Passage to $1 Million

[smilestraders]

Daily Summary for Thurs 07/29/2010:

L 1104.5 exit 2 1108.50 exit 1 1106.50 Total +10
L 1105.75 s/o all 3 1102.50 Total -9.75
L 1090 exit all 3 1093.50 Total +10.5

A good day. Total trading 3 contracts +10.75 points, +3.58/contract.

 

[pcp198]

Quote from JoePaterno:

hey -smiles - this has no value to the public and is an exercise in horrendous money & portfolio management and nothing more than an attempt to scam free potential customers for a future commercial endeavour. Unfortunately, the moderators seem to be blind to this type of circus act...

To be fair, so far Smiles hasnt tried to sell anything and hopefully it will remain that way. I'd like to think his only motivation is help other traders. But in reality, your probably right.

 

[Mikeatrader]

Holy guilty until proven innocent here people!! Stop the whining and complaining about something that hasn't happened yet!! If Smiles comes out and says hes starting a service, and wants to charge people then do your whining and crying, but until then please stop.

 

[JoePaterno]

Quote from pcp198:

To be fair, so far Smiles hasnt tried to sell anything and hopefully it will remain that way. I'd like to think his only motivation is help other traders. But in reality, your probably right.

We seem to get about 20+ smiles a year. To this point, I cannot think of anyone who started out with the links and the shock title and everything else, that did NOT try to later market it.

Instead of nipping them in the bud, the moderators seem to prefer letting them gain a large email list before booting them...

 

[smilestraders]

Quote from JScott:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your "real-time" updates indicate that you pulled your stop on this just as it hit your stop to the tick then moved up from there. Then you put the stop back on.

Your "real-time" update to pull stop was at 9.36am . . . ES hit 1103.5 stop at 9:34am. (Stop was supposedly put back on at 9:44am.)

Care to comment on that ?

JS

JS,

We trade for a living and our first priority is trading. As we are trading we also publish the journal on facebook. Posted are not always immediate on facebook. This can be due to us trading and/or the facebook servers themselves.

Regarding stops in general:

The market is an ever changing and flowing entity, as it changes we must be able to adapt to it. The proper placement of a stop is very important to being a successful trader. A stop should not be place at an arbitrary point, which is while you'll find we never use the same stop loss size. The proper placement for a stop loss is the point at which the market is indicating that the trade is no longer valid.

For this particular trade, the market initially indicated that if it trades at 1103.50, the trade setup was not longer valid. As the market progressed, it indicated that the trade was still valid even at 1103.50. Therefore, we adapted to what the market showed.

We do have the live trading room with live (ie audio) trading calls from time to time. You are welcome to join one of those session if you like. Then you can offer feedback based on fact as opposed to fear or assumptions.

Thanks for the interest in the journal.

Smiles

 

[bigb]

Quote from JoePaterno:

We seem to get about 20+ smiles a year. To this point, I cannot think of anyone who started out with the links and the shock title and everything else, that did NOT try to later market it.

Instead of nipping them in the bud, the moderators seem to prefer letting them gain a large email list before booting them...

I already stated all your concerns a month ago but got no response other than a couple people who all just opened an account and all posts are in this thread. Hmmmmmm, I guess you would have to be an idiot to not figure that out. This will go on for a few more months until he gets enough newbies that will pay to start his mini-trading room from his free advertising on ET. But whatever, I don't care anymore. I personally think the risk is insane on these trades. 21 of them have seen +10% drawdown on total equity but I guess that's what goes with trying to double your account every two weeks.

 

[smilestraders]

This journal has been running for a little over a month now. We truly appreciate the legitimate (ie reality based) posts, those that have critiqued, praised, encouraged, and asked questions. We appreciate the opportunity to help other traders, and are glad to hear that people are enjoying the encouragement and insight this journal and the live trading sessions have provided.

In case some have not read yet, trading will be relatively limited over the next 2 weeks due to the lack of volume during the summer.

Thank you for the support and encouragement,
Smiles

 

[deaddog]

Quote from smilestraders:


For this particular trade, the market initially indicated that if it trades at 1103.50, the trade setup was not longer valid. As the market progressed, it indicated that the trade was still valid even at 1103.50. Therefore, we adapted to what the market showed.

Thanks for the interest in the journal.

Smiles

Could you please expound on this point and give an example of market action that would cause a stop to be valid when the trade was put on and become invalid as the market progressed.

I keep hearing that you only move a stop in the direction of the target, never in the opposite direction.

 

[smilestraders]

Quote from smilestraders:


For this particular trade, the market initially indicated that if it trades at 1103.50, the trade setup was not longer valid. As the market progressed, it indicated that the trade was still valid even at 1103.50. Therefore, we adapted to what the market showed.

Thanks for the interest in the journal.

Smiles

Quote from deaddog:

Could you please expound on this point and give an example of market action that would cause a stop to be valid when the trade was put on and become invalid as the market progressed.

I keep hearing that you only move a stop in the direction of the target, never in the opposite direction.

Deaddog,

Good question. We appreciate the opportunity to elaborate.

The market action that you look for will depend on your trading strategy. One of our strategies includes trading divergences, and we have developed something that shows us good divergences. (DISCLAIMER: WE ARE NOT ATTEMPTING TO MARKET THIS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, since you asked we are just answering)

In this specific instance the divergence still existed, so we removed the stop temporarily. An experienced trader typically knows when the market is trying to eat stops. We did not want out stop to be eaten, we were pretty confident about our read.

One of my lessons from this market is that stops cannot be static. How many times have you stopped out only to see the market go in the direction you thought?

Hope that helps,

Smiles

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from smilestraders:

One of my lessons from this market is that stops cannot be static. How many times have you stopped out only to see the market go in the direction you thought?

The market always eventually goes in the direction you thought, but unfortunately these darned brokers have limits on the margin available to you.

A stop is placed at the station where you want to exit immediately because you realize you got on the wrong train. No worries if this happens; another train will come along.