5 days mid-July. Actually I had only 58% profitable days this year. 2-5 days Swing trades here. I am done for the year for individual stocks. I might take some long positions on Tuesday in some beaten ETFs such as SMH and QQQQ. Should bounce back. Quite extended here
Im in SMH, thought it would see 34 today on MU earnings. In at 33.50. Looking to sell at 34.00-34.25 area. It is a bit oversold, bounce is possible next week.
I'm glad I was able to amuse you. I've been able to make a very comfortable living (averaging 7 figures a year) in the last 7 years mainly because of people just like you (about 99% of day trading types) that believe the best way to make $$$ is via taking risk - ie getting rich quick. I've been around the block long enough (trading for myself since 1988) to know that there are "not many" happy endings when it comes to the trading community. It's a nice thing when 99% of your competition is lazy - i.e. they believe that their system can predict the direction of the market.... IMO, trading is no different than most businesses - those who work the hardest are rewarded - and because so many of you got into to trading to "get rich quick" (lazy way)- it leaves me very little competition (in some cases NO competition) in some of my trading strategies. And just to be clear - I'm talking about arbitrage - virtually only execution risk. Some plain vanilla type and some with a tad of risk. I'm constantly waiting in the wings for someone to make a mistake. No edge = no trade. On a side note: the day I knew I was a good trader was the day one of my buddies asked me if the market was up or down that day - and I paused because I realized that I didn't know and for that matter didn't care. Another reason why I have been so successful in the markets is that most of the trading community doesn't believe that an individual can compete with the big houses when it comes to arbitrage. For the most part it is very tough to compete on a $ for $ basis - but there often is "plenty to go around" for the little guy. I also think you would be surprised to know how many times I have actually taken from the big firms - because they overlooked something in their "so called" automated arb programs. I have seen so many things over the years that I could write a book on how to trade with and against the "big houses". Keep laughing..........
I might be wrong on that but it looks to me that the "big guys" will not let the markets go much lower before year-end. Because of the low volume, it would not take much of buying to squeeze the shorts. This is what I am going to watch on Tuesday morning and play a bounce in the Qs and SMH. VIX and VXN are extended and 6 lower closes in a row for Nasdaq is very rare. We will see.
Up until this week, I am up around 11k in stocks, but lost about 3k in options. The FDX, UPS, and EBAY blow-up hurt hard. Might take a rest in options. Testing futures in January. For the last week, I was playing CC, JST, CVS and a few others; those were pretty good. Bt I am down a couple of hundred on ALY, JST (just bought again today, third time in a week),and a few others. I think the low volume hurt this week. Prob. going to take a break on this week; however, it is going to be a very boring week if I don't play in the market... Especially when I was on a two week winning streak. This week, just the dogs...
MSKL, you are 100% spot on. I traded a pure arb system for 2 1/2 years and never had a losing trade unless I screwed up, usually a keystroke error. 1000+ trades, 100% win rate. It took A LOT of work to come up with this system, scouring the darkest corners of the market where no one else was looking, but I agree totally, the crumbs are out there to be found if you look hard enough. To the scoffers, too bad for you, your mindset is probably holding you back.