ilganzo- don't feel too bad, you're not alone! Tried and failed to get into several positions today. Could have taken a (winning) set-up on NTE, but didn't like it at the time. There's always tomorrow. nimrodeo
As with every trading method there are drawdowns... But one winning trade can make up for several losing trades... Just keep at it and don't change things on the basis of one or two losing trades. Here are my trades for today...
I didn't catch BONT but with the help of my patented super-dooper hindsight guruvision gizmo I can pinpoint a few things: It offered a very nice entry because the candle was inside range and very narrow. So the stop should have been around $21.25 (but never in an obvious place like that, maybe $21.23 or $21.27, etc.). Also, notice that it traded very poopy (TA jargon) after entry. The next bar was also narrow range and it closed down. The only saving grace of these next few candles is that the low was held as it had for the past 4 candles. Notice that the 6th bar had a long upper tail - relative to its body. I've learned from Trader-X to be leery of these. Also note that the first and second candles both had rather long tails rakishly exposed to the wind. So using my trusty hindsight guruvision gizmo, I would have definitely been getting ready to dump it on a break below the 4 narrow range candle low ($21.30). I might have even moved up my stop from the .25-.27 a tad just in case. My gizmo also tells me that had one been using the trusty "old trader" 30 min charts, no long would have been triggered in the first place. Take that you young whippersnappers! -------------------- Both Trader-X and the Chairman agree, Monday's featured stock is GOOG : http://traderx.blogspot.com/2005/10/homework-103105.html
Hi Babak, Appreciate your comments, and you are probably right about tightening the stop. However, due to other activities I was not around managing my posistions. Instead I just placed my protective stop and let the market take care of the rest... Often I have experienced some nice surprises by not tinkering and trailing the stop, but usually when I am around I do it anyway... I took the BONT trade because it had two inside bars on a row. I have had some pretty good trades from that pattern. If range is very small I usually use a bit wider stop and adjust position size accordingly... however in this case it did not matter and I took the full 1R loss... I have to learn to love taking a small loss... in order to catch a few 3, 4 and sometimes 7R trades... It was GOOG that I missed completely, partly because I switched from Qcharts to Esignal and am missing my Qcharts Hotlists sorely... Guess I just have to get used to Esignals turboscanner and its limitations...
Total disaster today. Losses everywhere: RRI, PDG, TTWO, SKE. At least I took a 25c profits in IACI before it reversed. I really wonder if you guys are still looking at $1 profit target in this market... Here's a setup that perfectly failed. Probably shouldn't have gone against the daily trend.
Not a disaster, but not a good day either. Slightly better than breakeven could have been better, after entering positions and I left the screen. Just came back an hour before market close Not bad for a fed day.... Look at that awfull tight range today first the loser... (wide stop, position size adjusted)
FYI, for a different take on RRI and TTWO as a good short. And, interesting comments on MXIM from Monday. http://traderx.blogspot.com/