I recently discovered this forum, (and options for that matter).
Seems like a helpful group posting here, so I thought I'd fire away....
I attended a trading seminar 6 months ago, saw the light ... ("900% returns!!", etc ...), and have been obsessing about trading since. It's encouraging to find out it is actually possible to make a go of it.
Unfortunately, I started out throwing money around at everthing that moved, fairly unsucessfully, which probably goes without saying.
Since then, I've been developing software, and a trading system(s) .... I've had some success, but my exit points are something to be desired...
Basically, I look for things that "don't make sense", (in my limited experience anyway) and trade against it.
I look for stocks that move upruptly out of its trading range, (bollinger bands) and trade against it. The software I developed can capture these moves, I pull data from INET's web services (nasdaq) and data mine.
For instance, I shorted FNM after a 3 move on little news, at 58.41 on 2/23/2006, 20 March puts at .30, it went to 2.20 in two days .... (but unbelievably, I didn't close out, and am selling today at hopefully 1.80 .... arggggh)
I wanted to short SHLD at 133 on 3/16, but didn't have the balls, I would have tripled the money in 30 minutes ...
Any thoughts, suggestions, comments, nasty statements?
Bill P.