Best of Trades, Worst of Trades, Some of the Others too
- Thread starter KymarFye
- Start date
Good...
Now, to more important matters - I'm very glad to read over in chit-chat that Shreddy came through the operation well.
I wonder if, given the nature of his injuries, he's not going to be spending a lot of time in your lap, helping you put your market overview together.
Annie spends many mornings doing that for me - especially when the weather's cold. She's a high four-figure dog: Not only does she suffer from a health problem that's been expensive to treat and may get more so ("dry eye" - a chronic condition), but she also got me evicted from my last apartment (she may have just been a pretext). For a while back in Y2k, she had her own medical team AND her own lawyer. All this for a "free" dog that I'd rescued off the street, then decided to keep after no one claimed her at the pound... I consider the money very well spent.
The "expensive" dog, my JRT Buddy, has been a lot cheaper...
Keep us informed about Shreddy's convalescence...
So whaddayathink, catman? Do you head into trading on Monday with any set of expectations or a specific plan (buy in pre-market, wait for other signs, etc.)?
Regardless of what happens to MSFT in particular, having the judgment coming on top of Friday's rally and heading into Congressional elections and an FOMC meeting could make for some particularly treacherous trading this week.
Regardless of what happens to MSFT in particular, having the judgment coming on top of Friday's rally and heading into Congressional elections and an FOMC meeting could make for some particularly treacherous trading this week.
...just let me say that I'm very well aware that no one was forcing me to trade today, that the markets will still be there tomorrow, that you don't need to trade when conditions - personal, market-internal, stock-specific, technical, whatever - aren't favorable, and so on, and so on.
I did NOT have a disastrous day, but I did have a bad one. Continuing Tradestation data problems, a bit of exhaustion, and the intrinsic difficulties of meat grinder session kept me off balance. I made a tough day worse by closing off good trades prematurely, and finishing off matters with a particular kind of trade that I've tried to make a point of NOT taking (see below).
After the bell, I fired off an angry e-mail to Tradestation - I had been given the impression that their problems were to have been solved over the weekend. By the time I had signed up for and was beginning to explore an E-Signal 30-day trial, an apologetic-sounding TS rep. called me up, and explained how to take advantage of TS's new fix.
My initial impression of E-Signal 7.1 is that it might have potential, but I don't look forward to learning it, and I'm too used to TS to want to make something else my primary trading app...
I did NOT have a disastrous day, but I did have a bad one. Continuing Tradestation data problems, a bit of exhaustion, and the intrinsic difficulties of meat grinder session kept me off balance. I made a tough day worse by closing off good trades prematurely, and finishing off matters with a particular kind of trade that I've tried to make a point of NOT taking (see below).
After the bell, I fired off an angry e-mail to Tradestation - I had been given the impression that their problems were to have been solved over the weekend. By the time I had signed up for and was beginning to explore an E-Signal 30-day trial, an apologetic-sounding TS rep. called me up, and explained how to take advantage of TS's new fix.
My initial impression of E-Signal 7.1 is that it might have potential, but I don't look forward to learning it, and I'm too used to TS to want to make something else my primary trading app...
As stated above, I never should have taken this trade: I call them "volatile breakdowns," to distinguish them from true breakdowns (or breakouts) from good consolidations. This set-up might actually, at least in another context, have been a good fade candidate, especially after it re-crossed the trigger point (the prior session's close and open).
A short into support, the trade had "loser" written all over it, even with the market in the middle of (actually near the end of) a late afternoon sell-off. It was kind of a low-odds, swing-for-the-fences, hate-the-world-I'll-try-anything kind of trade. When I took a second look, just after entering, I also realized that it's move was rather overextended to afford any decent probability of extension: If I had already been short, I would have been gratefully covering around where I in actuality entered, not thinking of adding to the position. To make matters worse, bad data and misleading quotes made a timely exit difficult - the chart doesn't quite depict how easy it was, under these peculiar circumstances, to push the trade to the max loss limit, and then find myself without an available exit, even while seeming to see a possibility for getting out more advantageously on some "wiggle" that hadn't yet materialized...
I SHOULD have gotten out earlier - instead, as so often during these everything-that-can-go-wrong-will trades, I got out near the worst possible place... I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, as slippage in small cap-trading is normal - the sacrifice you accept in exchange for the greater range and often-better directionality, and the often clearer structural set-ups. Should have been an impetus though to be even more quick on the trigger on the exits, rather than more wishful.
A short into support, the trade had "loser" written all over it, even with the market in the middle of (actually near the end of) a late afternoon sell-off. It was kind of a low-odds, swing-for-the-fences, hate-the-world-I'll-try-anything kind of trade. When I took a second look, just after entering, I also realized that it's move was rather overextended to afford any decent probability of extension: If I had already been short, I would have been gratefully covering around where I in actuality entered, not thinking of adding to the position. To make matters worse, bad data and misleading quotes made a timely exit difficult - the chart doesn't quite depict how easy it was, under these peculiar circumstances, to push the trade to the max loss limit, and then find myself without an available exit, even while seeming to see a possibility for getting out more advantageously on some "wiggle" that hadn't yet materialized...
I SHOULD have gotten out earlier - instead, as so often during these everything-that-can-go-wrong-will trades, I got out near the worst possible place... I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, as slippage in small cap-trading is normal - the sacrifice you accept in exchange for the greater range and often-better directionality, and the often clearer structural set-ups. Should have been an impetus though to be even more quick on the trigger on the exits, rather than more wishful.
Trading is hard enough without having to deal with this crap.
ADBE gapped down this morning, and, heading right into support amidst an overall uptrend, appeared to present a perfect opportunity for a fade. Only the generally lackadaisacal, consolidating quality of the trading on the heels of so much action and ahead of so much news (elections, FOMC, CSCO) suggested there might not be too much follow-through to play for.
I later learned, in the ET chat room, that some worthy, no doubt highly expert and far-seeing analyst, had put a "SELL" on ADBE. I'm glad I hadn't checked out the headline behind the gap, as it might have made me a little shakier: Even at this late date, "SELL"'s still are relatively rare.
In short, I went long anyway when conditions were met, and got re-entries for a second and finally a third try. The second worked out as ill-timed and arguably miscalculated - into a a pullback around resistance and a shakeout around the early LOD. It made for a substantial hit - and my worst trade of the day.
Could have kept a slightly looser stop, I suppose - or a tighter one. Good thing for me and my mood and my results that the third trade worked out almost exactly as well as the first.
I came out ahead overall, and very close to what turned out to be my total for the session, as the rest of the trading day was pretty much small change, with a couple of good trades being somewhat countered by a couple of wasted efforts.
I later learned, in the ET chat room, that some worthy, no doubt highly expert and far-seeing analyst, had put a "SELL" on ADBE. I'm glad I hadn't checked out the headline behind the gap, as it might have made me a little shakier: Even at this late date, "SELL"'s still are relatively rare.
In short, I went long anyway when conditions were met, and got re-entries for a second and finally a third try. The second worked out as ill-timed and arguably miscalculated - into a a pullback around resistance and a shakeout around the early LOD. It made for a substantial hit - and my worst trade of the day.
Could have kept a slightly looser stop, I suppose - or a tighter one. Good thing for me and my mood and my results that the third trade worked out almost exactly as well as the first.
I came out ahead overall, and very close to what turned out to be my total for the session, as the rest of the trading day was pretty much small change, with a couple of good trades being somewhat countered by a couple of wasted efforts.
Played around a bit more with E-Signal, and one thing I'm surprised about is that they haven't improved their "alert" sub-routines. One of the most useful features of TS is its "intelligent drawing tools" - draw a trendline, get an alert when it's crossed. There's no similar capacity in E-Signal. On the other hand, I kind of like the E-Signal scanners: Simple as they are, they might prove useful for me.
The TS data today was flawless: No stalled quotes, L2 and Order Bar perfectly in sync. What a relief! Hallelujah! I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, irate toward TS, and guilty for having said positive things about TS in the past. I still feel surprised they could let the problem persist for as long as they did, but I'm ready to put it behind me. As for E-Sig, at this point I'm leaning against keeping the main platform, even as a back-up (though the scanners are another issue). Might make more sense to open a backup trading account at IB, and use it as backup for quotes as well, if not full-fledged charting.
The TS data today was flawless: No stalled quotes, L2 and Order Bar perfectly in sync. What a relief! Hallelujah! I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, irate toward TS, and guilty for having said positive things about TS in the past. I still feel surprised they could let the problem persist for as long as they did, but I'm ready to put it behind me. As for E-Sig, at this point I'm leaning against keeping the main platform, even as a back-up (though the scanners are another issue). Might make more sense to open a backup trading account at IB, and use it as backup for quotes as well, if not full-fledged charting.