Lately I have been discovering that my full time job is taking more and more of my time and I am unable to monitor the markets as closely. In fact I am finding the weekend is the only time I can scan for trades etc. So I am launching a new journal that will chronicle my style which has to be enter the bulk of my positions on monday and work them for the rest of the week. Strategy: 1. Find stocks in uptrend that have pulled back and are looking like they are going to resume uptrend. 2. When this stocks start moving up, buy if they break the previous days high, with the stop below the previous days low. 3. When profit = 1x Risk, move stop to b/e. 4. When profit = 2x risk, sell 50% of the position 5. Use trailing stop on the rest of the position. I am trying to keep it tight right now, 1x Risk approx to 0.5% of my total account size. I want to give a shout out to candletrader, who gave me this strategy. Tomorrow's stocks to follow.
KMRT- Buy stop at 25.81, stop loss at 24.23. 1x Risk at 27.39, 2x Risk at 28.97 SNDV - Buy stop at 9.44, stop loss at 9.06. 1x risk at 9.82, 2x Risk at 10.20 WEDC - Buy stop at 11.41, stop loss at 10.58. 1x risk at 12.24, 2x risk at 13.07 VRSO - Buy stop at 4.01, stop loss at 3.89. 1x risk at 4.13, 2x risk at 4.25. Edit: Removed PQE, Adding WIND WIND - Buy stop at 6.01 stop loss at 5.62. 1 x risk at 6.40, 2x risk at 6.79 I have attached a little VB app I use to work out position sizing and risk levels based on account equity, risk factor, entry price and stop loss.
Hey Friend: Just happened to see your post. Let me offer some advice based on experience. Will you be placing stops in the market? Will you use native orders? Even with stops, you are taking on quite a bit of risk. My suggestion is that you stop trading for a while and learn about options trading. I can think of several strategies that reduce risk to manageable parameters and let you have a life. The way you have it set up, you are taking a lot of single stock risk and you don't have a way to control market (systemic risk). We are still in the season for severe market downdrafts. Take a while to think about it before you do this, and you may save yourself a lot of money. Good luck with your trading, Steve46
Thanks for the comment steve. I am using IB TWS using their flavour of stop orders. I agree that we are in the season for crashes, however most of the stocks on my list are down a huge amount already, so i guess i am looking for bounces here. Targets are all below resistance as well. Options are just too much juice for me right now. As I said, my exposure is limited to 0.5% on each of these trades, so worst case scenario I could lose 2.5% if each of these generates a buy and then stops out. (I am also short QQQ from a few days ago, so that kinda hedges things).
Ctrader: Sounds like you have given this some thought. One of the strategies I have used with success is to sell long term puts against individual stocks, buying puts on the appropriate index for insurance against market meltdowns. I trade both ways, intraday and longer term, and have been using this option strategy for about 5 years. My intraday trading success has been inconsistent, however the options strategy has averaged 12-15% per year like clockwork. As with any system, there are details that have to be worked out, however I noticed that once I learned how to properly hedge my portfolio, I started to sleep much better. Good luck to us both then, Steve46
ctrader, Try this instead for your item (2): Buy when stock breaks above prev day high, sell if stock breaks below prev day high support. And if stock rallies and pulls back to close well off its high of the day, do not hold it for a swing trade into the next day. Close position. Hold stocks that close up. And do not initiate any swing trades when market is extended. Initiate swing trades when market pulls back and is set to rally again.
Thanks! I will keep this in mind. I especially agree with your last point. Cat woke me up early, so I found another stock: XOMA, buy stop at 7.61, stop at 7.22. 1x risk at 8, 2x risk at 8.39.
i realized I screwed up the VRSO calculations. VRSO buy at 4.01, stop at 3.79. 1x risk at 4.22 2x risk at 4.55. So currently long VRSO, WEDC, SNDV. Stops all at 1x risk.
I pulled my KMRT order this morning when I saw the huge spreads. I am going to filter my candidates by higher volume so i get more liquid stocks. So today: Put on VRSO, WEDC and SNDV according to plan. All three are still in the Initial phase of the trade. Valid phases are: INITIAL - (most i can lose is 1x risk) BREAKEVEN - (most i can lose is 0) PARTIAL BOOKED - (least i can win is 1x Risk) TRADE COMPLETE - (1x Risk+ in gains). EMERGENCY STOP OUT - (over night gap caused big loss to position). Of course I can also have an emergency stop out, in the case of a disastor gap down. Some of my longer term trend indicators are indicating a shift to a down trend, so if tomorrow is an up day, going to look at taking some shorts as well (on wed). But for tomorrow, going to try and find some more long candidates.
Symbol Date Entry Price Initial Stop 1x Risk 2x Risk Current Price Trade State Trade Results Comments VRSO Sep-29 4.01 3.89 4.13 4.25 3.98 INITIAL N/A WEDC Sep-29 11.41 10.58 12.24 13.07 10.82 INITIAL N/A SNDV Sep-29 9.44 9.06 9.82 10.2 9.66 INITIAL N/A WIND Sep-30 5.97 5.55 6.39 6.81 CANDIDATE N/A SNWL Sep-30 5.99 5.78 6.2 6.41 CANDIDATE N/A LSI Sep-30 10.11 9.74 10.48 10.85 CANDIDATE N/A CIEN Sep-30 6.03 5.81 6.25 6.47 CANDIDATE N/A DFIB Sep-30 4.34 4.1 4.58 4.82 CANDIDATE N/A