The correct URL is http://www.tonyoz.com/ozcalc.htm Stockjunkie is not hosted by Earthlink, so it does not support forms (if I understand it correctly)
Interesting how there's 2400 views of this thread but only 4 or 5 contributions? Is everyone doing so well and guarding their secret trading system, or not doing well and not wanting to corrupt everyone else?
Well said ddefina, By sharing on this board, we can begin a process of the constructive criticism of our various styles, making us ALL better traders. Candle
It's a good thing to read that experienced traders switch to swingtrading, right at the time that I had decided too that that might be the way to go for me. Have been papertrading the whole week (not on paper but in QT actually, which is perfect for that), I seem to have been doing reasonably well, with a (total) profit everyday, except today, burnt my fingers on CCMP. But it's better than I've ever done in daytrading. Only there's one thing about it: I don't like it as much. Spent too many hours outside trading hours finding stocks etc. Have to organize that better. And why do so few pple reveal their strategies? Well I do think it is a matter of trading secrets yeah; a good strategy is hard to find, and you don't want too many horses drinking from the same well, so to speak. So I don't think you will find much more than some general ideas, don't look for the golden tip. I, for one, use mainly two indicators, that can be powerful in combination. But I don't think I would post it once I had it worked out into a clearly defined strategy. It has cost me thousands of $$$ to come this far, would I give it away for free? No. Am I being selfish here? No. Everything about T/A is freely available on the net. There are very good sites, not only to explain indicators, but also to bring them into practice and experiment with them. The golden starting point for all your research and study is therefore the well known daytradingstocks.com.
Okay, I'll try to contribute some. I took MSFT on a bottom-fisher setup yesterday. I carried it overnight and sold it at a small loss today. After I sold it, I followed it closely and bought it again once it bounced from the mornings lows. I added to my position and started selling at the morning high (62) 11:53 PM and all the way to 63 13:28 PM. I was able to turn a profit, by cutting my loss from the overnight hold quickly and by watching the stock and futures carefully. I knew there was enough activity in the stock that justified the attention I was giving it. My exits were 62, 62.30, 62.44, 62.48, 62.55 and the last one at 63. The highest entry I had was 61.76. The reason this trade was successful was the momentum behind both the market and the stock. The market is stronger than I was willing to admit a couple of weeks ago. Today was the first day since I came back from my break that I had a FULL position on the long side since 9/11. This is a lesson both in trade management and market analysis. However, this trade would have never been possible if I didn't take care of my psychology and took a break to deal with my issues. All my trades this week (other than QQQ) were found by my scanner. I traded Sky Scrapers from last Friday through Wed, and I traded Bottom Fisher yesterday and today (well, not exactly, but MSFT was a position from the scanner). I traded CIEN, IMNX, PDLI, CSC, CPN, APA, API, BHI, QQQ and MSFT. I took losses on CPN and CSC and made a profit on the other trades. As I mentioned before, it isn't only the setups and the scanner that are important. It is also extremely important to know how to trade the setups. I hope you find this post beneficial. Trade Smart!
Great trade Tony. MSFT was a smooth climber today. Your last exit was just about the high for the day ($63.02). Currently MSFT is trading at 61.36. I made the mistake of taking the last two days off from trading.
Thanks I know I can't believe I printed it close to the high. Have to attach the picture since it tanked so much from there. Anyhow, back to the subject. I have emphasized the importance of knowing how to trade the scans and not just jump in. I've been watching ORBK which came up on the New Kid on the Block scan very carefully since 13:30 (after I got out of MSFT). The stock is thin and got big spreads. I watched the pullback from the high at 24.83 to the lower Bollinger Band carefully, and where I would normally (70% of the time) buy a stock that shows up on the scanner, I didn't. The question is why. The answer is that there was no depth on Level 2 and the stock could have went down hard quickly. So in other words, as much as I liked the setup, my risk management told me DON'T DO IT. Keep an eye on this dog, I wonder where it will be at day end and next week.
Ok, Here goes nothing....the other day I caught a blip on the news about cisco...the futures were up....I checked CSCO pre market activity immediately after the news and sure enough the stock was going up...people were buying...I have done this enough times to know that I needed to watch and monitor the stock closely almost right up to the opening bell...just in case a rash of sellers might come in and take profits before the bell...they didn't...I also know from experience that if the stock did not take off immediately for a run people would get nervous and sell off and take their profits...so I had to be ready to get a quick profit and not be greedy....I bought 1000 shares of CSCO pre market at 17.00...the bell went off and sure enough the stock did not immediately take off for a strong run...it did have some strength...but not enough to keep some people happy...as I expected the stock went up a little bit...and time and sales showed people being jittery... it went up to slightly over 17.25 and became unstable...I sold at 17.20.........made 200 bucks and went back to bed. I have done this type of trade many times in the past...it was successful because, even though I knew the stock was going up premarket...I watched it closely almost right up to the bell...making sure there were no sellers coming in....moreover, I prepared myself to take a small profit and not be greedy if the stock did not take off...I bought into the stock just prior to the opening insuring that the bid/ask prices were still going up and volume was increasing.