I wasnt following the market, what time was this spike so I can take a look at what everyone's talking about? thanks, -Jason
Dear taumeson, The spike occured at 10:34 EST on Thursday July 3, 2003 with the sequential break of the 200, 600 and then 1,000 SMA's (NQ, 1-minute-chart) ~Scientist
So, you like to follow the NQ? How bout a change in current here... What type of setup do you like to trade? I trade mostly ES... sometimes YM as well, and prefer shorter time frames. My shortest time frame is 68tick, longest is 2min. Also like Bollingers and a couple (bollinger by design) volume indicators. EMA's are also somewhat useful for my style of trading. Cheers, Nereus
Dear bubba7, First, I have to say that I sincerely honour and admire your posts, and one of your recent ones (regarding where to go in life if you're 25) was so good that I had to print it out! It was the first ET Post I ever printed! Now Re your post: I would really appreciate further information on how you play the "Greenspan" and how you set yourself up for the move; Which tools / indicators do you use, how do you time your entry / exit and how much are you prepared to risk? Considering your 100% on margin return, you'd have to risk a considerable amount, particularly regarding the possibility of a further decline... How do you hedge yourself against the possibility of a potential crash? I was lucky enough to ride that short right from the top (bearish reversal bar on the 3-min) and covered at the bottom (using PL2 as a pivot), capturing ~15 ES pts on the move on a pretty good position - however, I considered this the occassional luck that a trader lives for, and had I stop-reversed instead of covered, I would have made another dozen points? It seems paradox to me... Also I would like to know how you approach the probability of having a spike cancelled. There is always the possibility that this happens, and it can make you lose a lot of money ... ? Many Thanks for your patience and advice. It is greatly appreciated. Yours Sincerely, ~The Scientist
Hi Nereus I just gave him the NQ since it seemed like the best example... I tend to follow both the NQ and the ES, since they're heavily interdependent. However, often either of them moves faster (often the NQ) or either of them have a better (sharper) trade setup (such as a better short-term intraday reversal bar). I believe that by monitoring both I cannot only reduce my risk (by monitoring the action on two interdependent indexes) but also improve my entries and significantly increase the number of entry / exit opportunities, without having to look at too many different markets. Regarding setups: First the times: I play morning reversals, the 10:30 S&P reversal, the 1:00-2:00 post-lunch move, the 2:00 afternoon move, or if this not occurs, the 3:00 (delayed) afternoon move and tend not to get into new trades after 3:15 (these are all quite reliable S&P times...) I also only trade during lunch if in a trend day (10-15% of the time, ~2 days a month) or the occassional scalping (like to look at major Naz stocks for lunch scalping rather than the futs) My setups are essentially based on those S&P time-pivots, plus the projected daily highs/lows or floor pivots (PL1, PL2, PH1,PH2) and the median pivot. Generally, I tend not to get in on running trends, but look for precise fibonacci retracements (40% in a strong trend, 50% in a normal trend, (60-79% only after a sharp move - otherwise it shows weakness of trend). I also tend to get in on reversal bars (3min), which I like a lot for their low initial risk and high probability, particularly after a retest and failure. I only look at 1 and 3-min bars. Never considered tick charts like yours! Will give that a look I've got loads of MA's on my screens at all times (200SMA, 600SMA, 1,000SMA and many others, since they all influence price action. It's good to know where you are! (and if you don't like the look - don't make them as visible for chrissake!) For entry etc I use 79SMA, 89EMA, 21EMA etc and I look at the Keltner channels. Also, I use Fibonacci Circles and Fibonacci Time/Price grid on all timeframes. But again - Each one his own. I also do some scalping with ultra-tigh stop-reverse and many other things... Essentially I try to incorporate as many trading styles as possible to get the maximum of opportunities on each trading day. Altogether, however, I would say my #1 medium is the ES. NQ is second. I also trade other world exchanges, depending on what time of the day I feel like trading... Anyway... Now It's your turn to say what you do! Since most traders do the same thing in one or another way, there's nothing secret about it Yours Sincerely, ~The Scientist
What are you talking about? This was not a greenspan spike. Tell this to all the people who traded YM during the spike and were left with open positions after one side of their trade got busted.
I recently started a thread regarding improving EliteTrader by using an individual rating system. Please check it out and vote for what you think is right; http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=285950 ~The Scientist
Yikes!... You're quite the multi-tasker. I much prefer a simpler approach. Of course I am also having to take care of my const. business in the mean time. I am also very new to trading. Started studying last year and went live a couple months ago. Have only become profitable recently and am about to breakeven at any moment (daily moment). My setups are simple: I trade almost the whole day, but pay particular attention to the hotspots (1st hour, 10:30 reversal, 1:30ish lunch return & last hour). My fav charts are 68t, 136t, 1min, 2min. I keep volume indys on the min charts along with momentum. On the Tick charts I use Bollinger Bands each time frame has its on parameters. I also have , II% (Intraday Intensity) and AD% on all the charts. I also kinda like to have the %B, and Bandwidth indicators on the tick chart. What i favor about the tick charts is that they tend to show actual movement of the price in relation to volume and volatility... whereas the minute (time) charts show only how much movement there has been in a given period of time. Just my preference. Catching breakouts and reversals is my main goal... with the short tick chart I can easilly (not always easy) recognize certain patterns which are described in detail in John Bollingers book. The spike which occured yesterday was a great opportunity for those with the ability to see the moves in more detail (and for those with thehuevos willing to take the added risk). I decided, WTF, go for it and caught the move both ways neting approx 17 pts (13 short, 4 long). For those on longer time frames, it would be nearly impossible to trade this type of spike. Even for shorter timeframe traders, it's probably not the best idea either, but i felt like a little action... hehe. Anyway ... thats about it...more or less. Thanks for your interest. Nereus
Yes- good point that news spikes and especialy announcements by fed etc. can be traded, but they are expected in advance by any trader who takes the trouble to check the announcements times pre-open. They are very often playable because you are prepared and ready and expecting something - you just don't yet quite know what. Range can be anticipated as well to a certain extent. The spike yesterday falls into an entirely different category. There was no news at that time. No announcements. Nothing anticipated, and the YM moved off the scale instantly. ES and NQ followed suit to a much lesser degree. That is not normal. Yes - I've learned a great deal from yesterday's activity by rerunning it tick by tick in real time playback a few times over... Natalie