These are technical resistance levels from what I can see, I will be looking to go long if stocks clear (get above) these levels this coming week... UPDATED MONDAY MORNING thx AMGN 62.6 AMAT 32.5 BRCD 21.5 CSCO 14.25 CHKP 31.5 EBAY 52.5 HGSI 40.5 MSFT 55.5 NVDA 40.5 NVLS 36.6 PMCS 23.5 QCOM 50.5 RMBS 6.5 SEBL 18.5 SUNW 10.6 VRSN 40.6 VRTS 23.5 VTSS 11.5 God bless, and good luck. I am not shorting anything. Ken
Entries worked out well, new longs if/when nasdaq > 1625 (it's 11:10am now as I post this). Mkt thru for now, waiting for new entries. Good work all ... donating my exds profits to red cross Ken
P2, I've heard from a number of big traders that they've been told that this market WILL close green tomorrow. Oh well, guess we all have to be careful who we listen to, whether they're big traders or not
I think most if not all of the entry points I posted were good for gains during the first half of the market, when I trade, from 9:30 til noon. Daytrading entries, my style is in for 5 to 20 minutes round trip per trade with a close trailing stop (eg 3 spreads to .25-.4, depending on the specific stock). The technical entries I posted this am were good for daytrading, take a look. I'm not a swingtrader ... entries are for when to enter, exits are determined by trailing a stop and exiting when it's been taken out. Today's Performance: AMGN 62.6 (not triggered) AMAT 32.5 (not triggered) BRCD 21.5 hod 22.3, win for up to +.5 profit w/trailing stop CSCO 14.25 triggered, stop out up to -.4 loss CHKP 31.5 hod 32.8, win for up to +.8 profit w/trailing stop EBAY 52.5 (not triggered) HGSI 40.5 (not triggered) MSFT 55.5 (not triggered) NVDA 40.5 (not triggered) NVLS 36.6 triggered, stop out up to -.4 loss PMCS 23.5 (not triggered) QCOM 50.5 (not triggered) RMBS 6.5 max 7.25, win good for up to +.5 profit w/trail stop SEBL 18.5 (not triggered) SUNW 10.6 (not triggered) VRSN 40.6 max 42.6, win good for up to +2.1 profit w/trail stop VRTS 23.5 max 25.6, win good for up to +2.0 profit w/trail stop VTSS 11.5 (not triggered) So, if a trader had entered on all the long triggers (which I posted before the market opened today), there would be * Five Wins (+5.9) * Two Stops (-0.8) Using a trailing stop/stop loss of .25-.4 on each trade, the net P&L would be in the neighborhood of +5.1 points in 7 trades total executed -and, with even more conservative exits and a lot of slippage, the strategy should at least have produced a couple of points net profit from amongst the entries. I think that's decent performance, playing longs only in this market for the first half of the day. For those who were following, let me know if any questions etc. My technical entry strategy seems to work out most of the time, from what I've found. I calculated potential wins based on conservative .4-point trailing stops, those who used tighter trailing stops would have higher profits on the trade entries. Best wishes all, Ken ps QLGC had nice trading volatility issue today, solid 5 point range, my favorite chip stock.
Bucky Lee, You started posting just yesterday, as of now you've got 15 posts, hard to imagine you had that much of value to say in 1 day. The majority of your posts were about religion and God. And now you speak disrespectfully to Praetorian2 who is one of our best and most generous traders. Relax a little, treat people decently, try to keep your posts about trading, and only say something when something needs to be said. Otherwise you will have absolutely no credibility whatsoever on this board. None. (Later Edited: the post I was referring to was subsequently deleted, either by the author or the moderator)
If I could have played this day again, I would have done what I always done everyday. The fact that today was a very special day given the circumstances tied my hands behind my back. My trading plan over the weekend completely blew up and I would have done much better if I just played whatever came my way, all reactionary. It took me way too long to figure out that none of my plans worked, and by then the game was over.
Ken, My technical entries work out most of the time, from what I've found. Without going into too much detail (as I don't want you to compromise your subscription site), please explain how you come up with your technical resistance levels. For instance, you posted 55.5 for MSFT, and Microsoft's previous day's O/C/H/L were 54.92/57.58/57.95/54.70 respectively. Looking at those four numbers I am lost as to where you calculated your figure of 55.5. And I could find no consistent relationship with prices 2 days ago. Nor any relationship to the standard 50/200 day MA resistances. Thanks, and very impressive results.
Magna, hi - I use .3 to .5 over the OHLC prices as entries. MSFT's last session low was at around 55, so I used 55.5+ as the long entry trigger, here's a bigcharts picture: http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=msft&sid=0&o_symb=msft&freq=6&time=2 eg draw a line at the 55, the whole number nearest the prev. days' low, I used the 55.5+ as the entry long trigger, which wasn't reached today. I find that these types of patterns tend to work well in *screening out the signal/noise for entries* and produce the best types of results. I've found that in this chop the last 18 months 1/2 the battle is knowing what the technical screens are, eg only trading stocks that are strong enough to do breakouts/breakdowns for 80% of the trades. I use fibo retrace bounces for the other 20%, these are less frequent though, as I am *finally at long last* becoming a breakout/breakdown vs bounce trader. It's still an ongoing discipline issue with me, though - I like trying to nab bounces (eg I made $$ an exds .36 long entry sell .65 swing trade today). Doing less of those, and learning to trade and route larger size, like 2-5K vs the 400-500 shares I first learned with, are my personal areas for improvement in trading. There are of course other things to look for, but the basic strategy of using .3 to .5 over whole numbers (the prev days' low for gap down opens, the prev days' high for opens within the prev days' range etc) works out well. Some more details are in the active trader mag that was published in the most recent issue, also online at: http://www.activetradermag.com/calhoun.htm Thanks for the questions, good to be of help in explaining things.. of course I welcome any constructive trading-related critique ("ok ken that sounds good but what about when xyz happens etc?") or questions... as with any trading strategy, it's good to kick the ideas around and modify/improve them ... That's a worthwhile goal in posting the ideas, to get everyone to pull apart, critique, and improve upon whatever works.. a strength of the online trading community, eg many traders working to sort out what works best and in what situations. fwiw, I use ma lines as a secondary entry indicator mostly for swing trades vs daytrading ta indicator. Hitman: agree, that used to happen to me a lot too, I've found over the years that now I spend 80% of my time doing the premarket TA work, and 20% executing trades, almost all during the 9:40 til 11am timeframe ... that helped me immensely... eg I am always up at 2am local time here in Hawaii (8am EST) studying the charts and premarket trading patterns, determining where I will enter and setting software alerts etc.. I reeallly dont like getting up at 2am, it bites. sigh. price o paradise. So, shifting much of my time to preparing w/ta work before the market opens each day, seems to help, that way I can spend energy on order execution and position sizing, the mechanics of trade management, vs. looking for correct trade entries, as the market unfolds each day. Of course, I'll also use market internals like the TRINQ and sector relative strength/weakness to help refine realtime entries, along with the tape/time&sales for each. trade on, ken
Ken, Thanks for the explanation. Actually have the Sept ish of Active Trader, didn't realize your article was in it, haven't had a chance to read the magazine yet but will make a point of it now! After doing so if there's anything I can contribute to the discussion of your methodology I'll be glad to put in my .02 worth.