Weekly Update for week 24/50 ended 06/26/2010 Bad week, down 19K.Bad week for buying SPY option on the dip. That cost quite a lot this week. The worst trade was shorting BVF on Tue with leverage. That cost 14.7K, the worst loss for the week. Going thru my discretionary trades for the last one year. I want to be able to lay down some basic quantitative conditions that have to be met for a discretionary trade to be allowed. I think I have frequently hung myself given too much freedom in how I choose and enter discretionary trades. Automated trading was lacklustre this week. Code: Opening Balance: 269,136 Net loss for the week 18,415 ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance: 250,721 Number of Trades 28 Number of Profitable Trades 16 Since Inception of Thread 01/10/2010 - 06/26/2010 Opening Balance: 410,000 Net loss(Less Margin Interest) 159,279 (Down 39%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 250,721 Number of Trades 795 Number of Profitable Trades 418 BREAK-DOWN BY AUTOMATED/DISCRETIONARY Number P/L Best Gainer Worst Loser AUTO 18 774.30 4,983.20 -2,761.70 DISCR 10 -19,196.30 11,123.20 -14,734.20
Neke- In reference to BVF, I think it may be a good idea to study up a bit on Bollinger Bands because a signal wasn't given yet to open the short.
And of course Bollinger Bands are the only way to trade this if you want to do it successfully - but you knew this already - thanks for getting the secret to the rest of us!!
I still strongly feel that probability of success will be much greater if you set up confirmatory technical analysis before deciding to play the dips... Resistance/support patterns, fibs, etc.... Playing from the gut does NOT work.... bottom line... You are destined to have big winners and big losers over and over... Tight stops if the technicals aren't confirmed by the move will limit the losses
A tip for fading strong moves is to wait a day or two. The day of the news rarely produces good fading opportunities, but the day or two after usually has a decent pullback, profit-taking on moves up and the dead cat bounce on moves down.
dbl arrow - i'm not debating that there isn't more than one way to skin a cat but without the tight stop and the high probability entry, a trader is playing with fire. it is in my opinion that in relation to the bb's, BVL hasn't shown weakness and/or confirmation of weakness. do you have a different view?
With your first sentence, I have no different view. With your second sentence, yes I do have a different view - as to the stock, no opinion, as I do not trade stocks - as to the BB's, I bet neke is not trading based on them so to say he needs to look at them before this trade, is in my opinion idiotic. To imply that because you use them and watch them and neke did not therefore was incorrect in his entry negates the first part of your first sentence above.
I see where you're coming from as I don't put a lot of time into explaining my thoughts thoroughly when I post. Basically what I was 'thinking' was that bollinger bands are considered to be a basic 101 t/a tool and my point was that using a basic foundation to determine entries/exits would be better than using a method that creates such a drastic drawdown. But, for each his own. However, if interested, I'd be more than happy to show how I would use bb's for that trade once the opportunity presents itself.
We could certainly debate about what is basic TA and it would not include many indicators -- But your assumption that he should use something you consider basic to avoid what appears to you, to be an intolerable draw down, is presuming that he trades based on the same information you do and these kinds of presumptions drive me crazy.