April 20th, SPX, SDS

I didn't post this on the 20th, I got rather tied up.

I couldn't decide whether today was a good day to get serious with my trading or not... I initially decided not but I would play around anyway and see what I might scare up. After looking at the premarket activity I decided that it just might be a good time to get serious as it was shaping up to be a trending day, and I was not disappointed. After the last while of run ups this was due...I think there is even a reasonable gap that was never filled not too long ago...but I have not really been following this market to really know it well.

My entry (Proshares S&P 500 Ultra Short- SDS) was later than I wanted it to be as I just missed my first clean entry point. I traded 100 shares and decided that I would allow a 20 cent stop off the start as I was in a little higher than I liked but I wanted in anyway. I almost used the stop allowance up but it took off shortly afterwards.

The only hassle was deciding where to move my stop up to so I decided to take a laid back approach and let the price move.... once I was in the money that is. I ended up using the 30SMA then the 50 SMA and got stopped out at 79 cps. Not bad, the peak was over $1 at one point.


I did try a second trade later and gave up some of my profits as I was too impatient to get in and did not wait for the setup, I also was trying to play it as a continuation of the trend when I needed to consider target trades at this point...I even let it go farther than I initially intended. I should have, and was going to, just stop while I was nicely ahead for the day after the one trade.


Oh, I almost forgot... the second trade was partially based on the advance/decline index ($ADD) as I just read something about it and saw how far it was off of zero...Good call, entry too high, stop too tight...lots of factors why the good idea did not pan out.


I do wish that I had not been so stoneheaded about the US market. I initially decided to stay Canadian for reasons that seem trivial now, especially in light of my testing over the last year. There is just so much more information and more tools available for the US markets that it almost does not make any sense to be in the TSX for anything other than some buy and hold, dividend re-investment plans and perhaps some other longer term stopless trading.


Serious, for me, is more a matter of degree as everything that I do is serious in it's own way.

Jeff.