February 26th update

I did some trading again today. I am starting to see more of what is going on in the interplay between the ETFs, the index and the stock that I use as reference. I had ten trades today and only two lost money, 6 cents and 5 cents per share. I missed out on the initial moves as I was a little gunshy after yesterdays platform fiasco...even though it went in my favour I did not expect any long initial moves today. The first rally was too early for my comfort level regardless. The pullback, although expected, came quick and I got fooled into thinking that the price was starting a new short term uptrend...so I decided to ride it out. The price never made it to the 1/2 S1 line until later so my setup did not materialize perfectly. I am starting to recognize the interaction between the price, my notations and the 50sma now, it is a stronger factor than I gave it credit for as I could have used it for my HGD trade rather than waiting for the pivot point comfirmation.

Here is the chart for the day.
Green boxes are HGU trades, red are HGD trades, blue arrows are my loser spots, very small and short so hardly worth trying to box them. The red arrows are later potential HGD trades and the green are HGU.

Once again this is only the chart for the Global Gold Index. As I am trading the Horizons Beta Pro Global Gold ETFs this is all I need to see the trades for the day.

There really was not a whole lot of large moves to catch and I was working for every penny in the morning as I played either side of S1. I could have rode the 200sma cross as I was already in ahead but chickened out on the smallish pullback. I did jump back in once the move was confirmed though, shame to have to pay two commissions for that move. The trades were sound and filled well but the overall moves were small enough that the real profits barely covered my commissions. I still came out ahead but not by much. I would have finished better had I planned on trading the day as the last setups were pretty solid. I also would have been farther ahead if I was trading a few more shares per trade...100 shares per trade more and I would have added $51 to my meager net profits and still been charged the minimum commission rate of $4.95.

The joy of Questrade's small commissions, even once I get larger than 500 shares the rate is 1 cent per share up to a maximum of $9.95. The ECN fees start to add up then as they are charged on top of the commissions. 37 cents per lot and usually, but not always, both ways at the buy and the sell.

Jeff.