Here you go.. it's an Hourly.. the Daily is as important. DRYS has been a bonanza for me since $40.. basically trading trendlines, MACD and Supports.. Over time you have to trade your stocks first and the markets second.. Keys for me.. reduce Wife's influence as she changes hats (long/short) too slowly and use my thinking more as I have almost ALWAYS been right and the main price paid on my errors tends to be less profit rather than account loss. Next is to automate more the night before as jumping intraday prices irritate and lead to poor decisions 70% of the time.
Neke, Someday maybe for options but I find it difficult to trade something I cannot chart. I'll probably be in futures sooner...
trade options with the chart of the underlying. perfect for levering up in moments you anticipate nice moves..
Neke, Do you know of a way to put in automatic stops at Ameritrade? I doubt it but I'd love a fixed % stop to automatically place on all positions.. My wife is always waiting for countertrends to exit bad trades and they tend to not come soon enough and paralysis sets in.
I have heard the connection is not even close to being linear.. It does seem there should be great odds of profit if a stock you know cold is tanking to clear, hard support.
Seems I'll simply have to try options myself.. As with everything there are those that swear options are a dead end and those that do well with options.. Like the "you cannot do 10% a month" argument.. Obviously returns that are difficult to achieve are done by the quiet traders at the expense of the whining losing traders.
you need to understand the fundamentals of what affects option price: implied volatility, time decay, and basics about greeks, at least delta value. As well, you should always know big events (earnings, special announcements) pending for the stock as IV is greatly affected by this. This requires you know the dates and potential impact. If that stuff doesn't interest you, you are probably better off sticking to stock.
Unfortunately I do not think they have the ability to put a % stop loss automatically. You will have to do it manually. For such rules, I rely on my positions monitor to place necessary trades (although I am still evaluating how much stop loss saves me vs. costs me through needless exits). It is a program I wrote that monitors positions in my account (with help of Application Programming Interface from Quotetracker) and takes action when certain conditions are fulfilled.
Neke, It is the hardest part of this.. Those stocks that are capable of great returns need the most rope.. So the stop question varies from stock to stock.. The ideal stock has very low volatility.. until it moves.. then it persists. NYSE stocks tend to be better at this.. less so these days though.