os - are you trading opening reversions (from specialist days), or what area? which area did you feel most comfortable trading 10 years ago?
gaj, I'd rather not discuss what I do now for obvious reasons, but I'm mostly a price action guy. As far as what I did 10 yrs ago, it was such a different mkt that the strats were very different. But some of the "layup" trades used to be: MOC imbalances, specialist spreads (soon as we saw the spread go $1 or more, we would put in a limit order to try to get in on the print for the usual reversal. The specialists most of the time had a big order then spread the mtk, put up a huge print and took the other side. These were sometimes good for 10cents or $1 or more depending on the spread and the size of the print. Information was also key. Since we were wired into other firms, we had good info/rumors to trade off of. Just some of the things we did. os
os - wasn't looking for details, just general things. i do some intraday extreme reversion to mean, and the typical buy pullbacks on strength / sell pullbacks on weakness. but you basically answered much of my question with this: and that's exactly why i *wasn't* trading much of the NYSE stocks. i couldn't get the hang of some of the specialists tactics, even when i'd see them (like the spread widening). i did learn pretty quickly, esp. on the NYSE stocks, that if i got something that looked like a great fill (not on widening, but normal spreads) relative to the bid/offer, that the stock was probably heading the other way. now, some of those great fills are due to (more common) hidden orders and high frequency traders, and are less indicative of an imminent reversal in stock price. i mentioned this on another thread, but one of the important keys for me is recognizing which patterns work best in what markets. we've now put in a topping pattern, the high P/E stocks are taking it hard, and good news is sometimes being interpreted poorly. that doesn't mean we ARE topping longer-term, but it's what the action is right now. therefore, there's certain setups i would have traded 6-9 months ago that i'd be more hesitant to trade now, and there's overnight scans i do now that i wasn't doing then. one of the ones i'm avoiding, at the moment, is buying big gap downs in size - and on my extreme RTM, i'm waiting a bit longer to enter, in smaller size.
Weekly report: WE 5/22/10 Ok, study is complete - conclusion? Trading after almost 10 years is NOT like riding a bike. :eek: The bike went from chopper handles & banana seats to a frikkin' algo/hft monster on roids. I traded Mon-Thurs and then decided that it was time to stop and adjust. Only had 1 profitable day this week, so on Fri, I didn't trade at all. Trading: Obviously sucked. Looking at more trade data, now I think I know what must be done. I will report if it works or not. Platform: LightSpeed is really starting to get on my nerves. I think I've ran into almost every possible issue with the platform. I don't know how some of you trade off the platform, but my hats off to you. I have to take the blame for not getting this correct, as programs only do what the operator tells it to do. I must be telling it to do the wrong things. Plan: Go Fishing for a week!! Cap preservation is a high priority for me. So although I didn't lose a lot of money (relatively), it's enough to tell me I have to change something. Also, the fact that I didn't trade well during some of the best trading days recently, makes it even more obvious I need to adjust. The bike has changed. But I still know how to ride, so I have hope! Have a great week. P&L: WE 5/21: ($859) YTD (a/o 4/21/10) : ($4,276) os .
Weekly report: First, a P&L correction from previous week (forgot to include 1 day) Correct P&L for WE 5/21 (no trades on Friday): WE 5/21: ($1,238) YTD (start date: 4/21/10) : ($4,656) ================= Seems some people like to see daily P&Ls for comparison, so I will also post those going forward. Still trading 100 shrs and occasionally adding on 1 unit on winners only. Running P&L: (#'s are rounded off) Daily: (71), 41, (27), 428 WE 5/28: $371 ME: 5/28: ($4,333) YTD (start date: 4/21/10) : ($4,285) ======================================== As I mentioned last week, after quickly realizing that my trading was very poor (sucked), I didn't trade on Monday and went fishing. Tues - Fri, I did trade but very lightly with revised strats. I am still probing to find what trades are working and not. I have completely stopped trading some of my strats and refining the ones I'm still trading. I found a room to chat with other traders and that has helped me to some extent. At least I'm seeing what some of the modern day traders are doing. Most seem to be making $ in the room. If you are having difficulty, I would recommend finding a chat room with profitable traders. I was kindly given an invite to the room, but I cannot say which for now out of respect for the traders in the room. I have completely stopped reading the tape except for how the mkt/stock reacts to important levels. Even then, "tape reading" is not what it used to be for me. Instead of looking at T&S, bid/ask size, blocks etc..., I'm more focused on simply if the mkt/stock breaches or reverses at critical levels. Otherwise, tape reading is useless to me now. I have figured out how to avoid fighting with the algos on the bid and ask. It reduced my losses greatly this past week. Seems even the algos can't get in the way of a major trend or a strong reversal. The days of trying to scalp a few ticks in size (5-20 cents on 5k shrs or more) are gone for me. Ironically, since the "bike" has changed, I thought I would need to change my trading philosophy completely to be profitable. On the contrary, now I feel that I must go back to literally the "classic" style of trading (like a 100 yrs ago). Still trying to figure out the multiple ECNs and also took a trial offer on a scanning program. Again, I will not be increasing size until my P&L tells me to. Have a profitable week everyone. os .