You can automate a lot of the level 2 stuff pretty easily, in Neoticker you can basically have ACV ratios without any coding and you don't even have to be exact to find it useful. My point is that you have to look at volume at a higher granular level on intraday charts to see where the big guys are getting involved. I don't want to post my charts here for now, but if I did, you will notice that I run 5 min charts with only 15 or 20 red or green bars per day (and that's the maximum, most times it would be far less)- everything else is painted grey meaning they are completely ignored because I consider them noise. There are no other indicators other than 2 paint bars of green and red which show buying/selling.
Good info man, damn man, why dont you talk more about trading? you seem to know your shit, why waste all your time in P&R, posting angry shit? I never would have thought you had a clue about trading cause all i see is pnr stuff. This bet was definitely the worst one i made all week, it looks like im going to eat shit on this one next couple weeks, but at least it goes to a good cause.
But what is there to talk about trading though, I have been doing it so long and kind of settled on a method. There is basically nothing to do but sit and wait, I just argue to pass time because you can't walk away from the screens either.
Any questions feel free to hit me with them again i needed a couple weeks off to try some new shit(Crystal Meth) Ill be back next week with the journal, if you want help dont hesitate to ask............ With that said........ Ok all you degenerate bastards, clearly if you want to trade, you need to do what i do, i should start a subscription service based on how dialed in i was on GME this morning...... I was loaded long hoping for the break at 18, then when it failed i was so heavy long i cleared the whole level SELLING AT at .50....... then i decided to SHORT size to compensate, and when i realised i was wrong on the SHORT side, and that .50 was holding and my initial assumption was accurate i loaded the boat LONG and started hitting offers with everything i had........... how i came out of this up a thousand bucks was a fucking miracle i went long off the open, to short, back to long, and i was doing it with size, except for the third trade where i went long again (I was being responsible only half size at that point)..... which was obvisly the winner, made a thousand bucks overall, but just a super comical cluster fuck. New traders always ask me what they need to do to learn to trade....... clearly all you need to do is exactly what i did here I spun size on like three sides on this trade, long too short back to long and somehow came up on top. I am just kidding about that for anyone who is new, the entries and exits below should be a textboox example of what not to do, you will get your ass handed to you if you do this....... thats why i found it funny, i should have paid the price for stupidity today but i got lucky i guess. Im posting it cause i think its comical that this cluserfuck made me money today, but also i want to say happy thanksgiving, i tried my hand at holding on for longer time frames and it didnt work so next week the journal will be back if anyone even cares. The whole morning while i was doing this to myself i was singing "Im GME im dynamite"
wWell i guess i deserved this after this mornings fiasco on GME where i some how ended up profitable....... i was short like .85 or something, could have taken it off, decided not too and sizedin in then it just turned into chop over .50 Happy thanksgiving guys!
You are too hard on your self. Your quick reaction method is a good way to deal with markets that are random after significant news. For a stock like GME today I just sit frozen watching quotes fly by at a high rate.
Thanks for the kind words, im hard on myself, because i have to be, if im not constantly shitting on my performance i get into bad habits and i start gaining "Hubris" like last week where i blew out my whole month just by holding bad trades too long..... this week made it all back but the bottom line is if im undiciplined i can cost my self a month in a day. I dont know how to get around that other than taking the "Cattle Prod" to myself daily and making sure i dont get out of line.
Out of curiosity, how often do you let a trade go against you too far and then it eventually turns around so you can get out BE or at profit? I've read many times, and experienced myself, that what is going on is that sometimes, the market rewards us for bad behavior, so we go forward assuming it will again, or praying that it will this time. It seems like if half the time the trade ends up working after you let it go against you too far, you need to re-evaluate if you should really be therefore saying it got away from you. If only 25% of the time, you're rescued, and hence losing more than gaining by "giving the trade more room", then its clear you should have a hard stop and just honor it because even though it might work this time, you know the other 75% of the time it won't work. I would understand if you are hesitant to cut a trade because you're worried its just about to turn around and if you get out, you will be too scared to get back in. But being familiar with your journal, you're not that type of trader. You are never scared to get back in, as evidenced by even today, and you're also not scared to go in and out multiple times. So fear of missing out is clearly not your issue. The only thing therefore left in my opinion is that you're rewarded for what you call bad behavior, but as mentioned above, is it really bad behavior? If much of your winnings are from holding on longer than you should, then either you've trained yourself to believe bad behavior will work out often enough, even though you still get down on yourself, or holding on longer is actually what you really want to do. My guess is that you aren't firm with what you want to do, just like you weren't firm with wanting to be a day trader vs. swing trader. You've just told us you couldn't hold, which is great to learn, but next you have to figure out if you want to use tight stops with multiple re-entries, or use a wider stop and just keep that larger hard stop in place no questions asked.
Excellent post Gotcha, thanks for the well thought out response ill try to address it one by one. The odds of me actually being profitable once something gets way thew fuck offside is just about zero, because once i bury myself averaging in, i cut the position so hard when i hit break even its not even worth it. With swing trading for a few weeks i sucked, cause i had to try more to be patient, and let myself get offside and then add, and then let it still turn into a winner, where as trading pure price action generally im good enough that i know how to trade size, and where i can add against a position for a bounce just so that i can get out break even. The problem is my thinking like that is always...... the second something goes against me i either cut it, or figure out a way to add and hopefully get back to break even, in which case im out, or mostly out, im NOT capable of taking heat, IM just a died in wool scalper tryinfg to get over it on some trades but i cant, i cant take heat let a winner turn into a losr, then add, its just so ingrained in me to take a winner that approaches zero and bail. because you're worried its just about to turn around and if you get out, you will be too scared to get back in. But being familiar with your journal, you're not that type of trader. You are never scared to get back in, as evidenced by even today, and you're also not scared to go in and out multiple times. So fear of missing out is clearly not your issue. This is very valuable advice, thank you, Im going to focus more on the fact im willing to go in AGAIN if i see it do what i want, this morning what was just planely idiotic was not the 2 times i went long heavy, it was flipping short when i had a long bias in the morning, and i just flipped short for the sole sake of the fact it was going down. The only real dumb ass trade today was when i got cooked off the open then decided to flip short for some reason to makeup for the loss, it was just idiotic, and it cost me thousands of dollars, not only due to the loss, but because i had beaten myself up so badly on the stock at that point, when i finally knew what was going on, i didnt do it with as big of size, think i only had a few k shares the last time i went long, normally if i had conviction on a stock like that and hadnt destroyed myself so badly i would have had atleast twice as much if not more, but in my head, after i got annihilated chopping myself up, i had to tell myself, ok "You might be on tilt here, this might just be fucking idiotic, going long again after you went long, got stopped out, flipped short, got stopped out, then went long again" I needed to be cognizant of the fact that there was a very realistic chance i was simply on tilt....... but staring at it while i was short i knew damn well it was going up......... or so i thought at the time..... You might be right, i beat the shit out of myself, cause im a price action trader, and with trading pure price action you get shaken out alot, cause you read too much into what happens on level 2 sometimes, but generally speaking there is a point in a stock where i can feel its going 100% theres guys in here who have watched me call it in real time, so the thing is, when i miss on something when i feel like i know its gotten to that point where its 100%, because i slaughtered myself in the chop, i hate myself but you could be right, if im mainly a price action trader, live by the sword die by the sword, and dont beat myself up maybe. On the last point once again you are spot on, i dont know what i want to do, but this last month where i tried just elongating my time frame, i ended up sucking at it, ended up scratching for like a month, the thing though is that in my head i was convinced i was missing all of these massive winners by not simply holding, but i forgot about the fact that at the same time i had many trades that were not winners that were profitable simply because i was selling it when i got the move i wanted right off the bat...... I thought that i was going to make more money by simply holding everything longer and it proved to be a disaster, the thing is i make a pretty damn good living trading the way i do, but i cant get to the next level just scalping stocks, the guys i know who are 7 figure traders all seem to know when to hold, but for me most of my edge is just knowing where technical levels are and reading if the tape is strong or weak in too that level so i can take on size, with tiny risk and worst case i dont lose much. You are probably right though i shouldnt beat the shit out of myself just cause i screw up a trade, for some reason in my head though i feel like i can look back on every single trade and figure out the exact point it went wrong...... maybe im reading too much in too it, and i just need to accept the fact i cant be perfect. With that said when i shorted GME at the open after taking a bath it was plainly idiotic, i had a long bias all the way and the only reason i flipped short was to make up for the loss, then i lost more, before i finally nailed it....... the trade at the end of the day guess its hard to call that a fuck up, i was sized in if it went my way i would have been doing the happy dance. When i gave swing trading a try, i was letting stocks go against me 20-30 ticks or more, trying to allow it to have more room, but i ended up basically break even after a month, where as when im doing what i do, i will cut it after 2 ticks sometimes if i read something on the tape where i think im wrong......... i always thought because of all the winners i didnt capture the whole move that i just needed to hold longer and that was the difference, but i ended up not being profitable like that cause my losers were bigger too, and i wasnt nearly as accurate. Im really just trying to get to the next level, making 150-200k per year is good but i really want to be a seven figure trader so i dont know how to adjust, dont know what brings me to that level, i know im good at what i do, but im not perfect, maybe it is a pipedream, i just dont know how to advance what i do. If you have any advice for how you think i could make more money im all ears, thx alot for the great post Gotcha, made me think about lots of this.
Btw, wish i hadnt done self inflection, GME ended up closing on the lows, that late day short would have been a monster, lol another blown trade.