0948: BO to the upside failed and now price is at the bottom of the TR. 0949: That was a sudden drop. Maybe my data feed is a bit shoddy today. It's quite gappy. 0951: The price is dropping. Price BO attempt around 84 and failure could have prompted an entry for those who can incorporate price action without much fear. Yesterday offered a similar opportunity and this looks eerily similar.
Db, I have found the entries on EOD Q's to be quite difficult to handle. There aren't many Ret and more likely the failure to go down is a sign to get long instead of a BO and Ret. For someone holding a long already it's not too bad but re-entry at least to my eyes in the past few months has been quite tricky. Perhaps the hourly or 5H intervals is better in this environment than purely daily interval. Have you seen any reasonable entries? It is quite strange to have price move so much and not find a proper entry point. Unless I am not paying attention, and something is missing the same method seems to work on gold but not on Q's or NQ. Maybe I'll sit this weekend and go through the year's data again. Usually at least in hindsight it becomes obvious but it's not the case with me for Q's. Gringo
0958 Price appears to reject the top of the premkt TR but no FT. 1000 And that's 30m, a 1pt breakdown trade. But if one is trading 100 contracts like so many ET traders do . . .
I've never been fond of the Q. Given the liquidity, it's unusually frantic, and I'd rather ride a horse that's at least been broken. But if one cares enough, he can follow the major components such as Apple and make his decisions accordingly. Or create his own basket and trade that. It's so much easier, though, to just focus on the NQ. Edit: I should point out that this is another example of the importance of characterizing a market. For example, how predictable is it? If it moves for undiscernible reasons, or at least undiscernible to the trader, why bother with it unless the trading is a test of one's manhood? Why not focus on something that you pretty much know what it's going to do before it does it?
You're right on both accounts. Since this straight line thread, my accuracy with the price movement of gold has gone up considerably but with this greater clarity I am recognizing flaws in Q's that I hadn't clearly seen before. It's not that Q's are not tradeable, it's simply more of an unnecessary headache that is avoidable. I'll have to expand my horizon and scope out more instruments if I am to continue using ETF as a trading vehicle. I have been planning to increase my stake starting next year and thankfully daily observation has brought these issues to the fore before any major pains. My aversion to paying taxes on returns is keeping me from using futures for trading but maybe in time I'll have to take the plunge. Futures > ETF - Tax? Gringo
Hmm, I can see what you guys are talking about, but for me it's more of a time-frame issue than solely instrument based. Making decisions and monitoring the Daily chart for ETFs, and then zooming into a smaller time-frame in order to finesse the entries is the way I usually go about things when trading stocks. If I were looking at the Q these would have been the places I'd have been watching. --- However, I agree that if you're looking at this movement the past week, it has been difficult to see a textbook entry since it's just been heading straight up. I suppose if one really wanted to be in they could just draw a demand line on a smaller time-frame, hop in, and watch for a break. Your odds are still extremely good, even though it's a bit awkward. A long on just about any hour for the past whole week would have been in the green near instantly.
Hey! You guys are overworking yourselves. I thought you were in line in front of a best buy looking for value. Happy thanksgiving.
Sounds like you need to revisit your goals. There are SIFI ETFs (set it and forget it) like SDY and XLV. And there are a number of dividend ETFs, whether RE or preferred stock or ordinary dividend-paying which will pay you while you wait if they aren't particularly volatile. If you enjoy the trading as opposed to raking in the money, you can always find something interesting to trade and let the rest work for you in something you don't have to babysit.