Kymar hit the nail on the head downtickboy. If you are making money consistently then tell us exactly how you are doing it. A lot of people would be happy to be in your shoes.
I really have no problem telling people what I do and what I used to do. Well what I used to do was scalp high volume Nasdaq momentum stocks like brcm, brcd, ect. Never really concentrated too much on the AX. I based a lot of the decisions on the immediate relative strength of the stock compared to the nas e-mini futures. I looked at the prints of the e-minis and a 1 min chart to get the micromovments of the market. Then I would see how my stock traded compared to the market. I looked at the 3 min chart of the stock and futures to get the shorter term support levels and resistance levels. If the stock did not immediately go in the direction I wanted it too I would get out and know I could easily get back in. I could risk 2-5 cents to make 5-20 cents. Also big INCA market bid and offers would move the stock. I traded about 200-300K shares a day. You ended up churning a lot so you had to know when to stop trading. There were 3 or 4 times a day where you could nail a good turning point and start taking out all the offers and try to get as many shares as you could for that move. However I feel this style of trading has dried up too much. Volume dropped off, the risk reward ratio changed, too many stocks with volume are under $20, and there is so much noise now in those stocks with the liquidty traders, program trading, and now the AMEX that it made that style incredible hard. Also it caused a lot of burn out. I also realized that style was not very scaleable to be able trade bigger size. The lowering of commission was the only thing keeping in that game. Finally after struggling to get away from that style of trading I decided to changes offices (because all those traders in that office only open to trading that way). It was very hard to break some of those habits of basically trading the noise of the market. I had a hard time seeing the forest because I was looking at the trees all the time. It also gave me a feeling that if I was not in a trade all the time I was missing something. So now I switched to trading mostly NYSE and trading Nas stocks for economic number because I can usually but up good money on the intial knee jerk move off the number because I have access to realtime breaking news. I have been trading NYSE in a similar manner as I traded the Nasdaq stocks based on relative strength but have widen my time frames out to using a 5 min and 2 min chart. I use some taping reading also however I trade big cap NYSE stocks so a lot of the tape reading does not mean as much to me. I try to get stocks that follow the S&P futures, but have found that in the small time frames many of the NYSE stocks don't follow as exact as do nasdaq stocks, so I have to look for the bigger moves in the futures. I usually want to get 10-20 cents risking up to 5 cents but still experimenting with this. A lot of the times I have found the stocks set up the futures go and my stock sits there. I have also been trying to develop a trend trading strategy too with bits and pieces I have picked up from other traders and my own experience. However using this I have too get used to wider stops and sitting thru bigger wiggles because it is based on the 5 min chart. I want to use this so hopefully I can get bigger winners, the specialist/noise of the market effects my trading less, it is more scaleable to adding size, and despite what the futures are doing their always seems to be stocks trending. This trending system is based mostly on the 5 MA on the 5 and 15 min chart and I use some tape reading and feel of the market to try and get in earlier then waiting for the stock to start trending already. With the stocks that I look at a trend might only be 40 cents so if I lope the top and bottom off it then it is more like 25-30 cents so I am trying to improve that. Anytime the stock has a huge break or gap above the 5MA I take some money off and if it pulls back to the 5MA I will add some more more shares if it holds up. For this method the problem I am running into is watching enough stocks to catch the ones setting up and of course the whipsaws when the market is in non-trending mode. So there are the basics of what I have been doing. The scalping is consistant with small drawdowns. I have my rates low enough that I can churn a little and be ok, but the upside has been somewhat limiting for me too although I am still experiment with the NYSE stocks.
I doubt that anyone will tell you a method that has been developed over much blood, sweat, and tears. Try going to Coca Cola and ask them for their recipe. And I guarantee that p2's method is another variation of gap trading. Exactly how and when he places his trades came to him after looking at a bazillion charts and he happenend to notice a pattern he felt would be profitable. But he did the work. The guys who developed the opening orders method will share it with you. But they too did the work. Maybe go and ask Bill Gates for a million bucks. He has plenty. Why should he be reluctant to give you some? Because he did the work. Of course, until you actually ask Bill Gates for the money, it is pure conjecture.
Thanks for adding to the thread. I was asked to put up and I did. Obviously I have been putting in the work. I have not just decided I want to trade yesterday and came here and posted wanting someone to hold my hand as I trade. I have noticed you have not added anything about your style. If everything is in trading books then let me know what you are doing. It should have already been in print so it should not be a big deal to talk about it. You don't need to post on this thread if you feel like you are revealing too much. I have spent most of my time on this thread answering question back like why I want to know this and replying to post question the thread. I already know the difficulties of discussing this topic so I was wanting posts by people who would be willing to share like Silk, RS7, and P2 not people who want to tell me no one is going to share. I would suspect the three traders I mentioned above are some of the most profitable traders on this board along with Seanote. They all did not have a problem posting. Maybe that says something. As far as your Coca Cola statement goes, yes they won't give up their recipe, but plenty of people try to copy it. They might not be as good as the original but the product still sells. Then there are people like Pepsi that take it and apply a twist to the cola recipe and make it their own. This can be the same thing for a trader taking someone elses idea and expanding on it.
Nitro please let me know if you know anyone on this board that fits your description above. You can even PM me. This thread is sputtering at best. I thought after Silk posted that this thread might be a successful one, but I am spending all my time defending my questions and trying to get past the generic answers. It is getting frusterating and not really worth it.
People I KNOW make money trading: 1) Don Bright 2) metooxx (I seriously doubt he will tell you anything unless you trade for him) 3) Hitman (gone from these boards, at least as Hitman, but if you trade under him, he will tell you his technique - at Worldco NY) 4) thetraderprofit (I am 99% sure he is the most profitable trader that comes on these boards - search for him on ET, he has posted some of what he does.) People I am 90% sure that make money 5) praetorian2 (He used to be more open, now that he is running a hedge fund, he sees a conflict of interest) Outside of those, I have no idea. I excluded myself 'cause I do not go into the details of how I trade nitro
...except for those occasions when they realize they have been buying/selling WAY TOO MUCH and starting doing the opposite. Buying the losers and shorting the winners at those break points is a <b>very</b> rewarding strategy. How to find those points - that's a totally different question and one that I'd rahter not answer But the point is, there's a lot of value to contrarian styles. You've been making some $$ doing momentum investing? Good for you , I think I'd rather do contrarian.
I do this "contrarian" strategy every day - those "points" are gold. Still, I like the way that silk "invests." nitro
how do you know this? if it's just from the spread sheet he shows you, i'm sorry, that does not qualify as evidence if you ask me. i really couldn't care either way, he does or he doesn't, and i would have no reason to doubt that he does, but i've actually heard from a couple of sources (who, to me, it is reasonable would, or could, know) that he's actually down in his trading account for the year.