I agree with what your stating, as the market has trouble holding direction. Just for clarification, when you say "10 ticks in the SPY" are you watching the ES or the Spiders? I've noticed that having the ES charts on a separate monitor has helped tremendously with entry/exit on a stock. When the ES trades near the lows, a squeeze has high odds, so trying to short off the lows is futile. ps: Sorry about the GE short trade, I was long today and took it for $161 after fees. There's two sides to each trade, eh?
PropMTL, I understand that you like to move large size around, but have you ever considered trading the stocks that are in play and adjusting your size according to the liquidity of the stock? Even when the thinner stocks are in-play their liquidity tends to rise just because they're in-play. You may not be able to easily get into 10k shares, but you could take 1500 shares and make .70 or 4k and make a point or more/less or even 800 shares and make .40...of course it varies as you know. It's the main reason that I know a lot of stock traders decide to stay with stocks instead of futures b/c everyday there are opportunities...unless you trade the same stocks everyday and no stock's volume is above avg everyday. We clearly trade totally differently than one another and I'm just trying to help. My .02.
SPY... I just watch it. I don't have the e-minis, got to pay an extra subscription and I'm skeptical that it will help me that much. Nice one on GE, I wanted to buy those .50s but was busy getting screwed on something else hahaha. I only took a tiny short. It seems like its a short squeeze every afternoon. Actually this is something that I started doing about 5 months ago. I used to stick to a regular basket of stocks say 5-8 stocks and always trade them. I have had to learn to play the small size/large move type stocks. I played a bunch today... just didn't bother mentioning them as there was only a small gain and a couple of small loses. I agree with you though... there are people who tried to stick to the same stocks everyday and I have watched them get washed out in the past 1.5years. Adaptation is the key and I feel I can always re-invent myself. Do you use StockTwits ElecEquity? I use it as another scan/headup for stocks in play... find me on there... same handle as on ET. I'm sure we are in some of the same stocks hahahaha
Only 1 stock today according to your journal, I took the long as well after the same Ichan news. I had also tried a long in the .30s when we first pulled back. The seller at .25 was just incessant... they wouldn't let it go
I am on twitter --- I don't really use Stocktwits although I do have a profile there. I only use twitter for trading and I can PM you my username if you want to message every now and then. I have to say I only check it a few times a day b/c it takes up too much space on one of my screens (I probably have 5 too many screens...lol). I probably follow about 20 people on twitter. Do you know of any other programs that I could use for twitter that take up less space? Yea that sucked. The daily chart had something like 3 or 4 nice up day's in a row so I'm guessing that the buyout news was already priced in as opposed to something like BIG or FDO when the buyout/on-the-block news was released. Unfortunately it didn't work, but I'd take the same trade tomorrow if given the opportunity. I can see you're definitely a trader b/c I remember when the guy stepped down at .25s and I got out around .21s or .22s. I traded probably 12+ more stocks but I don't bother to list them b/c the trade results are insignificant. The NYX buyout was one that didn't move as fast as I expected it to; I should've killed that trade. Good luck tomorrow dude.
Single most disappointing day for a long long time. I came in so frustrated about the gap down. I was excited though as I knew there were going to be opportunities to make $$. What an amazing move up from the lows. Impressive. The only way we go all the way back down there is if there is a total melt down in Japan. Key stroke and system problems cost me dearly on the open... Instead of covering my short in C for a flat I added to it. My system then froze and I missed my out. I then had to banged out for a 2c loss on 25k. Started down $500 and it never got any better. I came in with a downward bias and was once again proven wrong. If I could have kept my shorts overnight I would have been up $2k on XLF, $2k on GE, $1.5k on C and $1.5k on EWJ. But no, I have to cover for flats or losses yesterday and walk in this morning instead of being up $7k I'm down $500. So frustrating, like I said yesterday inter-day scalping would be making you a killing at the moment!! I have been shorting this market every day for the past 2 weeks and not made a penny... actually lost a chunk! I took small losses all day today. Was down $1k and then made it back to $700. Then the post FOMC move made me have to get out. Congrats to the people who got long today, you are either geniuses or freaking high. Doubled my losses for the month. I'm not trading badly, I'm just the wrong side of this market and paying for it. The trend was up today and that's how I should have been playing it. Instead I don't take a single long and try to short all day. That's what you get when you get the wrong side of the trend. No complaints there. The gapping in this market is the only frustrating thing... giving no opportunities for day traders. They are just using us like monkeys to facilitate their trades.... i.e. I got them short yesterday when banging out of my shorts and got them out and long today while I was trying to short. **sigh** Date: 15/03/2011 Net P&L: ($1,260) Month Balance: ($2,460)
Those inter day gaps could go either way, no? Seems like a bit of a coin-flip to me. I'm enjoying your journal BTW. Thanks for posting your down days too and not cherry picking. Helps noobs like me learn.
Of course they can work both ways, but the risk of losing on those trades was relatively lower then the potential upside. This is a probabilities game. Thanks, I have to be honest it hurts when I take loses and having to write about them afterwards is almost as painful. However I said when I started this that I was going to constantly review my trading performance to help improve my consistency. Even though it hurts I need to examine what I'm doing well and what is going wrong.
PropTraderMTL, Yes, it's a very frustrating market for sure, and your honesty is appreciated. Regarding the gap downs, just remember that Uncle Ben is still behind this market with QE2 until June, and will keep pumping money into the economy even as the market heads lower.
QE2... I thought we were up to QE14! Yeah I'll blame all my problems on Bergangster... He just has this permanent buy-on-any-dip algo. Our markets are technically in a retracment however they still be buying... What's going to happen when there isn't a QE15?