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January Trading Journals
- Thread starter Hitman
- Start date
I am a beginner at worldco but I have traded NASDAQ successfully for 2 yrs and invested in markets for 10 yrs before that. I traded everything from OTCBB to Big Caps.
In my 12 yrs of observing markets, I noticed that historically the price action is similar to the action during the Bush administration in the early 90's with the only difference being that we were at fair value back then.
As almost everyone here, I too have had an unimpressive week. Monday started out ok when I made $1500 on a short but everything went down hill from there.
My problem, I believe is that I'm over trading, looking for a quick scalp of a 1/4 pt or even less. I traded as I traded before (on breakouts and order flow) but I get whipsawed and stopped out to death.
In the early 90's as some may remember, stocks would mainly move in the morning and stay mostly flat throughout the day. The range they had combined with the way they ranged, did not warrant scalping.
The problem with todays market is that the investors and risk preferred players have vanished. Its all just day traders against the specialist with hardly any institutional moves coming in.
As alot of you have experienced, when you short a stock that just made a new high/low, the next tick would be a violent retracement; just about any entry you make ticks against you.
Hence, there are 2 ways of trading this market:
1. Since, stocks are range bound, it would make sense to work against the trend - buy on a new low for a quick retracement, sell a new high. Chances are the price would retrace 20-40 cents before it tries to break again.
2. Enter on strong long term technical breaks. If you see a stock go out of its weekly range, chances are it will move a few points and then consolidate in another range.
I hope this made sense and any input is welcomed
In my 12 yrs of observing markets, I noticed that historically the price action is similar to the action during the Bush administration in the early 90's with the only difference being that we were at fair value back then.
As almost everyone here, I too have had an unimpressive week. Monday started out ok when I made $1500 on a short but everything went down hill from there.
My problem, I believe is that I'm over trading, looking for a quick scalp of a 1/4 pt or even less. I traded as I traded before (on breakouts and order flow) but I get whipsawed and stopped out to death.
In the early 90's as some may remember, stocks would mainly move in the morning and stay mostly flat throughout the day. The range they had combined with the way they ranged, did not warrant scalping.
The problem with todays market is that the investors and risk preferred players have vanished. Its all just day traders against the specialist with hardly any institutional moves coming in.
As alot of you have experienced, when you short a stock that just made a new high/low, the next tick would be a violent retracement; just about any entry you make ticks against you.
Hence, there are 2 ways of trading this market:
1. Since, stocks are range bound, it would make sense to work against the trend - buy on a new low for a quick retracement, sell a new high. Chances are the price would retrace 20-40 cents before it tries to break again.
2. Enter on strong long term technical breaks. If you see a stock go out of its weekly range, chances are it will move a few points and then consolidate in another range.
I hope this made sense and any input is welcomed
1) Yes, MSFT is one of several big caps that I keep constantly on my screen... but trading isn't restricted to the big caps... having them on my screen allows me to get a better feel for the overall market.
2) I sold into the spike ... the pullback before the spike hadnt satisfied me with enough profit... my internal thought process was "I will let this thing pull back if necessary to give me more wiggle room to the upside"
3) I took profits at an acceptable level at the first signs of a potential v-reversal after 3pm... volume was also increasing, adding credence to my thought that it could be a v-reversal...
ARTV....I had the same thoughts about current trading conditions and 93-95. The market was a flat line for a while back then and you are right a stock would make an early move,usually against me and than take all day to finally revert to its previous days trend.The size of wins also were much smaller. If you had a chance to take 1/4 or 3/8 on a position you had to grab it because the next thing to happen was a reversal that would force you to get stopped out for a 1/2 or more.Very difficult conditions ,but I think with all the world turmiol and the current status of our economy that money flow will be great enough and be moved frequently enough to give all of us good trading conditions.
ACDC
I wouldnt rely so much on world turmoil. With the White House and Congress making a speech almost every day, we've become assimilated to probably just about all current events that dont effect the homeland directly. Also, the market may have discounted turmoil already. Money flow lately has been too weak to provide worthwhile trading opportunities. I think the best way to trade is to trade lightly and infrequently.
At this point, I dont even put in any stops because I know the specialist is just as hungry as I am, waiting to stop me out for a quick buck. Since the mkt is in a thin trading range, I find it hard to believe that a stop would lessen my losses.
A very big thanks to Candle/Cas/Threei for actually providing real meat and potato to feed a hungry trader 
A special thanks to Silk who e-mailed me what he did on Friday and it made a lot of sense.
I won't be jumping out there to make any big changes to my style, but sometimes when you are in a slump it is really helpful to see what is working for other people, and you see the connections and a few minor adjustments later you are playing better.
Starting tommorrow I will make sure all of my trades at least make some sense on 30 minute charts, and I did 60 minute charts for all of my stocks tonight to hopefully get a better read on the overall trend.
I will try to trade 100-200 shares with looser trailing stops on 30 minute charts when I really really like a trade.
Last but not least a big thank you to Brandon who I spoke to over the weekend, who gave some additional insights with his style.
A good trading week to all, even Limbo
A special thanks to Silk who e-mailed me what he did on Friday and it made a lot of sense.
I won't be jumping out there to make any big changes to my style, but sometimes when you are in a slump it is really helpful to see what is working for other people, and you see the connections and a few minor adjustments later you are playing better.
Starting tommorrow I will make sure all of my trades at least make some sense on 30 minute charts, and I did 60 minute charts for all of my stocks tonight to hopefully get a better read on the overall trend.
I will try to trade 100-200 shares with looser trailing stops on 30 minute charts when I really really like a trade.
Last but not least a big thank you to Brandon who I spoke to over the weekend, who gave some additional insights with his style.
A good trading week to all, even Limbo