good move Spyder.... I was in but sold it at the left side of the channel $57.... too early compared to where it is right now but still made my weekend
I closed out of all positions long before the end of the day, and look forward to a relaxing weekend. We had a pretty good week this week. The system triggered numerous signals, and many individuals entered into several profitable trades. Congrats to everyone who finished up the week in positive territory. As always, review your trades from this week in an effort to determine how to improve on the next trade. Once again, keep up the great work! Enjoy the weekend everybody. - Spydertrader
Yes, this week was excellent.... I didn't get back into FMCN today, much to my dismay, but that action really shows how these strategies can make for high probability, high profit trades... I am surprised no one mentioned the NTRI signal today. It hit Low Band before 10am, I got in at 10am at 47 and exited around 10:30am at 47.85. Nice move.... I would have held longer, but I had more day job activities.... Thanks for the input, have a good weekend....
Just trying to confrim my auto-scripts. REDF this morning appeared to be a valid signal, albeit a losing one. Between 9.30 & 10, MACD > 0, Stoch > 80 and at 10.00am I have cumulative volume at approx 260,000. This was greater than the lower band calculation from the chartscript (I actually use a different calculation but want to confirm this signal against 'the template'), so we have gone long at some stage prior to 10.00am. My script actually went long at 09:41 at 22.04 and was stopped out at 21.60 (2% stop loss).
While the signal generated for REDF may have been technically valid (from my point of view), your automated system failed to take into account the gap up experienced by REDF at the open. While certainly not a huge gap open by any means, the market did eventually 'fill' the near 3% gap up. I suspect many people (including myself) had REDF on their radar screens based on the chart set up. Perhaps, a large number of traders placed early orders in an effort to jump ahead of the crowd. The imbalance caused the gap up, and the smart money sold into it. When I noticed the gap this morning, and the subsequent degradation of price, I avoided the situation entirely. - Spydertrader
Thanks for the validation Spyder. It's an interesting question as to whether to filter out the gaps. I know in the original journal you filtered out trades where the stock gapped >5%. REDF fell within this 5% level. You're correct that I don't have a 'gap checker' in the code and it is on my to-do list. I think for the price of being able to trade this method automatically and the potential success that the script has, I will chalk these 2% losses up to experience. I've also revised my dry-up volume threshold. I manually backtested 30% of Prior Day Volume by 11.00am, and while it increased the number of failed breakouts (FBOs) slightly, I captured more of the price movement in most cases. The 30% level also compares favourably to your lower band dry up volume. 50% of the volume was a bit too much, although I am monitoring for both values (i.e. 30% by 11.00am OR 50% by 12.00am)
mischief, not sure what parameters you use for your final universe but REDF has a negative EPS at the moment. Just thought I'd let you know.
Thanks 4X. From my understanding stocks remain in the universe until they fail to maintain 'rank', regardless of any other changes. If you look at BOOM, I've culled that from my universe because it no longer has a rank.
This discussion of gaps in relation to entry decisions on Hershey trading is interesting. In the "trading for dummies" approach as expounded by Chairman Maoxian (maoxian.com) a nice gap up under heavy volume is a sign to go long on a breakout. BUT the Chairman says to enter after the morning madness has settled down. So he waits for an inside bar to form on the 15 or 30 minute charts starting around 10:30. It might be a way to fine tune entries on Hershey stocks. Food for thought anyway.
if you're going to trade gap ups you will need to consider one more thing in addition to volume and price. and that is the news that generated the gap. that last assessment is a bit subjective however. Generally speaking gaps on 'significant' news will stay open...gaps on non-sig. will generally close. for an example, look back a few weeks ago at MEK and its gap. the gap play type deal i would think is a 1-2 day hold event at most... i.e. you buy in when the gap holds open (the pullback test after the open is what you're looking for...PV conventions still apply) and sell by EOD or next morning as johnny come latelys pile in. why? my reasoning is that the volume on the initial day will reach PEAK band volume... price generally peaks a day after volume... definately discard any gaps that occur without significant news to justify it. just my thoughts.