How to best let winners run? swingtrading TVIX, VXX, SQQQ

KCalhoun

KCalhoun

I believe there is epic best-i've-seen since '99 profit potential in swing/position trading inverse etfs/etns like TVIX/VXX, SQQQ LABD SPXS (SDS QID FAZ) if this trade war etc leads to a market selloff.

Any advice from patient traders on holding on to longterm winning swings? I am a hyperactive day trader; and often do 35-50 trades/day. I am hardwired to take super-tight stops and collect small profits quickly. Patience to sit through pullbacks in open winners is not my strength.

I'm gonna kick myself if i do my typical style and trade in/out too much on the way up esp in TVIX for swings... any ideas? I'd really appreciate any tips for letting a winner run.

I'm thinking deposit more $ in one of my little-used accounts i don't day trade in w/ several buy/stop orders, to build swing position & leave it alone, then continue day trading in my active accounts. Goal is to martingale in to inverses.

look at this chart; i'll be disappointed if i just bank modest profits in small increments for overly-actively swing trading vs buy & leave alone, with looser trailing stops. id likely do something like buy 26 sell 29, buy 31 sell 37, buy 40 sell 44 etc vs buy 26 sell 70 ... anyone else in the 'impatient trader' club?

the neat thing about buying high-volume bounce in inverses if they keep going up is we're near 52wk lo (eg 12.7 TVIX) so close support lvl, and big upside potential. i don't want to muck it up & leave $ on the table like i have before ... probably 'feed a different account & use position sizing with loose (6-8 point+) trailing stops' is key
 
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WELL an elitetrader announced a short position with OCT, NOV as his hold target. But that is based off DOW, which is correlated to itself.SQQQ did real well last OCT, NOV, DEC.

BUT that was because QQQ was below 200dma ……..last OCT, NOV. So that can be a key,also. SEPT sell offs are common unless they front run that in AUG.
 
lol good point Mark; data rules... right Murray re 200 sma, btw note last 2x S&P lost 200 sma we got immediate headfake/pivot back up, so this time i will wait til 3days plus S&P stays under 200sma before scaling in on inverses on size... i'll be thrilled to build large 5K+ share positions in TVIX SQQQ SPXS by martingaling/scaling in.. i'll be more thrilled if i don't cash it all out too soon.

real example: I'm currently long 300 TVIX (up $1300 from friday on winner), tomorrow morning either

a) TVIX may gap down (due to tweet lol, or 8:30 durable goods report reaction, or on tue gap due to consumer sentimnt rpt reaction); ok fine i'll close it at a stop if the gap keeps dropping & give back some of fridays profits, thats ok

or

b) TVIX gaps up and starts to drop premkt, im sorely tempted to at least sell 200 shares, esp if its a big 3+ point gap up that then starts to drop, to lock in profit ... But i should probably just use b/e stop... thats the type of decision to make
 
KCalhoun said:
I believe there is epic best-i've-seen since '99 profit potential in swing/position trading inverse etfs/etns like TVIX/VXX, SQQQ LABD SPXS (SDS QID FAZ) if this trade war etc leads to a market selloff.

Any advice from patient traders on holding on to longterm winning swings? I am a hyperactive day trader; and often do 35-50 trades/day. I am hardwired to take super-tight stops and collect small profits quickly. Patience to sit through pullbacks in open winners is not my strength.

I'm gonna kick myself if i do my typical style and trade in/out too much on the way up esp in TVIX for swings... any ideas? I'd really appreciate any tips for letting a winner run.

I'm thinking deposit more $ in one of my little-used accounts i don't day trade in w/ several buy/stop orders, to build swing position & leave it alone, then continue day trading in my active accounts. Goal is to martingale in to inverses.

look at this chart; i'll be disappointed if i just bank modest profits in small increments for overly-actively swing trading vs buy & leave alone, with looser trailing stops. id likely do something like buy 26 sell 29, buy 31 sell 37, buy 40 sell 44 etc vs buy 26 sell 70 ... anyone else in the 'impatient trader' club?

the neat thing about buying high-volume bounce in inverses if they keep going up is we're near 52wk lo (eg 12.7 TVIX) so close support lvl, and big upside potential. i don't want to muck it up & leave $ on the table like i have before ... probably 'feed a different account & use position sizing with loose (6-8 point+) trailing stops' is key
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Perhaps another way to look at it is “What is a reasonable profit expectation for my time frame and the instrument’s direction”?

Equities prices tend to drop 50% faster than they rise. Prices tend to stall at previous day’s, week’s, reaction high / low points, or a wide range bar. For a trending market, about a standard deviation move based on implied volatility is a reasonable exit point. For trading range days, 1/2 of a standard deviation move on either side of the open seems about right.

For day trading, an “Up day” could be considered those days when the instrument closes higher than its open and an “Down day” is when the price closes below its open. Either use a spreadsheet to calculate the average, or whatever other criteria you want to use, of the range of the up days by subtracting the open from the day’s high. Repeat the same process for down days for the average daily range according to market direction. In the alternative, you can use strike prices of calls and puts as day trading targets for options that expire at the end of the day. Use .16 delta for expected trend days or .30 delta for expected range days. If there are no options expiring on the current day, you can use the following formula: Underlying price*annual Implied volatility of calls for expected up days or puts for expected down days*Square root of (365 minus days to option expiration in calendar days).
 
very smart, you're exactly right ... i use wide range candles & 50%SD/mean reversions a Lot

i like your range calculation approach; thx re deltas, top trick is forecasting, based on premkt futures, whether expected range vs trend days, also big midday reversal days, and tight vs wide range days...

good news for fellow bears, futs down now . im hoping theres no more tweets between now and tomorrow lol

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/25/dow...the-open-as-us-china-trade-war-escalates.html

i'm going to open another account entirely, small under 20k this week and buy a mini-portfolio of TVIX VXX SQQQ SOXS LABD SPXS small size if they breakout, then position size wide over time, eg tvix 23 add at 33, 53; after adding to winners i tighten up to breakeven stop; for 3x wild ones need to use scale-ins much higher to avoid shakeouts ...
 
DUST is a bust... will start diversifying & buy back into SOXS LABD etc if they go up tue/wed ... fwiw here's all my positions in this acct .. hope to grow tvix profits

need to grow a pair & size up, now is the time. I'll go watch John Wick 3 again, lol (great movie) to get in the mood ... gotta love this stuff

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they'll likely gap up monday and i'll be tempted to sell 2/3 of tvix as soon as gap starts to rollover, pat myself on back for selling in time as it drops, then kick myself when it ends much higher eod if i don't re enter... been there done that. will try to fight the temptation to sell the gap
 
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Short ultra ETFs are much more likely to drop than go up. So what to do? An easy safe and very margin friendly way to play for volatility jumps is to simply sell ITM bear call verts, weekly or monthly, and buy 2 or 3 month calls a little OTM. The verts will have a nearly 50/50 R/R and will pay off about 60% of the time. They will easily pay for the calls. The OTM calls will pay off every now and then, but will pay big on those occasional large vol spikes. UVXY works well for this strategy. Unfortunately the best time to do this was when UVXY was scraping bottom like end of Feb, mid Mar, end of Apr, July, etc. Still could work, but better opportunity might be to wait.
 
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