Mental Case

[truber]

Your identity shapes what you can perceive, you're sticking points, the WORK you do in purposeful learning and ultimately the results you receive.

How do you go about selecting your Universe of stocks to trade?
How do you determine when you should enter and when you exit?

Post a chart and log of how you see the market.

If you're not annotating your charts nor logging, there's no way for you to get better outside the paradigm you exist within.

The fact that you are trading low quality stocks under $10 with low liquidity is a gamblers game.

Thanks Sprout. I will get you those on Friday.

 

[truber]

Your identity shapes what you can perceive, you're sticking points, the WORK you do in purposeful learning and ultimately the results you receive.

How do you go about selecting your Universe of stocks to trade?
How do you determine when you should enter and when you exit?

Post a chart and log of how you see the market.

If you're not annotating your charts nor logging, there's no way for you to get better outside the paradigm you exist within.

The fact that you are trading low quality stocks under $10 with low liquidity is a gamblers game.

I use TradeStation scanner to select stocks once a week, Fridays at 8:05PM based on the following criteria: (largely the same week to week) and considering tweaking it some to narrow and rotate based on sector and industry performance.

Current Ratio > 1
Quick Ratio > 1
ROE > 0
Average 50 day volume > 255,000

I copy and paste into RadarScreen where I sort based on price, <$13 I move to a different Radarscreen for my smaller accounts

I then sort by %R momentum and RSI Crossover indicator I wrote. I will send snapshot on Friday.

Here is my entry criteria (Not to exceed)
{Buy Limit}
If Open < Close[2] then PortE = Low[2]
Else if Open < High[1] or Open = High[1] and Open > Low[2] then PortE = High[1]
Else if Open > High[1] then PortE = Last
Else if Open < Low[1] then PortE = Last;

Where portE is Position Entry. Meaning any price below this variable.

Here is my stop criteria:
If Low[1] - .04 < Low then
TStop = Low[1] - .04 else
If Low[1] - .04 > Low then
TStop = Low - .04 Else
If Low[1] -.04 = Low then
TStop = Low - .04 else
If Last < TStop then
TStop = Last -.04;

Here is my profit target:
{Fibonacca Retracement}
Fib = ((HBar - LBar)*.382) + Lbar;
TargetP = Fib - .03;

 

[HobbyTrading]

@truber you mention in your opening message that you have five accounts. Do you trade all these in an identical way? Or do you have different objectives, risk profiles and trading strategies for each of them?

 

[truber]

@truber you mention in your opening message that you have five accounts. Do you trade all these in an identical way? Or do you have different objectives, risk profiles and trading strategies for each of them?

I trade them in a slightly different way. The Smaller Roth IRA's are longer term (investment) The futures I am building capital in to trade 3-4 ES contracts in. The individual, a smaller account, I am building towards 50K to be able to short. I mostly trade the IRA with $116K. Still learning Options. Hope that helps.

 

[truber]

Didnt trade Monday through Thursday. Last and only trade this week, Long RAD 2700@3.13. Filled at the Bid. I owe Sprout more info this evening, most likely Sat. at some point.

 

[HobbyTrading]

I trade them in a slightly different way. The Smaller Roth IRA's are longer term (investment) The futures I am building capital in to trade 3-4 ES contracts in. The individual, a smaller account, I am building towards 50K to be able to short. I mostly trade the IRA with $116K. Still learning Options. Hope that helps.

If the objective and time horizon is different for each of these accounts it could make sense to clearly define what risk profile you are willing to attach to each of the accounts. You may want to have much less risk and less fluctuation/volatility in your retirement account than in the account you use for e.g. futures.

 

[truber]

Just talking to myself... Self: You stupid fool. Couldnt hold RAD from 3.11 to 4.11 had to sell out of it early. Same problem, over and over and over. Any small dip and you panic. Other Self: I didnt want to give up the gain. You'v seen it go right back down before. Self: We;ve talk about this. Just move the stop ignoramus! Other Self: I know. you are right. Self: Plus then you dont know a good spot to get back in. You leave so much on the table. Learn to trade or just stop. Other Self: I need to learn the difference between a dip and a reversal, (in real time). Self: Learn it fast or just stop.

 

[Jdesey]

Just talking to myself... Self: You stupid fool. Couldnt hold RAD from 3.11 to 4.11 had to sell out of it early. Same problem, over and over and over. Any small dip and you panic. Other Self: I didnt want to give up the gain. You'v seen it go right back down before. Self: We;ve talk about this. Just move the stop ignoramus! Other Self: I know. you are right. Self: Plus then you dont know a good spot to get back in. You leave so much on the table. Learn to trade or just stop. Other Self: I need to learn the difference between a dip and a reversal, (in real time). Self: Learn it fast or just stop.

bro, I used to drive myself Bat S**t crazy just like you. What changed it for me was to have a hard stop and hard exit in the system upon entry. I discovered OCO (one cancels the other) bracket orders and it really helped my trading. The only thing I will mess with while in a trace is to tighten my stop as I am moving more and more into profit. I have to have a fixed exit, otherwise I just hang on too long and yo know what happens.

good luck

 

[truber]

I use TradeStation scanner to select stocks once a week, Fridays at 8:05PM based on the following criteria: (largely the same week to week) and considering tweaking it some to narrow and rotate based on sector and industry performance.

Current Ratio > 1
Quick Ratio > 1
ROE > 0
Average 50 day volume > 255,000

I copy and paste into RadarScreen where I sort based on price, <$13 I move to a different Radarscreen for my smaller accounts

I then sort by %R momentum and RSI Crossover indicator I wrote. I will send snapshot on Friday.

Here is my entry criteria (Not to exceed)
{Buy Limit}
If Open < Close[2] then PortE = Low[2]
Else if Open < High[1] or Open = High[1] and Open > Low[2] then PortE = High[1]
Else if Open > High[1] then PortE = Last
Else if Open < Low[1] then PortE = Last;

Where portE is Position Entry. Meaning any price below this variable.

Here is my stop criteria:
If Low[1] - .04 < Low then
TStop = Low[1] - .04 else
If Low[1] - .04 > Low then
TStop = Low - .04 Else
If Low[1] -.04 = Low then
TStop = Low - .04 else
If Last < TStop then
TStop = Last -.04;

Here is my profit target:
{Fibonacca Retracement}
Fib = ((HBar - LBar)*.382) + Lbar;
TargetP = Fib - .03;

So here is the rest of it. Here is the %R momentum and RSI crossover.
%R is current %R, %R-1 is one day back and %R-3 is three days back. If %R-1 is great than %R-3 it turn yellow. If %R is great then R%-1 it turn Green highlight for buy trigger.

Here is my realtime position size calculator for the code above. I can adjust risk levels and ATR's as needed.

 

[truber]

bro, I used to drive myself Bat S**t crazy just like you. What changed it for me was to have a hard stop and hard exit in the system upon entry. I discovered OCO (one cancels the other) bracket orders and it really helped my trading. The only thing I will mess with while in a trace is to tighten my stop as I am moving more and more into profit. I have to have a fixed exit, otherwise I just hang on too long and yo know what happens.

good luck

Yes. Thank you. I have those and and cant seem to follow them. I just need need to learn to TRUST them. As you can see RAD went to 4.16 today. So I would of nailed it. Thanks so much for letting me know I can change this really bad trading habit. The dips freak me out because I dont know what they really are.
Thanks again!!