( I asked this in "trading thread" ) but since nobody replied I will ask this question here how does a small trader stay in his trade when the "dark force" is squeezing him ? case in point ... many times in the markets I trade I am looking to hedge my positions ... or even to leg into a spread in highly correlated markets at what appear to me to be favorable prices ... sometimes ... there appears to be however an attempt to "squeeze me " into puking out part or all of my position at unfavorable prices ... before prices get to a favorable level for me to unwind my positions at a profit. I guess I can always "play their game" and look for even better entry points or hold on to my positions instead of getting "spooked" and letting them go before I have made money or made my max profits
There is a way to 90% negate "dark forces"... manipulating the market against you. Follow 100s of stocks... And have many "equivalent" opportunities always available to you. Like right now I have 172 Limit Orders out there... And I could not care less which ones get filled... Because they are all more or less equivalent... So the "dark forces" can f*ck with 10-20% of these orders... and it does not matter. If you are trading one or two stocks... The "dark forces" know exactly who you are... And can manipulate the market against you almost at will.
Your time frame may be a deciding factor. Give the trade entry more time and allow your stop to be a worse case scenario. Allow for more adverse price movement with smaller initial size. Then add as the trade starts to work. Combine the above with an ability to correctly analyze and anticipate shakeouts and "stop-running". This can only be done with constant study of the product you decide to trade. A shake out in one product will be entirely different than a shakeout in another. It sounds to me like you need to be more patient with your entries: If the entry looks "strong", in most cases that is the best entry to fade (i.e. with many products, apparent short term weakness is more likely to be a buy opportunity, not the other way around). A majority of my successful trades show longer term strength, in such cases I will buy short term weakness. A good thing to research after identifying a particular "strong" product is the products ability to range extend past prior support points. Place partial entries below those support and wait for them to be filled. Some products never test support and that is up to you to analyze. HoundDogOne made a good point about waiting for limits to be filled. Analyze certain products carefully and determine those prospective S/R areas. When trading outside of planned entry areas, try to avoid taking trades on impulse. I have a rule for my "impulse" swing trade setups: If the entry looks great upon first impulse, I'll always wait 30 mins before I place an order. That forces me to assess the risk more coherently. If the risk is too high, I'll halve my entry size and adjust the stop loss accordingly (lower). If the risk is "low", I'll pile in as much as appears adequate. This assumes one has prior knowledge of the success rate/proper behavior of the setup being traded. Mike
well "the dark side" ( or force ) tried to "jam me" in european trade today in metals well I hedged properly and the $%^#@&* did not make a DIME !! ha ha h aha ha h ah a ( ok ... I am not going mad ... ) :eek: