I personally only trade NASDAQ stocks that are over $10 and have a daily volume of at least a million, which is quite a few. I tried trading one stock for a while but found I was missing alot of good setups.
I'm in total agreement with that above. Almost all the consistently profitable traders I have ever met trade either a small number of stocks they know well or they trade a small number of patterns that they are familure with. Both of those methods allow the trader to narrow their focus and in trading that is what you want to do as much as you can IMO. Less is More....and we all know more is better as a general rule in life (beer, women, money, etc. ;-) The filtering products available today allow you to find opportunities that you would totally miss a few years ago. I don't like full on black box approaces and few experienced traders do but when you can use a filter these days to screen for stocks that are exhibiting price action and volume characteristics that you know usually tend to play out in a particular way more often that not.....lock and load, opportunity awaits.
Here are the monthly gains/losses JAN $20,338.00 FEB $10,404.00 MAR ($991.00) APR $9,515.00 MAY $28,555.00 JUN $46,202.00 JUL $67,528.00 AUG $20,322.00 SEP realized $13,846.00 unrealized $1,613.00 Thats where I am now. CAT long EBAY short KLAC short MWD short WMT short Bert
PERSONALLY i only trade the emini NQ and ES BECAUSE the average true range movements have become ingrained in me but i suppose that if you follow any 2-5 stocks daily the same valuable daytrading benefit will evolve.
that's an amazing performance, congratulations. With the 15 minute macd, do you use real time charts, or do you get by with the standard 20 minute delay that many have?
Bert...interesting results for July. Many of the traders here had great July's and much less so in August. Are you using the standard 12 - 26 - 9 settings? Do use use the MACD crossover as your signal, or the zero line, or another. Many times the price will continue to rise while the MACD has crossed the signal line...but not the zero...thus forming a divergence. How do you handle that? Personally I love the MACD but have not used it alone. I use it to help find divergences. Your thoughts here are appreciated.
true man i love trading the minis it like starting all over again so fast clean and doesnt req a ton capital to make money
I think I have the answer to the question I posed to you bert re: what is your trigger. This presumes the standard settings per my previous post. I would say you use the crossover instead of the zero cross. Love it. Are you then always in? Or do you have profit stops, trailing stops, and/or stoplosses? Thanks.
I use the crossover, regardless of where it is. I am always long or short. I use the standard MACD parameters. I do usually wait until the histogram starts making the second bar, just to make sure the first is formed. I have been fooled too many times when it just touches. I just want to be assured that it will stay above or below the line. That is all I do. Pretty simple but it seems to work. 15 minute charts seem to do the best. 30 minutes seem the worst. I did hourly last year, but I also had a job last year. Now I am retired. Bert
Lovely, lovely Bert. And please accept my sincere congratulations on your fairly recent retirement. I truly hope you are in good health, and I hope you have a wonderful day, everyday. You deserve it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I use Tradestation and have been looking at the stox you mentioned you are in, and those you have used and relaced. Very interesting results. I looked back 200 days... and everything is not always peachy, ie. KLAC first three months of the year... but your portfolio has done well. As if you needed me to tell you this. I did not program the nuance of the second histogram bar as you mentioned, I look forward to doing so. Thanks again Bert. Please feel free to contact me if by any means I can do something for you.