the trend is up, market has bottomed.


3dog,

thanks for your posts. It's good to know people are reading this thread. I beleive the best thing for new traders is to get exposure to all different kinds of strategies.

The added pressure of posting in a public chat is nothing compared to the pressure of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars if i'm wrong. If anything, it would make me more aware of the risk of losing. I only post when I think it can help someone else. Perhaps there were a few others who were thinking of going long, but weren't sure. Or there were those who only play the market short cause it's a bear market :D . Just wanted to let both of those parties know that a big rally was coming, and it would last for months.

Actually the really funny thing is that I posted a thread a while ago, titled "trading nq with the long term trend" in there I posted that the trend was down... and I got some humurous remarks because of it.

I figured that people simply take too much for granted, just as the bull boys of 1999 got smoked in 2000, the same could happen to the new bears. One person asked the question, "when would the market turn up" so, a few weeks later, I start this thread.

Also, another reason I decided to post it is because recently their have been discussions about whether money can be made in these markets. It's easy, just trade WITH the trend, and be able to identify trend changes before or as they happen.

To me it's not enough to say you are neutral and the market goes up and down every day, so play it both ways. Stick to the trend, or you'll get burned is my opinion. Stick to the trend means know the trend, know where it began, and know where or when it ends.

Whenever I mention that I have an opinion about the market on ET, I get people saying that the best thing is to stay neutral and play the ups and downs every day. However, that doesn't make sense. Firstly, you can't be neutral. Secondly, it's easy to say play the ups and downs every day, but that doesn't help anyone aside from saying that shorting isn't any different that buying.

The most important thing is that people need to see the current trend, and then recognize when the pattern is changing, whether it be on a 1 min chart of a weekly chart. Without knowing this, it's not possible to get low risk entries as far as chart reading goes.
 
Originally posted by lundy
Whenever I mention that I have an opinion about the market on ET, I get people saying that the best thing is to stay neutral and play the ups and downs every day. However, that doesn't make sense.
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yes it does and i'll explain it right now. say for the sake of example, you always have 2 longs and 2 shorts. for all positions if you lose, you lose at most 4%. say if a trade goes your way you get a 4% gain half the time and a 8% the other half the time.

now, say the market goes up, your 2 shorts got stopped out but your longs were profitable. you still made a net 4%. say you do the same thing but the market goes down. your 2 longs get stopped out, but your shorts net you a 4% gain.

if you repeat this basic principal over and over, you should make money. it wouldn't matter if you were right on the direction. it was how you MANAGED your trades that made you lose or make money. now, that being said, once you get good, you may be able to be right 60% of the time or more. if that happens, then you can have more longs or more shorts at different times.

read my quote below. lol
 
Gordon Gekko,

Very good post ! And here's another way to play it :

I play two different time frames :
1) Swing trades : From 2 to 5 days
2) Short-term trades : From 1 to 3 weeks

So in this market here's what I do :
Last Friday I close both my swing and short-term shorts (hugely profitable). I hate taking trades over the weekend. Yesterday I get a Swing buy signal, so I go long two swing trades, and I wait for the first sell signal to close those longs and short 4 trades (both swing and short-term).

Good Trading !
 
You are describing a strategy that never takes a real directional bet. It's a type of arbitrage or hedge where risk management determines which play wins. I can see how that is a good strategy, but most traders try to time the markets and that is specifically what i'm referring to.
 
It is equally as important in trading as neutral to be completely unbiased in your decisions....program trading. This is not to say that the trend isnt your friend....the trend works. But, people start convincing themselves of other things and become subconsciously biased....such as if the trader next to him got killed on a long that day.....which is another mistake-trade as one person, not 2 or more.
 
looks like a good place to start buying again. I'm going to buy more options. I'm just buying back the ones I sold into yesterdays strength.
 
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