People like that steve tvardek. Where did you learn DAYtrading??

[Maverick74]

Edit:

After I got short when HNZ broke the open, I would be selling stock on every downtick. Offer steps down, I sell more stock. Offer steps down again, I sell more stock. All the way into the cleanup print. Sorry I left that out. Anytime a stock makes new highs or lows I'm adding. Not size, just a few 100 shares at a time. I want to keep upticking or downticking the stock. I'm helping the specialist walk the stock up or walk it down. We are working together at this point. OK, that's all.

 

[chud]

Thanks for explaining your thought process Mav. Very helpful post.

The difficult part for me is that on the run up, HNZ at one time pulled back 25 cents. Then on the sell off, it bounced 34 cents. Both times, it eventually resumed the trend, but at some point you have to lock in profits and close the position no matter how sure you think you are of a big buyer or seller. Would you routinely hold a stock that moves 20+ cents against you?

Thanks again for the post.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from chud:

Thanks for explaining your thought process Mav. Very helpful post.

The difficult part for me is that on the run up, HNZ at one time pulled back 25 cents. Then on the sell off, it bounced 34 cents. Both times, it eventually resumed the trend, but at some point you have to lock in profits and close the position no matter how sure you think you are of a big buyer or seller. Would you routinely hold a stock that moves 20+ cents against you?

Thanks again for the post.

If you got in on the open you never were in the hole. And if you got short right before it broke the open, the stock never went against you. It's very important you get long as soon as you find the buyer. If he is there, the stock is not going to go against you much especially if you know where he is, the level he is bidding at. Same thing on the sell side. I don't see where this position would have gone against you .25 or .34 cents. If you got in at bad prices yes, but you need to watch the tape. I cannot emphasize this enough. The guys who get squeezed on the short are the ones that wait too long to get in and they are now chasing the stock. You don't want to do that.

Also, something else that I can't say enough times. I know ET is fascinated by pennies. I don't know if it's a love for copper or what. But in the old days, stocks use to trade in fractions. And they would have 1/16th or 1/8 spreads, sometimes even 1/4 pt. So 19 cents is only 3 teenies. Guys that is not a big move. One of the mistakes I see traders make a lot is they get so nervous over nothing. Relax, take a deep breath. The stock isn't going anywhere. Find the buyer, look for the bids, find his levels. Try to bid for stocks at good levels on pullbacks. Don't let teeny moves scare you of the stock.

We use to have a word for this, it was a called a mook. A mook gets scared as soon as he is long a stock and big bad offer shows up. A mook is the first guy that upticks a stock that has been downticking for 30 straight prints. He just can't take it anymore, he has to buy his stock back. A mook is a guy that quickly sells when he is up a teeny only to watch the stock go up another 5 pts. A mook is a guy that gets shaken out of every large move right before the move happens. Don't be a mook. LOL.

 

[Babak]

Quote from Maverick74:

...When you see the specialist spread the stock I immediately go to market and sell.

...Once I see the specialist spread the stock down I immediately go to market and buy the stock, all of it. You will notice the volume spike. That is a cleanup print.

Mav,
I follow you and I agree with what you've written. Just a few Q re terminology that I'm not familiar with. What do you mean when you say the specialist spreads the stock? And what is a 'cleanup print'? Thanks.

 

[ChaosNSX]

-ET

If your going to do what MAV does, you are going to need lightning fast and reliable quotes.. During fast markets there really is no such thing, but you need to have more reliable quotes then most on the other side of the screen. Possibly even prime brokerage. I know everyone is fascinated with the deep discount brokers, but if you are trying to taperead that means nothing if you miss the half dollar prints.

Best way to do this is you need to have a bare bones well programmed execution system. Be cheap on charts, not on execution. I keep my charts on a separate platform.

One thing I would like to add is to wait for a 10 min range to be created.. Institutional orders use tops and bottoms.. wait till price smacks up against both sides, then plan your entries. Otherwise your pretty much the pong ball till one sides gone.

I'm done for this friday already. Heres another one of mavs examples. The short i did this morning was in GS at 155.61 and cover was around 154.

Have a good weekend all, and I felt like sharing because its my birthday.

-Ciao 4 now

Quote from sappjason:

Hey Maverick,
When you were actually trading listed stocks, were you literally watching the T&S fly by to determine where the buyers/sellers were? Or were you doing something like watching the bid/ask and current volume (as a single, dynamically changing statistic)?
The reason I ask is because I'm having a hell of a time finding a way to get accurate T&S data live (during the trading day). I use Interactive Brokers and their T&S capabilities suck. I think I can obtain the T&S data (after the fact), but it's during trading that I am running into problems....
I have written a program using IB's Java API that I can actually watch the ticks change, but after doing some reading on IBs data feed, I believe their data is fed to customers on 200 millisecond clips and they actually miss some of the market changes. They do this (I believe) so that they are feeding the most up-to-date bid/ask to their customers as quickly as possible. Whereas some data feeds send it all, but this causes large delays during periods of heavy trading.
I know I'm being a pain in the #^*#*&^&*, but if I'm going to be training myself to read the tape, I want to make sure I'm LOOKING AT THE RIGHT TAPE....

Thanks so much,


Jason

 

[ChaosNSX]

I didn't do PD, but another good example.

 

[Completenewbee]

Quote from sappjason:


I have written a program using IB's Java API that I can actually watch the ticks change, but after doing some reading on IBs data feed, I believe their data is fed to customers on 200 millisecond clips and they actually miss some of the market changes. They do this (I believe) so that they are feeding the most up-to-date bid/ask to their customers as quickly as possible. Whereas some data feeds send it all, but this causes large delays during periods of heavy trading.
I know I'm being a pain in the #^*#*&^&*, but if I'm going to be training myself to read the tape, I want to make sure I'm LOOKING AT THE RIGHT TAPE....

T&S is are actual trades that took place between two parties, not all bids and offers that appeared, refreshed and were cancelled again.That's a load of information... you want to know about actual trades that made the market move and what happend prior to it, what the reaction was and who did it (L2..)


Right Maverick? (Correct me if 'm mistaken)

T&S
The link provided by that one guy(name forgotten, sorry) is great. You can get the T&S lists...

Print them out every day like I just started.


Jason

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from sappjason:

Hey Maverick,
When you were actually trading listed stocks, were you literally watching the T&S fly by to determine where the buyers/sellers were? Or were you doing something like watching the bid/ask and current volume (as a single, dynamically changing statistic)?
The reason I ask is because I'm having a hell of a time finding a way to get accurate T&S data live (during the trading day). I use Interactive Brokers and their T&S capabilities suck. I think I can obtain the T&S data (after the fact), but it's during trading that I am running into problems....
I have written a program using IB's Java API that I can actually watch the ticks change, but after doing some reading on IBs data feed, I believe their data is fed to customers on 200 millisecond clips and they actually miss some of the market changes. They do this (I believe) so that they are feeding the most up-to-date bid/ask to their customers as quickly as possible. Whereas some data feeds send it all, but this causes large delays during periods of heavy trading.
I know I'm being a pain in the #^*#*&^&*, but if I'm going to be training myself to read the tape, I want to make sure I'm LOOKING AT THE RIGHT TAPE....

Thanks so much,


Jason

Jason,

No, I just was watching the level 1 quote which was the bid, offer, bid size, offer size, last trade, last trade size. That's it. The time and sales you look at after the close. I would pull up the time and sales if I had to step away from the computer I would come back and review all the prints and bids and offers while I was gone so I didn't miss anything. I also had colors for upticks and downticks and when stocks were trading at the high or low or bidding at the high or low. This is very important imo.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from Completenewbee:

T&S is are actual trades that took place between two parties, not all bids and offers that appeared, refreshed and were cancelled again.That's a load of information... you want to know about actual trades that made the market move and what happend prior to it, what the reaction was and who did it (L2..)


Right Maverick? (Correct me if 'm mistaken)

T&S
The link provided by that one guy(name forgotten, sorry) is great. You can get the T&S lists...

Print them out every day like I just started.


Jason

No, the time and sales I use to look at after the close not only had the prints but also all the bids and offers. You need to see the bids and offers! This is very important. You are trying to look for patterns and the only way to see those patterns is to look at the bids and offers and size.

 

[jho]

Quote from sappjason:

On a more philisophical note, what will you do if the NYSE moves away from the specialist system and more towards the whole ECN approach? I'm guessing it's kind-of innevitable as technology advances. I do know that many NYSE stocks are also traded on some of the ECNs (such as Island and Archipelago). I guess my question here is: Do you think the ways of the ticker tape readers will be a thing of the past or once you learn this time tested skill, will it always be valuable?

Thanks again,

Jason

Just bumping this question back up for Maverick. I am interested in your opinion on this as well. Thank you.