Unless I'm missing something, how can you possibly afford to trade full-time if you're earning only $40k and $16k in 2008 & 2009, respectively???
Hey neke, sorry about your Bidu I have no excuse none none none. total 100% with no additives piss poor trading on my part. I am working very hard to stop that crap from happening. it was a gap up the day before for gods sake.... what the hell was I thinking??? Stop in the chat once in a while to say hi. lots of good call outs Respectfully, Robert
Frustrating isn't it?? so far it may not be the cure but Trading in the zone by Douglas and his other book may open your eyes in ways that you have never seen before. no trading signals but what to do before and after your using those signals. its a great read if you haven't yet. I picked it up about a week ago and read most of it and now starting to re-read the whole thing again. its helping my trading already
Way way way to busy. Needed to do other things so this post is a day late. At least its not a dollar (or more) short. Not a bad day for as little as was done. I tried out a feature with IB of trading odd lots today for the first time. I was getting a weak short signal with AAPL but I really didnât want to step up to the plate with normal size lots or even 100 share lots so I used the advice from the chat of just using odd lots. I never gave it much thought due to slippage and that commissions eat up big chunks of gains and normally wipe out any edge. In the case of a $200+ stock though it can make sense when the spreads are only a few if more than 1 cent and with commissions of 70 cents even with a odd lot it was not bad. I tried out 10 share and 20 share lots and both had about the same commission. At 20 shares its not all that different than a $40 stock with higher commissions. I never held more than 30 shares at any given time but next time I want to trade one of these big dogs I think I will be ready and with a different plan. AAPL + 16 AGO + 54 VLTR Gap up opening trade. Worked out well + 238 X Was a little different kind of trade than I normally do. I will rarely fade a stock after the last hour to hour and a half to the closing bell has begun. I have found in backtesting that there is a negative edge. What I never did do when I found this out was to find out what is the best entry to follow the trend. So for the last year or so I have watched but have not backtested going with the trend during the end of the trading day. X was making new lows and I put on 100 share lots with tight stops and was stopped out several times for small losses and then I was able to grab a couple medium sized moves on the way down while remaining a tight stop the whole way. I would have done much better with a wider stop or larger size, +65 +265 - 1894 Month
For being up until 2am last night and up again at 6 I am doing pretty well for as tired as I am The day started out great with a nice gap up short with PXP. Looking at the price action today about the only thing I see wrong is that I exited way to soon but I did get more than target so thats about all I can ask for. + 219 ME was the next gap up trade and it worked out well but only made about target as I try to generally not push for too much with the small priced stocks. + 143 SANM could have been the third good gap up but when the price seemed to get stuck around 14.30ish I decided to exit and take the small gain. moments after I did the price started to go in my direction and that was a bit frustrating. Either way it was not that big a deal as I had really small size. +15 X booked a gain but it was a tough ride. I booked an early gain and then started to stop loss out and get back in several times. I faded the move down and the saving grace was I kept my size small with 100 share lots so I was never in any major danger. Still it wasnât very pretty and for the amount of trading I did with it I have a pretty poor showing. + 31 + 410 - 1484 Month
I did this on POT in sim a while back. It was trading with a .10-.20 cent spread and very volatile one day and I wanted to give it a wide stop as a result, so I tested out 50-share lots to see if I could actually generate anything resembling a profit. It worked out quite well, and the act of trading it in sim took away my fear of the volatility and I now trade it live usually with 200 shares. A lot of people dissed me here for sim trading so much, but yesterday and today I traded AAPL and AMZN in sim prior to trading live, using a refined strategy I came up with. I practiced in sim because of the wide spreads and very volatile action, and it really boosted my confidence enough to trade live with 200 share lots quite successfully. It's really interesting that you mention this. Just a while ago I added this to my trading strategy notes: "Last hour starts a trend out of midday range reflecting institutional buying/selling. Go with-trend end of day, never fade. It's usually strong and very unidirectional until at least 10 mins from the close, sometimes all the way into the close. Use a 1-min chart to find shallow pullback entries, or just jump on board if the volume's good." Nice trading by the way!
I'm confused here. What is the feature? You can always trade whatever quantity you want. There are some destinations (like ISE) that won't accept odd lot. But other than that everything will fly. My favorite destination ISLAND takes everything. When I traded BIDU few weeks back, I traded with lot of 10 and they were all LIMIT buy/sell so I had no issue with slippage. No complains with fills.
Thanks NoDoji, I was in the same boat for a while. I never could take SIM serious or at least get any value out of it. Then when I saw you trading sim it kinda put the idea back in my head. As I thought about it more I started to think about when I was learning to fly. My wife bought me microsoft flight sim and I started to fly the cessna 180 on the computer and it actually helped with my real flying. No where near the "feel" of actually flying BUT it allowed me to do the real flying exercises over and over to the point where I was getting very good very fast in the real flying. Best part was that I could fly a 737 if I needed to right now even though I never been in a pilot seat : o ) A 737 from my sim experience is actually easier to fly than what I called a "kite with a motor attached" Anyway I think perhaps the same thing may apply to trading. You may not get the feel of hitting air pockets or that worn out feeling of your fingers from having a death grip on the yoke (steering wheel) but you can practice the same setup over and over until you get perfect at your entry and exit without having "fear" influence the process. Also if you find that the setup is not working out as planned its a cheap way to learn. Its not like another trade won't be coming around the corner soon anyway. I make 90% of my gains in the first two hours or less and almost nothing during the last hour (I might very well be negative during the last hour ) by fading but riding that last hour wave might provide a way to get the open and the close. I guess that would leave time for homework, golf, or soccer in the middle.....
TraderSU, Yes you are totally correct. Its just that I never entered in an order for less than a full lot before (or at least in the last 20+ years). Until the last 10 years I don't think it was possible to day trade an odd lot and make money after the slippage and commissions. If there was I didn't know about it. IB rates are so low and with Island I think for some trades it might make sense. Especially so if you want to use real money instead of a SIM trade to "keep it real" Thanks Robert
Great day for one that lasted about 38 minutes It should come as no surprise that NFLX was gonna be rocking with great earnings and a short interest of over 20%. There where basically two choices or maybe a third if you consider sitting on your hands an option. Get long before the open with the thought that margin calls would blast it even higher after the opening bell which seemed like a pretty good risk vs reward if your willing to accept that you could very well be late to the party and the time to have entered was yesterday after the earnings release or wait until after the bell and see if it blasts off into over bought territory. I choose to wait and see. NFLX did not disappoint and went overbought a little more than 10 minutes after the open. I started shorting in small size and scalped my way higher keeping a core short. I never allowed the trade to become to large as I did have in the back of my mind that the possibility of NFLX going up 35%+ was real and the shorts that stepped up before me were getting killed. So while I was not highly aggressive on the way up I was very much aggressive once it started to move down. I did scalp some small amount of it but for the most part it was a gain of well over target. I did trade it once again near the end of the day when it looked like it could get really weak into the close. I did have a small gain to add to the day but the lions share was during the opening. NFLX +526 AMZN was a strange trade today. I actually traded it twice. Once when it went up to where I felt resistance was at and a second time during after hours during the crazy earnings release trading. I made all of about $1 during the regular trading as I ended up getting stopped out but it was a better trade then it may at first appear as I will show. The real crazy thing that makes this trade noteworthy is in after hours trading. the earnings came out good and they were solid. The price even jumped to reflect it but then the price came down and fast. It went oversold but the idea of trying to catch that falling knife in afterhours gave me visions of BIDU again where I was right (and early) but trading without a signal. I did step up to the plate and did go long and pretty much was able to buy it at the dead bottom. Within about 10 cents of the move. I then held for a gain of about 1.90 a share. The thing that makes the PnL so small is I did it with 20 shares. Both during normal trading hours and in after hours. the after hours trade lasted all of about 40 seconds. I was able to make the trade with actual money (although small) to keep it real as apposed to a sim trade and not risk having my head handed to me. The commission and slippage amounts to about 4 cents a side even when posting liquidity as there is no rebate for sub lot size but I like how it allows to trade a big stock like it was a small one and it keeps the trade real. AMZN 37 EK was an opening long that was stopped out when it retraced. it appears the ones that really made money on it today where the market makers. +11 NOK was an opening gap up trade that was doing nothing for about half an hour after the open and so I just walked as it looked like it was stuck in the snow. It was bouncing from just above my basis to just below. As things would turn out I covered my short right before it fell and in fact it was so close that I covered and was still watching it as it covered when it fell. No worries though as that price holding did give the appearance that it could start moving up just as easy as it moved down. +14 I was watching X for much of the day for an entry as both long and short looked good several times today. I am thinking tomorrow is an upday for X and during the close looked for a long entry but I was not given the official nod from my signal. I would have actually had a bid in during after hours but my sons had a school thing to go to so I passed and will look during the pre market tomorrow to find a long entry. All around a good day but I am still getting very few overbought signals which is really limiting my opportunities. Wtih 15 credits of school and three sons I will be waiting before I can further develop my other signals. The WW signal keeps looking very good but truly needs to be automated to be effective. That will be my next big project during either spring break or at the start of the summer. + 588 -896 Month