I find it personally easier to trade NASDAQ stocks than NYSE. Some people are better at reading the tape with market makers and trade NYSE. Different Market Makers have their own style and if you trade them long enough, you may be able to step in front of them before good moves and make some money.
As Hitman has correctly alluded to in the past, NYSE trading has good tape reading skills as a pre-requisite. But with Nasdaq stocks, charts can suffice. These comments are made in the context of intraday trading. (For swing trading, tape reading loses its utility).
hey HITMAN, I have enjoyed reading all your articles and you have inspired me to follow your footsteps. I am just wondering if you are interested in having a chat session during market hours, maybe we can exchange trading ideas, since I trade mostly gaps and you seem like a good momentum trader, we might be able to compliment each other nicely. Let me know what you think.
Hitman, Thanks for putting your screenshot on your web page. Very interesting. I think that's the first screenshot I've seen without Level II windows.
Because I trade NYSE? Thomas: The reason I left it in Chinese is because I want people to actually find someone who knows Chinese to translate it for them. It is more like a little puzzle I left in there for people to solve. SB: Let me know how long have you been trading, how consistent you have been, and preferably YTD numbers (I mean, I post mine), and I would seriously consider it. It sounds like a great idea to mesh together two different styles but it has never worked for me. I tried trading with Praetorian but he was too erratic and has some huge swings up and down and we have totally different risk parameters. Even tho his numbers are impressive, it is hard for me to mesh with him and I stopped following his chat room.
A very tough game (emotionally I was not there) as I had no morning bullets when the initial rally faded, one step slow and I missed a crucial shot in EPG and from there it was all struggle . . . Chose not to churn and pulled out my third win of the week, 6300 shares on 5 of 9 shooting, +377 before commissions, +155 after, 1 bullet. This will not be a spectacular pay period given that I choked today's game (firm's numbers today is substantially higher than yesterday's, I guess people prefer the short side). Holding on to a 2700 edge for the pay period going into final game of the first half. Pre-Market: Sweet retail numbers (huge sector strength there), crude oil price down 7% (really bad news there), but given overall market strength I chose to go long, but I was fully aware of the fact that we were overbought and was very ready to flip. 9:30: Took ADI as SOX was up 1.5% and it was unchanged, got 35 cents there and KSS opened almost unchanged (one of the few retailers to do so, I wish I had more of them on my list), and I was able to grab 30 cents there. XBD strength and I took a quarter out of super lagger WDR. Unfortunately, extreme gap-up's made it very difficult to grab substantial profits, as I took PPG off the open print and lost 5 cents there. 9:45: Still unsure what the market will do, tried go long DD on CEX strength as it remained to be one of the strong sectors, quickly out for flat as I realized futures ran out of gas. Energy sectors down big and a tons of gap-up's, missed HP already but EPG was up 70 cents on the day! Begging to fill the gap and I hesitated to bullet him, I guess it is because he smoked me on Friday and psychologically I had doubt in my ability to trade him. Missed a 2 point move. A little more hesitation and market really came in hard. IUX broke the low and I bulleted MMC at 105, a lot of churns as the stock was really strong today and I lost a dime there plus bullet cost. 10:30: Tried to long KSS again and lost a dime. Churned some more MMC, ouch, I was up just $350 to begin with and now I am only up $150, time out. 2:00: The energy news release was rather insignificant, tried tiny positions in HP and DO, nothing happened. Tried to bottom pick MU on small size and got 15 cents scalp . . . Not a good effort as I got the direction wrong in the morning, tommorrow I need to score some solid numbers as I do not want to ruin the pay period.
Hey Hitman, How did you do yesterday, didn't see any posts. I am just wondering if you could tell me where can you get a list of mid caps stocks that can be used for trading. Thanks a bunch!
STOCKKBROKER (why 2 K's in the middle?) Hitman's post for 11/13 is on pg. 9 of this thread (go back one page).
Sorry I didn't see your post earlier today. I have been trading for about 3 months. I started in the middle of August. I didn't do too well in the beginning, I was down almost 3K by the first week of September! (- $300 / day ). Then something clicked or maybe it was just a good month, I don't know, I started making money, I was up almost everyday for the remainder of the month, I would have $500, $600, $800, $900 day. Not an easy feat since I was trading 300 shrares!! By September 29, I was up $500!!! Can you imagine that? A rookie up after a little over a month? Of course the story doesn't end there!! The last day of the September was also the end of the quarter and our head trader, Mr.T (which incidentally was from your firm, you might even know him, one of the best tape reader there.... from what he told us anyways) told us to play the end of the quarter imbalances, since the quarter before, they made a killing from all the buy imbalances. Some even made 50K in 20 minutes!! He said just buy the stocks with huge imbalances and sell it MOC and you will be up. OK! Still beaming with confidence and joy that I was the only rookie that was positive within the first month, I loaded up on EVERY call we got from the floor. 100K to buy AOL 300K to buy XOM 150K to buy PFE etc etc etc Needeless to say I did what he said I LOADED UP... 5000 shares on 8 positions !!!!!! We didn't have position limits that day, they were lifted for the MOC plays. I even went long 5000 shares of IBM!! I have no fear! I went into the market with 5000 buy order and push the stock up 25c !! WOW. For a brief moment, must have been like a nanoseconds, my P&L jumped to +$3500, I was up over 2K in XOM. I never made so much money so quickly!! I didn't know what to do, should I sell? If I sell can I buy it back? How does the MOC works. Not a good time to ask these questions now!! What should I do? Well Mr.T ( our head trader told us just buy and hold and sell MOC) so I DID NOTHING!!!!! I walked away from the trading desk !! The market sold off the last 15 minutes and I was long 40000 shares!! When all was said and down, by then end of the day I was down 10K! I was spellbound!!!!!! Didn't know what to think, say or do! Had a good long talk with Mr.T, for some reason they didn't fire me, they kept me on, I guess they want to make their money back!!! So I can't trade after that, I was stupid not to take a break, and I was down another 2K the following week!!! SHIT!! I really thought about quitting, but I didn't. So I grind on, and till now I was able to make some money back and I am down 9K. I haven't been very consistent lately. On a good day I made $700 and on bad days I am down $300 to $400. I trade a lot though, 10K shares on an average day, 3K on a slow day. I need any help I can get to get positive, so any input that anyone can provide would be helpful. Thanks in advance, Hitman.