Murray knows what he's talking about! Listen to him! If your long term trend is 8-12 months, you should be prepared to hold your positions for several months for them to turn profitable. In the mean while, you must be prepared to face short-term loss on your postions. Pick a time frame that reflects what you're doing. If you are willing to hold a position intra only, then, lower your time frame. The shorter your trading time frame is, the shorter you should be concerned with the near trend.
================ Thanks bvam , if i did try enter short GOOG today, probably would have lost money, because like to use some sort of chart no matter my time frame. Even though most trends are still down,down,down. Even though longs may be more risky now ; CME,TRAD,BOT,OXPS are UP trending some, but most are down.. Trading can be difficult; didn't even study all those uptrends till after market close, Jason H.
Usually when i accumulate a position the postion immediately goes against me. If I am buying a dip or taking a breakout a computer program comes in and starts to trade against m yposition immediately. This happens probably 90% of the time... on volume above 500 shares. All the time with market orders.....limit orders for me rarely get filled unless i take a little on the offer so the program can hit my bid. While watching my time and sales I will take the offer and immediatley the stock price action will get a little more aggressive and the bid will trade...sometimes you will not even see the size on the bid trade ...you will just see prints go off at the price of the bid. It is aboslutley crazy...andit is getting worse than the way it was years ago. At times i will have a limit bid at say 18.25, if traded it would be the low of the day, yet on many occassions there will be nasd trades below me creating a new low when I am there in different ecns ..no stock would trade with me. As active trading professionals we are considered toxic order flow and the market makers in every possible way will make our intraday adventure as difficult as possible because In my opinion every Broker dealer out there knows our positions and can assimilate our every traders postions trough a computer program and will contra our flow all day long...it actually becomes the odd lot theory...and it works amazingly well during trendless light volume days...(because they do not have the order flow to create a trend environment..so they wreak havoc on the day traders during these times)...back in the mid 90s it use to be collusion with market makers via emails and phone calls....now I believe it is market maker collusion computer programs.....the market makers know when to step away because noone has anonyminity anymore. How many traders out there have hit the low on theday?...How many take a top?..and I am talking about experienced traders also...how many times have you taken a big position and it just seems like the programs out there constantly trade against you? How many traders are out there intraday that are trading a stock with 250k in average daily volume? you probably would be very surprised about how many traders are left playing this game like us.....every day we are coming to their poker table and they see the sucker coming every single day...and this is a fact......and trustme not too many suckers are coming to the tables but when they do they will take your money intraday....sounds like a big conspiracy theory right?....that is the brilliance behind this.......everyone thinks it is your improper risk management....or your small risk parameters...or your early entries or exits...sometimes it could be.....but in my opinion when a postion froma day trader at any price has been taken it has changed the dynamics of that stock instantly...so that moving average or any other technical indicator will not hold at that level because someone bigger than you has to get you out now before the stock can resume the proper manipulating flow......now is it different on the bigger more liquid stocks?....probably not that far away from the illiquid stocks..... This is not a trader with a bowl full of sour grapes also. I have been a trader for 10 years and I have made an incredible living at this game....I am just highlighting something that my gut has been telling me since decimalization has come to be......decimalization brought forth to keep the nasdaq and the nyse still in good business.( we still have incredible volume in the markets do to computer strategies that take minimal risk since there are penny spreads). By the way, volatility has not expanded higher than April of 2001 in the nasdaq even after the slaughterfests and it has only been larger one time in the nyse( probably because off the specialist spreads). Remeber this is just my opinion based upon my market experience......Now I put intraday positions on for swing trades to bleed out the noise...and I trade the e minis which cannot be as manipulated as much as the stocks out there in the market place intraday.
Great stuff Kevin. My another experience. Couple days ago in sleepy premarket hours I was watching some stock on Level II screen. No volume at all. Level II shows only one Arca with big spread between bid and ask. I test the market with small bid. The screen immediately fills with equal and lesser bids. There is some activity on the offer side as well I cancel my bid and after maybe one minute all activity is gone. I try again. This time little higher and before I can cancel it gets accepted and stock makes to 10 largest % gainers that day. After one minute screen fills with MLCO, MSCO, BOA and thirty other ECNs and MMs ... I would come back later to sell my unfortunate bid at loss $40
You say "couple times". That's too little to draw any meaningful conclusion. You need to get a statistical mindset. Try "The disciplined trader" by Mark Douglas. GS
There are some markets and market conditions that will look for small lot trades and purposefully reverse in an attempt to wash these people out .....Dont beleive me ? ..run some statistical tests. There are some markets that do this like clockwork under certain conditions. So what do you do ? Either dont trade those markets intraday, or use the signal to your advantage if you have enough capital to play these games. My opinion ? Dont trade these markets intraday - they are much better as multiday holds. However some market characteristics are even bad on multiday holds - again run statistics. In those cases just find another market to trade or only come back to those markets when exceptional signals are triggered .....
i wouldn't trust those guys even if they were the last place left where to invest. u only need to look at those fancy monitors...just there to impress and cover lack of substance.
in this senario Jason.....imho.....you probably triggered computer trading programs which then triggered other computer trading programs and so on and so forth.....a very high percentage of trading nowadays is computer programs......cause trust me...there arent 100 guys sittin around pre-market just waiting for some small time player to throw in a bid or offer just so they can screw him outa 40 bucks....even if it does feel like it....and really....how can "they" be out to get you when they are obviously out to get me!!!!