The last two posts are mine, published last night.
short HON
long BA
short CI
long AET
The charts are at the forum TRADING and at the thread Charts of Note.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=237628&perpage=10&pagenumber=39
HON BA trade: I entered it with a full level one position (a normal share lot for an opening for me). The session opening gave a BIG gift, thank you VERY much ! BA gapped down at the open, making the spread bigger than the close of Friday session.
I entered HON BA 2 hrs and 10 min after session open and remained open at end of session today.
CI AET trade. On the Charts of Note thread last night I commented it may be prudent to leg in to this one due to the recent narrowing of the spread late last week. (It would have been better to get into this last week, it appeared.) But as the session wore on today, the spread retraced to mid-week similar to mid-week last week and allowed for an entry as good as there could possibly last week. Joy !
I entered CI AET 2 hrs and 15 min after session open and remained open at end of session today.
In the aggregate, within the first half hour of opening these, I enjoyed the appearance of gains; at the close of the session I experienced an equal amount of loss in the position. Both pairs appear they could be a normal time of holding.... one to two weeks.
CI AET may be eligible for adding a second layer at some time in the future. For HON BA, there is kissy kissy sentiment for HON (my short) and neutral sentiment for BA. I don't trade on that, and I don't trade on fundamentals. I use no software and ignore the standard metrics applicable for pair trading. Purely chart movement. This has worked consistently well over the years for me. I DO anticipate becoming working with those metrics in months to come, slowly bringing them on to determine how much wheaties can be added to my results.
The following is a narrative of my style. It explains me. Inside that context, I am appealing for comments on pairs I post and trades I nurture. There is much to be critical of (good and bad). It is not intended to be a full fledged journal. I cannot post that frequently now. But when I do, I would like constructive feedback or opinions.
The timing with which I get in to a trade does not have to be done with any preciseness as in technical analysis which I virtually do not use either. I am a position, swing trader and judge entries and exits by the day more than I do by the hour or minute.
I acknowledge and applaud the success others have expressed years ago on this thread using all the tools I don't. I have not read all the posts. I did come away with a sense that Johnny's (thread originator) and others are short term or very short term in their positions. That may have influenced me to ignore some of the metrics and software being used, because I was not interested in short term.
Next comes the question what is short term ? Probably it is in the eyes of the beholder. I am a bit of a hybrid. I like to see my positions mature into at least half their potential, but I sometime scalp them along the way. I watched early on the rolling nature of many pairs, and it sparked the old 1990's day trader in me. So I traditionally in my trading do that, too. If one is not considered a "trader" wherein "wash sales" are not an issue, this scalping can be lucrative, but just a subset of the bigger, macro picture of what is expected in the trading of a pair of mine.
A defining characteristic of my trades is SECURITY. For crying out loud, I look at some half dozen or more chart terms (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly time periods) attempting to ferret out the liability of a trade I'm contemplating. I don't argue with the notion that only the short term (perhaps under 6 months) is important for a trade. But I put on the extra measure of safety, looking top down at a pairs' spread history starting 15 or 20 years into the past. It gives me a degree of comfort to know that a trade that does not go good for me will eventually come back (high probability). No one wants to suffer lost opportunity costs holding on to dead money in a trade. That is why each trade is a small part of my trading capital. But you argue: "It is all relative." I agree. I mitigate a trade that is experiencing an unbooked loss by first scalping when I can as the trade matures. These scalps frequently occur from layers added to the original trade. Secondly, long term unbooked trades eventually revert to the mean or at least to a point where the cumulative, profitable scalps neutralize the eventual and final booked loss of the first layer. A comment here about going forward. My traditional style will be truncated as I pay less attention to progress in a trade as I used to. I have some life issues to deal with just now. But I will do my best anyway, knowing I will miss many of what were traditionally deemed as opportunities.
Do I ever pull the ejection handle earlier ? I am always second guessing myself. Did the pair really warrant being put on as a trade ? Infrequently, but I HAVE concluded that I "did the wrong thing." Due to the length of time in the trade and the opportunities that have presented itself to scalp, I may or may not punch out early (for me).
This is not a good time in my life due to other projects that were forced on me to be meticulously journaling. Rather, I would like to post some charts I am interested in. I will make occasional notes as a trade is in progress, but nothing frequent. I will also make comments about charts I had already closed a trade out of: I like tracking them well beyond the closing of the trade. How much did they mature past my closing into what would have been that much more rich of a trade ? They were good trades once; they sometimes retrace to the origin of the first trade that was successful. The trades above, HON and BA along with CI and AET were old, good trades and have come back for use again.
At a minimum, maybe we can revive what was a wonderful thread for years. In that case, it won't be about me; maybe I just became a catalyst.
