Stock trading getting worse

[oddiduro]

Quote from JT47319:

Samba: leverage, no market makers, no specialist, no downtick rule, a single tick in your direction and commissions are covered, taxes, hedging, diversification, liquidity, volatility, reacts like stocks to earnings and news, all make a sort of "purer" trend. TA works a LOT better on the SPOOS, IMO, because now you don't have to figure out if the market makers and specialists are playing mind games on you.

P.S. Almost 24 hour trading too.

P.S.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe limit orders and stops are placed on a Globex machine. So you wouldn't have the specialist shakeout since he can see all the limit orders in his limit book.

P.S.S.S. Almost instantaneous fills too.

Your post has started my research into futures! From what I found, I am going to start trading these.

I trade DIM options profitably, but time decay eats large pieces of my profits, and the spreads are so bad that I have to use a lower delta to offset them if my postion moves against me initially, which it usually does.

Thanks for the info.

 

[bobcathy1]

Quote from Kaizen:



I never asked what you made (or more likely lost) I asked how you were doing percentagewise? If you were making money it is unlikely you would be changing your strategy or method so frequently, therefore my question had to do with how you are doing over the last 4 months because if your not doing well you really shouldn't be offering up that their are "one's that work fine".

Really? Like what? Your trading discretionary latley correct? Do you consider that a strategy? How do you backtest it?

This strategy is only for the chop we have lately with the war. So it is 3 weeks of chop. The first week I got cut up really badly. The second week I tested it and traded a little. The 3rd week I made money with it. So let's say I am even right now.
Backtesting on TS has not produced a good result. I change one of the 3 MAs to suit the chop every day. And adjust the target profit of each trade with the market conditions. And now watch the volume like a hawk too.

If you are curious about the methods, and the changes being made to them....go to Strategy Trading under Chimp Charts and TS.......

 

[bobcathy1]

Quote from dbphoenix:



Either your memory is short or you're just not being very honest with yourself. Even a brief review of your posts shows a lot of complaints about your poor results and the money you've lost and the mistakes you've made and your failures of discipline, etc.

Plus, even though you claim that your system is simple, you have multiple systems and don't seem to enjoy consistent success with any of them.

Which is not to say that the rest of us haven't also had problems adjusting to the markets, particularly the last couple of months.

But please don't sit there and give the impression that you just sit on your boat, "popping off one or two point scalps all day". The journal you've provided via your posts suggests otherwise. You're doing as well or as badly as most of the rest of us.

--Db

I am so glad you have the time to review my posts. Makes me feel important.....I was having problems, I did some testing, and came up with an answer. 3 weeks total.
I just wonder why it is so important to you to pick apart my posts?
I am not an expert at trading, I am just like everyone else here trying to make a living at it. Looking for a system that changes with conditions and works.
I do not know what you do, so far I have never seen a post mentioning your methods. Or are you only a critic?:eek:

 

[illiquid]

Just curious -- bobcathy = The Cat in the old mirc chatroom made by arbi?

 

[hii a_ooiioo_a]

Quote from oddiduro:

I trade DIM options profitably, but time decay eats large pieces of my profits, and the spreads are so bad that I have to use a lower delta to offset them if my postion moves against me initially, which it usually does.

I think DIM means Deep Inthe Money?

You might wish to start your dabbling into futures with Single Stock Futures. They trade the same hours as options (not 24 hours like E-minis), and the major complaint everyone makes about them is the spreads. But if you're coming from options trading, where minimum spread is usually 5¢ because of 5¢ increments, you shouldn't be that put off by 8¢ spreads which are average for SSF. And with 1¢ increments, you can usually get filled at a better price with each wiggle of the stock price, if you place a limit order better than the bid/ask.

With SSF you can start very small with a single contract. The margin is 5:1 (day, night, weekend), there's no order-cancellation fees, no PDT restrictions, no unbundling rule, etc. And most of all, no Time Decay! What a luxury it seems after trading options, to see the stock price go against you and know that when it comes back to the price you bought at, it will be worth the same thing you paid for it.

 

[KEF]

I guess I'm confused as to why people are frustrated. I looked at eminis to trade, but I do not trade them. It seems that they are popular because of the low barrier to entry (10k). I spent a year learning and have been trading full time for 2 months now. I usually scalp stocks for 10 to 50 cents with 2-4k shares, interday trend swing as conditions allow, and 1-3 day swings on pivot moves. I rarely have a down day, although some times I don't make many trades. I am very greedy about good entry. this method has allowed me to be consistantly average 1k per day. If this market is hard now, I look forward to when it is easier

 

[I Missed Boat]

Quote from funky:



are you serious? the guys i'm trading nasdaq with are bringing home serious profits every day. i guess if you look around the room and can't find the sucker.....well you know....

It appears to me that as the market gets worse, and more legit traders quite (and then quite posting on ET), that just leaves more of the BSers on ET talking out of their ass about trading and themselves.

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from bobcathy1:

I am so glad you have the time to review my posts. Makes me feel important.....I was having problems, I did some testing, and came up with an answer. 3 weeks total.
I just wonder why it is so important to you to pick apart my posts?
I am not an expert at trading, I am just like everyone else here trying to make a living at it. Looking for a system that changes with conditions and works.
I do not know what you do, so far I have never seen a post mentioning your methods. Or are you only a critic?:eek:

I follow your posts because you seem to want to find a simple way of trading. Unfortunately for me, you also seem to be in a continuous state of alteration so that I never really know what it is that you're doing. So, when you point out that you had a good week, and I'm pleased for you that you had a good one, I have to wonder if you've truly found something that works or if you were just lucky. In any case, having a good week is not entirely representative of your experiences during the past several weeks. All in all, we're all probably doing about the same.

As for never seeing a post mentioning my methods, you must have forgotten your post to the Keeping It Simple thread. That, and its successor, should tell you everything you want to know, if you're interested.

--Db

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from I Missed Boat:

Quote from funky:

are you serious? the guys i'm trading nasdaq with are bringing home serious profits every day. i guess if you look around the room and can't find the sucker.....well you know....


It appears to me that as the market gets worse, and more legit traders quite (and then quite posting on ET), that just leaves more of the BSers on ET talking out of their ass about trading and themselves.

You'll notice that he said nothing about his own results. So if everyone he's trading with is making money . . .

 

[hii a_ooiioo_a]

Quote from I Missed Boat:

It appears to me that as the market gets worse, and more legit traders quit (and then quit posting on ET), that just leaves more of the BSers on ET talking out of their ass about trading and themselves.

Perhaps the ET people who quit actual trading tend to increase their participation on this board rather than decrease it? It may be that, rather than them "leaving this board to the BSers", quitting itself is what lumps a person in the BSer pile.

It may be that the really successful traders tend not to waste their time on here griping about how hard the market is these days. And thus, one could hypothesize, that this board would give a disproportionately negative view of the markets, being weighted by the remarks of those who tend to quit rather than evolve.