Help! These breakouts are killing me

murray t turtle · Feb 8, 2012

Quote from Matt Houston:

Thanks for all the replies.

Regarding news...I didn't even know Microsoft was reporting until you mentioned. Maybe I should factor that in and tighten stops in this situation.

You know what, it wasn't even the news that got me out, it was just me thinking I am wasting my time trading medium term trends that may not even work out, I had a problem sitting on my hands, I was thinking their must be a more efficient use for my money. I guess that comes from not knowing my "edge" well enough.

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Matt;
sounds like you are upset because you violated your trading plan,
& that was understandable with Greece on a slippery slope down.

$28 area was a resistance on 1 year candlecharts,
many were selling for 3 days before that. I like swing trading good uptrends & good downtrends.

But i also agree with your trendlines;
which show more of a sideways slop trend. So any 1 year resistance is a good place to exit/especially with earnings call, in my plan

Backtest all you want , you may find some wisdom there;
but even with profitable discipline, you are almost always going to close a position early or late.

So not because of Greece, but so many price reasons to close that MSFT trade/investment early.

syswizard · Feb 9, 2012

Quote from murray t turtle:

but even with profitable discipline, you are almost always going to close a position early or late.

Great advice, but tough to implement:
You want to be closing out profitable positions LATE (some give-back) and losing positions EARLY (prevent even more losses).
Do the reverse, and the market will take you out of the trading business in no time flat.

murray t turtle · Feb 15, 2012

Quote from syswizard:/murray t t urtle;
backtest all you want, you may find some wisdom there.Even with profitable discipline,you almost always close a position early or late....

Great advice, but tough to implement:
You want to be closing out profitable positions LATE (some give-back) and losing positions EARLY (prevent even more losses).
Do the reverse, and the market will take you out of the trading business in no time flat.

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FEB, 2012 AD[All data]

I see you points and agree with them.
It may never get easy, but it surely can get easier;
with enough years work.

So much money has been made with your/my comments, & low probability trend trading.I like to study high probability trend trading also, not that that's the most profitable way to trade.

MSFT looked/looks like a sell @ $28 area;
on most all time frames, except the longest /investor time frame.,
& still looks like a sell.If i missed a 10% last part of the move;
thats just part of trend-trading/investing.I can find better probability longs; trading/investing.

Looked on my MSFT paper charts, all data[AD];
its still an uptrend . But while its a great stock/leader/uptrend ;
QQQ, AAPL ,UGA[unleaded gas]are very , very, very extended[monthly, weekly, daily.

Silver, SLV did go up 7 days in a row, so MSFT could uptick a tad or 2 to more.

LOL