fine. Yes, the dreaded flat line is everywhere. Gap and chop.
Are we talking about the same market? We just got through the peak of earnings season and the volatility in certain individual names (AAPL, AMZN, BIDU etc) brought back memories of 1999. Also, 3 one way trend days back-to-back-to-back this week -- hopefully this is a sign of things to come. I agree it's definitely alot thinner than it was even a year ago, so less to go around but if you are looking for news/earnings volatility the moves are there.
For you guys that like to trade those names I imagine there were some nice opportunities lately. I agree that this past week showed promise and I hope there's more to come. Are you saying you think new traders should be trading AAPL AMZN BIDU?