With regard to track record realize that Brandon and Toni focus mainly on educating their members and spend much of their time during the day helping members in PM, reviewing previous trades which usually includes posting charts and giving classes. This uncommon sort of personal attention can be invaluable to any aspiring trader. While a few good trades may slip by in the process the goal is to develop into a competent, self-sufficient and profitable trading professional, not to merely piggyback another's trades. Disclosure: Yes I am in their room and have been for about three years - not because I need to be but because 1) it pays for itself many times over, 2) they continue to educate themselves and pass their experiences on the the members, 3) I can always use a review
Brandon Fredrickson (Mar 6, 2003 5:18:03 PM) it was around 300K This was all from you trading your own personal account?
No. It also includes fee's from managment. I think that I have probably now given more intimate details of my own financial situation then anyone else in the history of ET Certainly more so then anyone running a chatroom. I think this is ok, because most people are not trying to sell you something, so I should certaintly stand to a certain degree of inspection in that regard, which I think I have, so I'm done with the subject. I have made money each year since 1997, not every week, not every month or quarter. I've had large drawdowns and some nice gains as well. Anyway, hope this is helpful. Brandon
Here are a few stocks that I think have pretty nice daily charts going into tomorrow (each are buys as I did not find any good setups on the short side) NVDA CMSCK HLTH ICST CECO CBST (Ooops) CGNX Brandon
First trade: a breakout to new intraday highs. Found this because it was a top gainers on the morning and was basing right at 5 min 200 sma resistance. Initial resistance (partials) was from prior day's highs. It also had a 60 minute reversal pattern though so was looking for $19.50 on the rest but. I adjusted the stop to under 30 minute 20 sma because on a bull flag it should hold that on larger time frame, but by the time it hit it was nearing the close so I ended up with just over breakeven on the rest at the end of the day. It has a good shot of heading higher tomorrow but with the global environment these days I'm not really wanting to hold much overnight .
Second trade: A bear flag in SYMC. The stock gapped down to under strong resistance levels on the 15 minute charts and was basing at lows.. A con was that it was holding up better than the overall market but I felt that on a setup the market would pull it down with it. Instead though, when it set up it lacked the immediate follow through I was anticipating so I took a scratch on -0.03.
I was most disappointed with this one. The daily chart was gorgeous... Rounding off at lows... Looking like we'll head higher for a few days. I was initially watching this Friday morning but missed my setup so tried to take a second one today. Entered as a daytrade with potential to hold overnight (Yes, was going to make an exception due to the strong pattern on the daily that tends to defy the overall market.) Setup as a daytrade was a triangle breakout. Initial resistance was the prior day's highs and the 30 minute 200 sma so unloaded a bit here. Since it was a daytrade, even with potential for longer, you still have to stick to daytrade rules though and before long the stock was pulling back into the 5 minute 20 sma. It broke this to hit a trailing stop. An alternate trailing stop would have been break even though if you'd wanted to give it a bit more room. I do still like the daily chart and will keep watching it though.
The best one again today was another futs trade. I've been nailing the reversal very well lately and we got this one right into mid-day. Was stalking it for nearly two hours but it was worth it, especially in the ES and YM. Initially it was off a double bottom then a secondary entry was on a 5 minute Phoenix. This is shown in the YM with #2 over 7614-15 was the price. Target was prior price resistance with initial resistance at the 5 minute 20 sma in the ES and YM. The chart is a bit large so I've just included the link. http://www.tradingfrommainstreet.com/img/roomexamples/20030310reversal.gif
[16:28] <Toni> Overall the last two weeks I'm running into problems with stocks.. just not getting as much out of them.. I think this is a result of the market right now and that I need to be scalping them more rather than looking for as much on larger time frame patterns [16:29] <Toni> Futures I've been nailing the reversal pretty well though [16:30] <Toni> So one of the things I'm going to change a little here the rest of the week is to tighten up my stops on stocks and just take all where I've been taking partials until I start to see better follow through again [16:30] <Toni> For the most part the patterns are still there and still giving a move, it's just not as wide as normal
More waiting for war. I had a few trades today, 3 in the Indexes and two in individual shares. The three in the indexes did fairly nicely and most folks walked away with profits of between 7 and 11 points on the day. There is not really much of a chart to post for any of them - but my basic feeling for each was that the TRIN was very high (today's NYSE Closing TRIN was the highest in 5 years) which shows very strong selling interest. There was really no reason to buy the indexes, so everytime I thought there was a half way decent reason to go short I was willing to do so. For this selling to really end it is going to take some sort of catalyst, and that will likely come in some form with the war. http://www.tradingfrommainstreet.com/WFMIMarch10.gif Above is the chart for WFMI. As you can see WFMI was one of the days stronger issues. It was holding up very well and basing. With the TRIN being very high I was interested in looking for buy setups in some of the stronger stocks on the chance we could see some short covering. That of course never developed. WFMI was closed with a small loss. http://www.tradingfrommainstreet.com/March10SBC.gif SBC shows pretty much of a classical short setup. SBC is a downtrend stock. It declined sharply and formed a fifteen minute bear flag. When that broke down I entered my short. Brandon