TonySanDiego TRIES to trade

Here is another journal for your perusal. In it I will attempt to chronical my trading adventures.

I would hope to gain some insight from positive critics, and I will certainly gain my own insight from explaining what it was I thought I was doing in a trade.

Thanks to nkhoi, I can post some pretty decent gifs, so I can show exactly what I did.

Today, July 18, I had 2 opening orders, then traded the SPY the remainder of the time.

I use the SPY and QQQ as surrogates for the futures. If I ever get any good at trading them, I will trade futures.

I hope it helps others to see what I do so we can all learn from my mistakes.

Anyway... enjoy.

Here is the opening orders and trade log gif.

 

And the SPY trades...

 

QQQ is in sync with naz future but SPY lag behind SP500 future, so your SPY trade might not work on ES, imho.

 

If you're serious about making this work, then you might think about posting the indicators that are present when entering your SPY trades.

You should show the Prem/discount to FV at every entry/exit point. You should mark down at what point you are in a 10 minute S&P chart (bottom 1/3 for buying, top 1/3 for selling)....all the basics of trading.

Your first day looks like so many....whipsaw and shakeouts....and you if you watch your Prem (as your "last Indicator) then you probably will limit both.

Good Luck!!

Don

 

Here are my efforts for Friday. I was finishing some computer tasks in the afternoon so I was not giving my full attention to trading. Missed the big dump I was looking for.

I am not real pleased with my efforts, but I had to get things done, or they would have still been there Monday.

I also feel that I am too cautious (timid, meek, afraid of taking a loss) so I am not jumping on what I percieve to be good plays.

(and I am still not confident I recognise good setups anyway)

Much work to be done..... and soon.

Don, where do I look for Prem/discount to FV. Is that an indicator I can just call up? Also, I didn't understand what you meant by the 10 min chart. Bottom/top 1/3 of the chart looking back how many periods? Do you never sell the bottom 1/3 on a breakdown? (buy the top 1/3 on a break out?)

Thanks for jumping in anyway.

 

Hey Tony,

How many shares do you trade? Just wondering.

 

Couple of the trades you took on SPY reminded me of the trades you posted in HD -- you are initiating trades after extended moves have already occured (chasing, in effect). What exactly are you using to signal your entries? Seems like if you caught a couple bottoms there, only instead of buying you went short instead

 

Anchor,

I am a still a newbie, (after doing this off and on for 2+ years).

I trade 100 shares at a time. I figure there is no reason to increase my share size til I get some positive consistancy and learn to "read" the market better.

 

Illiquid,

what I was anticipating was exactly what happened later in the day, a breakdown with a bit of followthrough.

The reasoning was that the market really seemed weak, rallies kept coming back to the bottom.

If it had been pounding the top for a while, I would have been expecting a breakout to the upside. I stayed out of a couple of false breakdowns, but also stayed out of a couple which really paid off. (but I was elsewise engaged with computer problems)

Not really a scientific answer, Iwas just looking to go with the market, and the market APPEARED to be wanting to go down.

Between the tops and bottoms, it appeared to be mostly chop. There were moves, but I had mostly had no clue as to when or which way they would be.

 

Hi TonySanDiego,

First of all...you finish positive for the day. Congrats...you were ahead of most.

I'm going to comment on one particular trade.

The Short position at 10:26:29 @ 86.24

Yet, before I do...Don brought up something that peaked my curiosity about the charts your posting.

I see price moving averages and volume.

Are these the only indicators your using for your 1 min chart trade setups?

If not...why are you not posting what your actually using?

Whatever indicator you are using...learned everything you possibly can about them...their weakness and strengths.

Now to that Short position you took at 10:26:29am.

Your comments was..."Sold Short 86.24 on break of LOD."

First of all...via the 1min chart your trading...the prior candlestick broke the LOD (closed below the LOD).

Thus, why didn't you enter your Short position then?...based on the fact that you seem to prefer shorting the break below Lows of the Day.

Also...your volume indicator is a valuable indicator when trading ETF's.

Whenever I see a strong downtrend on increased volume and then the volume looks like its tapering off a little (loss of selling pressure) regardless if its at/near/below the LOD...

more often than not...its a sign that sellers are weakening. Thus, obviously it's not a good time to short because the odds are in favor that buyers will step in.

I call what you did on that particular Short position...chasing because you were trying to short it near the LOD after an already strong decline.
In this particular trade...that's exactly what happen.

Also, that dark blue and purple-like line on your chart...what price moving average are they?

Further, it was odd to see you go on and say..."I jumped out as soon as it failed to break down hard."

The reason why it failed to break down hard was because it already had. And that break down was a bit exhausted when you enter the game.

The breakdown for that particular trend had started about 10:14am based on your time zone or 11:14am est.

With that said...you recovered nicely and realized that something was wrong and covered for only a -.06 on that trade.

Here's a tip about price moving averages on the SPY:

When the 200eMA > 50eMA are both are declining...short the counter-thrust rallies instead of chasing and shorting the bottoms of parabolic downward price pushes.

Note: I'm not telling what type of price moving averages nor what type of indicator you should use. Just substitute the moving average numbers with your moving average setup numbers.

I usually apply such a strategy vigoursly in the a.m. and mid-day. However, after 1pm est...I'm very cautious about shorting the counter-thrusts rallies because afternoon rallies are much more dangereous than the morning rallies.

Almost forgot...you sounded like you were busy today based on your quote above.

If your thoughts are pre-occupied with other stuff...it's often a time to not be trading...concentrate on getting done what you need to get done...then come back to trading when you can give it 110% of your attention.

In other words...today could'uv been a good day to take a break from trading and concentrate on other tasks.

NihabaAshi