I did no day trading today. I did sink all my capital, well, most of it anyway, into a bit of medium term trading.
I pulled some ideas from the past and mixed them with some new ideas and put four positions in play to see what would happen. This will give me some breathing room for some other studying that I want to do on longer term trading. I think that I need a perspective break from the daytrading right now, as much as I hate to miss some of the upcoming potential there will always be some level of potential for daytrading.
That and I think that I need to focus on some stock or sector ETF trading so I am looking in that direction with the longer term stuff. Seeing as longer term is really only a different timeframe this may give me some of the perspective that I look for.
I may still dabble but longer term trading takes, well, a longer time to see how it will work out so I am not sure when I may get back into what I see as my most enjoyable part of trading. Perhaps as I have cash on the sidelines I may pop in here and there as well as keeping up with some level of fake trading to be sure that the game does not change ahead of me too much.
Off for the weekend.
Jeff.
Questrade, My direct access discount broker.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
June 18, A break.
I'm taking a bit of a break from blogging all my activities for a bit. Too much stuff going on so I have to cut back on time spent on less productive activities for a bit.
I paid more attention to the last few days and how the trading ranges set up so I did a wee bit of range trading, which I either try to stay away from normally or I just trade for breakouts that never materialize. I traded one for a break out that failed but got close to break even and had two others that made a bit of profit. I see now how to better utilize the TICK. I think trying to concentrate on it as a trade trigger alone is asking for trouble anyway. It may work sometimes but trading should always have an edge, not just sometimes.
I am also trying something a bit different, actually it is a medium term trade idea. I have accumulated a list of stocks that are reasonably big players that I see other traders trading intraday or these are used to gauge market sentiment. Either way they are fairly common and reasonably fluid issues.
I plan on putting all of these stocks (McDonalds, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Dupont, Johnson and Johnson, 3M, etc.) on a page in my Esignal software. I am working on a script to monitor these for certain significant milestones and trends in order to do some swing trading and sector rotational style trading, perhaps a bit of hedging as well.
It would be fairly easy to even scroll through these one by one to watch for certain patterns and price positioning as well. I have been only trading full lots due to a restriction in Questrade that would not allow me to place a part lot stop loss. I figured that, seeing as the stop loss was a market restriction altogether, I should try a partial lot stop loss in the NYSE...surprise surprise! I am able to stop loss partials.
Now I will be trading in my TFSA using part lots of various companies with appropriate stops in place for each. I may even let them trickle into my other accounts if I can keep enough capital free for daytrading...although even there I could use smaller position sizing as the main restriction I have been considering was having to use lots of 100 shares which can, in slumps or testing periods, draw my account down. Live and learn.
Today I bought McDonalds (MCD) due to the significant 200DMA test. It was not ideal but I wanted to place with an order setup and test the stop loss order entry. I placed a limit order lower than my eventual entry which I should have just left in play. Due to impatience I replaced it with a market order, only to see the price drop 20 cents shortly afterward. Unlike day trading a drop of 20 cents in a medium term trade means next to nothing as my stop loss is a full $1 away. I sort of wanted to be in the trade today even though I likely could have gotten a better price tomorrow.
Jeff.
I paid more attention to the last few days and how the trading ranges set up so I did a wee bit of range trading, which I either try to stay away from normally or I just trade for breakouts that never materialize. I traded one for a break out that failed but got close to break even and had two others that made a bit of profit. I see now how to better utilize the TICK. I think trying to concentrate on it as a trade trigger alone is asking for trouble anyway. It may work sometimes but trading should always have an edge, not just sometimes.
I am also trying something a bit different, actually it is a medium term trade idea. I have accumulated a list of stocks that are reasonably big players that I see other traders trading intraday or these are used to gauge market sentiment. Either way they are fairly common and reasonably fluid issues.
I plan on putting all of these stocks (McDonalds, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Dupont, Johnson and Johnson, 3M, etc.) on a page in my Esignal software. I am working on a script to monitor these for certain significant milestones and trends in order to do some swing trading and sector rotational style trading, perhaps a bit of hedging as well.
It would be fairly easy to even scroll through these one by one to watch for certain patterns and price positioning as well. I have been only trading full lots due to a restriction in Questrade that would not allow me to place a part lot stop loss. I figured that, seeing as the stop loss was a market restriction altogether, I should try a partial lot stop loss in the NYSE...surprise surprise! I am able to stop loss partials.
Now I will be trading in my TFSA using part lots of various companies with appropriate stops in place for each. I may even let them trickle into my other accounts if I can keep enough capital free for daytrading...although even there I could use smaller position sizing as the main restriction I have been considering was having to use lots of 100 shares which can, in slumps or testing periods, draw my account down. Live and learn.
Today I bought McDonalds (MCD) due to the significant 200DMA test. It was not ideal but I wanted to place with an order setup and test the stop loss order entry. I placed a limit order lower than my eventual entry which I should have just left in play. Due to impatience I replaced it with a market order, only to see the price drop 20 cents shortly afterward. Unlike day trading a drop of 20 cents in a medium term trade means next to nothing as my stop loss is a full $1 away. I sort of wanted to be in the trade today even though I likely could have gotten a better price tomorrow.
Jeff.
Monday, June 15, 2009
June 15th, the followup
The chart pretty much says it all. I placed my stop at somewhere around 10cents under my entry, as I mentioned...I have a 20cent loss allowance on SDS, 15 gets used the most often and I end up moving it too soon sometimes as well.
Nice entry, the right price, read the support bang on and called the trend day. I failed the alternate entries due to the price not consolidating as long as I expected it to...in both cases I should have pulled the trigger once the price was within my stop allowance given where the stop needed to be placed. There were four entry opportunities and I saw three of them setup, so all is not lost as I learned a valuable lesson in chart readig and trade judgement.
There was an easy $1 per share trade here and, if I used both stop plans and entered twice $1.20 per share.
I am planning on setting my stops on the charts from now on and setting my entry price accordingly. If the TICK sets up and the price is right then the trade is made...I need to set some sort of SMA band once I determine that an SMA is the rough stop setting as today was...less 5 - 10 cents.
Jeff.
Monday, June 15...frustration sets in
There are days when I wonder if the frustration is worth it...today I vent.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy trading, the analysis, the watching market activity.
When I have a bad day, I learn from the poor ideas to avoid certain setups. I learn better how to judge and move stop settings. I get just that little bit more comfortable with the whole plan and execution. I have been getting better at entries and not entering when I shouldn't. I feel OK about the fact that I had a down day.
Good days, they speak for themselves, who can feel down on a good day?
But there are days that are in between. I know that missing a move is expected and there is little chance of catching every move over the course of the day. As I do not trade for a living (far from it yet) and I do other work during the day, I have interruptions in trading. I work trading into my schedule as I can. This is a huge problem with respect to trading for a profit.
This leads to a day like today.
Last week was a range week and I watched and learned. I made some trades and lost some trades, noted how the volume affected Friday's trading and how the week slowed right down to that day.
Without getting into the whole analysis I was planning my trades around a drop in the market today below the low of last week. In that I was not disappointed.
To keep the story short I placed a trade with a too tight stop, I see that now and should have seen it at the time...lesson leaned. I watched as the price did not come back to the entry I wanted...I actually set it well but hesitation had me miss it. I tried twice more unsuccessfully, only due to other issues interfering with my attention on the charts. By the time I could concentrate I entered a trade against my TICK timing and at a point in the pattern where a reversal was at least as likely as a continuation.
I fell prey to the "trade for the sake of being in a trade" trap. Frustration at missing trade entries clouded my judgement.
I knew that the trade was likely to go against me but I "hoped" that I would be wrong (HUH?) and the trade would go in my favour.
So I hope that I learned this lesson...although this is a recurring theme in my trading, that I miss some of the best moving days, even though my plan is sound.
I am going to have some lunch and review my plan, my setups and my mindset for the day to see if I can make some decent trades in the afternoon.
Jeff.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy trading, the analysis, the watching market activity.
When I have a bad day, I learn from the poor ideas to avoid certain setups. I learn better how to judge and move stop settings. I get just that little bit more comfortable with the whole plan and execution. I have been getting better at entries and not entering when I shouldn't. I feel OK about the fact that I had a down day.
Good days, they speak for themselves, who can feel down on a good day?
But there are days that are in between. I know that missing a move is expected and there is little chance of catching every move over the course of the day. As I do not trade for a living (far from it yet) and I do other work during the day, I have interruptions in trading. I work trading into my schedule as I can. This is a huge problem with respect to trading for a profit.
This leads to a day like today.
Last week was a range week and I watched and learned. I made some trades and lost some trades, noted how the volume affected Friday's trading and how the week slowed right down to that day.
Without getting into the whole analysis I was planning my trades around a drop in the market today below the low of last week. In that I was not disappointed.
To keep the story short I placed a trade with a too tight stop, I see that now and should have seen it at the time...lesson leaned. I watched as the price did not come back to the entry I wanted...I actually set it well but hesitation had me miss it. I tried twice more unsuccessfully, only due to other issues interfering with my attention on the charts. By the time I could concentrate I entered a trade against my TICK timing and at a point in the pattern where a reversal was at least as likely as a continuation.
I fell prey to the "trade for the sake of being in a trade" trap. Frustration at missing trade entries clouded my judgement.
I knew that the trade was likely to go against me but I "hoped" that I would be wrong (HUH?) and the trade would go in my favour.
So I hope that I learned this lesson...although this is a recurring theme in my trading, that I miss some of the best moving days, even though my plan is sound.
I am going to have some lunch and review my plan, my setups and my mindset for the day to see if I can make some decent trades in the afternoon.
Jeff.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Trading Journal
I have hit upon a nice comfortable method and setup to do my trade journalling on paper now. As much as I like having the nice charts I don't think that they are going to be as much of a reference as I thought they might. I see that Esignal has expanded the historical archive of intraday data, or are in process, so I can always refer back to any trade based on my journal entry. I may print the odd one or still notate them and log them here as well if I think they will be important reference.
This feels like a transition for me as I start to really see the nuances and interaction of the markets. Touching on the topic of too much information, I now find that blog posts are mostly confirmations of things that I am already doing or am trying to do in my trading. I am still struggling witht he execution of the trades, getting in just right and setting stops according to where they really should be. It's getting there.
Today's trading was disappointing only in that I was unable to capture the moves that I wanted to catch and saw setting up. I missed one to hesitation, one to interruption, one to away at lunch and one to lack of confidence in my trade idea at the time. All learning points though.
Having said that, saying my trading was disappointing is a little misleading in that I only had one losing trade of the four that I placed. The disappointment was not being there on the longer rides. One trade in particular I moved my stop intentionally to capture the momentum move that had just occurred from my entry BUT had I left my stop just 5 cents lower I would have doubled my profits... no big deal as the plan was the plan.
All in all I think I did well enough to consider it a successful day and it could easily have been profitable given more action on my part.
Here is a decent trade for today that I could have rode farther but still came out ahead on. The stops I need to work on but if I chose to just exit at better than break even I would be doing better. I just would rather work on slightly longer term trades than the short, almost scalping style of trades. There is, ultimately more money in holding for the moves.
TICK chart:
This feels like a transition for me as I start to really see the nuances and interaction of the markets. Touching on the topic of too much information, I now find that blog posts are mostly confirmations of things that I am already doing or am trying to do in my trading. I am still struggling witht he execution of the trades, getting in just right and setting stops according to where they really should be. It's getting there.
Today's trading was disappointing only in that I was unable to capture the moves that I wanted to catch and saw setting up. I missed one to hesitation, one to interruption, one to away at lunch and one to lack of confidence in my trade idea at the time. All learning points though.
Having said that, saying my trading was disappointing is a little misleading in that I only had one losing trade of the four that I placed. The disappointment was not being there on the longer rides. One trade in particular I moved my stop intentionally to capture the momentum move that had just occurred from my entry BUT had I left my stop just 5 cents lower I would have doubled my profits... no big deal as the plan was the plan.
All in all I think I did well enough to consider it a successful day and it could easily have been profitable given more action on my part.
Here is a decent trade for today that I could have rode farther but still came out ahead on. The stops I need to work on but if I chose to just exit at better than break even I would be doing better. I just would rather work on slightly longer term trades than the short, almost scalping style of trades. There is, ultimately more money in holding for the moves.
TICK chart:
Chart for SPY for the same period:
This was a typical PP200 trade with a TICK timed entry. The only thing better would have been a launch off of the black previous day high at the same time. As it was all of the moving averages were converging and lending seeming support to the price activity. The volume picked up after I was out as the price crossed the high line. I didn't get back to actively watching the chart until after the nice climb to the top started enough that I was price chasing and would need to large a stop to feel comfortable.
Jeff.
Bloggers and Twitters overload
I am following a few, very few, bloggers and Twitters now. Even amoungst the few that I follow, in addition to a general twitter list for the market that I trade, I find a lot of regurgitation of posts and tweets. Sometimes it is not uncommon for one to be posted and three or four others will copy and paste...some with acknowledgements, some without. Some are more prolific at it than others... or maybe the word is blatant. It's fine to share information but there is so much overlap anymore that I find myself linking to articles and blog posts that I have already read, usually the original.
Maybe I should be linking all this stuff too?....Nah!
This makes finding original material hard to find and wastes time reading the tweet or blog that does the linking.
Oh, well. That's the internet for you.
Jeff.
Maybe I should be linking all this stuff too?....Nah!
This makes finding original material hard to find and wastes time reading the tweet or blog that does the linking.
Oh, well. That's the internet for you.
Jeff.
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