NexTrend Hints and Tips

Your last post suggests to me that you may have multiple positions on at once. If so, what is your typical hold period, and how many issues do you hold at once? Your facility with NexTrend is admirable, but I would also like to talk about how you use it to trade, if that's not too proprietary. Thanks. - Mike

 

Mike - no multiple positions for me young man! lol The thought gives me the heebie jeebies... one stock at a time has been quite enough so far.. as far as daytrading is concerned anyway.. altho have been thinking lately of starting the odd swing trade as well.. if I find the nerve to do it..

I trade intra day and my present style seems to allow positions to last a lot longer than before.. sometimes up to a couple of hours max.. as opposed to my earlier scalping which would last just a few minutes mostly.. only been in the 'great game' six months and when I started I tended to average about 60 trades a day.. lately my average is down to about 2 1/2 trades a day.. some difference eh? I have to say I am a lot more relaxed with this style! lol

In that time I have travelled a wavy road trying to find a strategy that gives me the elusive 'edge' so fondly referred to by so many books and experts... I feel I am getting there slowly.. certainly I have learnt some things.. discipline (I can follow my plan rigorously).. stop control (never blow a stop unless data probs interfere).. currently working on exit strategies.. is so hard to get out of a trade going my way right. Experimenting with partialing out on gaining trades at the moment... 1/2 at 1% gain.. balance at either flat stop or if it goes a decent amount more. Its a tough call sometimes I find.. but so often in the past I exited a gainer for a modest profit only to see it gallop away to a dollar or more right after.. that hurts.. getting better at that now thankfully..

As to nextrend.. am using the scans to basically group stocks and then flip through the charts looking for the patterns that I like.. which is a fairly simplistic use of trend lines.. looking for potential reversals of current direction.. bearing in mind other factors such as comp and sector action.. when I decide on a stock I pop over to my active page.. with level II, T&S etc.. and then once in the trade mostly concentrate on those and the price action in general.. I have my stop order placed and can relax a bit until it starts going my way.. hopefully.. at which point my real troubles begin.. see above.. still working on it all but this has been working well for me lately..

All the best
Neil

 

Neil,
That's a lot of work to show your layout, and I still can't see it very well. Send me your e-mail address and i'll just mail you mine.
If anyone else is curious, do the same.

By the way, I just did a print screen and saved it as 16 colors and zipped it and it made a pretty small file (100K). The board won't take zip files, though.


-Johnny

 

...for the description of your trading style. I can manage to have more than one swing trade on at once, but like you, only one day trade at a time. I thought maybe you had some secret! Let me describe what I do, and perhaps you can comment on how you do things the same or differently. My primary vehicle is QQQ, every day, where I am trying to catch moves that yield at least 15 cents. I can't scalp because I'm poor-boying the setup while still learning: internet connection, dial-up modem, NexTrend, Datek, and IB. Eventually, if I get good enough, I hope to trade NQ. I also periodically check the top four liquid high volatility stocks: AOL, SEBL, DELL, and INTC for day trades when they are more volatile than QQQ. Then I check the best four swing trade candidates I developed the night before using QP2. Finally, about an hour before the close, I quickly decide on any changes to long-only retirement account index funds (I've been flat there for over three weeks, not much excitement in position trading the indices currently). - Mike

 

Thanks to Baron.. have sorted out my screenshot problem I think.. needed to alter properties of screenshot to 256 colours before saving file.. reduces the image size by a huge amount with no loss of resolution.. great

Will try uploading my Active page now.. the one I use when in a trade.. left monitor with this message and right monitor next...

Neil

 

hmm.. not quite right on the page when clicking link.. maybe just can't fit.. seems to work ok if you right click and copy and then paste into photo editor.. all legible then..

will post right monitor anyway.. see what anyone reckons.. might be able to get it better yet I guess..

 

Thanks for teaching us how, with help from Baron! Re your screen, I'm curious why you use level 2. Mind you, I'm no expert, but if Island is almost always at the inside market, why bother with anything else? Anything outside the inside market could be totally bogus. I just keep up the Island book. I would appreciate a counter opinion. Thanks. BTW, we got an excellent post on the SI thread on comparative performance of services:

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=17004313

- Mike

 

Mike - I sort of like level II... I used to think it meant more but had that knocked out of me a good while ago! I know it is full of all sorts of nonsense... but I like to watch it all the same when in a trade.. I still like to see the visual effect as it moves my way.. if it does.. daft I am sure but so is spending time trying to make money in this crazy game... lol

As to island book.. I have seen people discussing this matter elsewhere on this board.. not sure of the pros and cons really.. I did trade the QQQ for a good while some time ago and then I always used island via IB with the book open.. that worked well.. not my trading, but the island book.. never got on too well with the QQQ... learnt some good stop control but found it a bit too jerky or something... tight stops would too often chuck me out of trades..

Saw the posts re data providors on your thread.. interesting.. also agree you have nice sweet natured girls in texas..

Neil