I trade 2/3 of the month avoiding options exp. and holding winning positions intraday my p&L is solid
So Pussy, since you seem to be going out in a blaze of posting glory, any hints as to what your next user name is going to be?
Let me try to put this market in perspective from the point of view of the only instrument I trade ---- ES (E-mini S&P). Probably the best gauges of a market's volatility are its average true range over a 10-20 day period, and its total average daily travel range (defined as the daily sum of all distances between significant swing lows and significant swing highs and all distances between significant swing highs and significant swing lows ---- in other words, the maximum distance the market traveled that day). ATR now in ES is around 15 points........This contrasts with normal readings of 25-30 during the 1999-early 2001 period. A 25 ATR will generally translate to an average travel range of 50-60 or so points, a 15 ATR to around 25-30 points. An excellent trader should be able to capture an average approaching 50% of the travel range on a given day. A truly superior trader ---- functioning at an optimal human level with a superlative methodology---- can garner up to 60-65% of the day's travel range. (Beyond that point, we are talking superhuman trading with either foresight or hindsight!). Thus at $50 a point and assuming identical position sizings and near-optimal trading methods, between 1999 and mid 2001 a superior trader could average perhaps 40-60 ES points per day ----- $2000-$3000/unit, whereas now that same trader will generally capture around 20-25 per day ----- $1000-$1250/unit. Thus this market features roughly just 40-50% of the available profits for the 1999-mid 2001 period. There are several ways of looking at this: 1) if you feel comfortable trading additional size, obviously you can compensate for the decreased volatility that way 2) Realize that $1000-$1250/unit/day still translates to $150+/hour of work ----- yes, it is ultra-strenuous, high-tension, tripwire stuff ----- but where else can all but a handful of people make that kind of moohla? At least in the stock index futures, in absolute terms there is still plenty of volatility, even if percentage wise it is significantly less than it was two or three years ago. 3) It's an opportunity to fine-tune and hone your entries and exits. In a wildly oscillating market, imprecision and sloppy trades can still pay off, but in these markets you must be accurate! Still, when conditions improve a bit, you'll have the refined skills to destroy a more volatile market. 4) At the risk of sounding trite, markets are just what markets are. Sometimes they are generous, sometimes they are niggardly. The best anyone can ever do at any time is to simply take what the market gives and be content with what it makes available to us.
today's open and follow through was nothing but giveback, give, takeith away and give again. choppiness lik this is when you know the two bones are abraizing each other, and there's simply no knee cap left. Simply put, "investors" are present. They say that the US Dollar has fallen, hence the foreign monies have pulled their investments, at any price; they say that the small retail investor has been burnt, well if you don't turn the steak on the grill, one side will be rare and the other charcoal.... Let's hope that almighty Greenspan can calm the markets and restore some since of purpose and direction from an improving picture, instead of having Bershire Hathaway's chief scare the markets with his doomsday comments...
well said, because the transaction costs to scratch exceeds the show leather cost to walk on the beach....
i got one scalp on (TJX)....had lunch..put my feet up on the window sill and actually nodded off for 5minutes...yikes! should have hit the driving range.(but then the market would have had a 300point range)