I couldn't short GDX either. And since I don't feel comfortable having the availability of shares be the judge of whether or not I make a trade, it looks like Tradebullet might have another client. (I just need to find the cash to fund my IB account...)

Looks like an ascending triangle to me, although the negative divergence is clear.

Same thing here - ended the day with a small loss. I got stopped out of FAS, and then things took off, and then I gave it all back at the end of the day. A somewhat disappointing end to an otherwise fantastic trading week. So I really can't complain.

Fortunately it only ran one of my stops. I didn't like it though.

That's too bad. Do you do backup archiving? (Go to File, then Backup/Restore). You can create a backup archive to put on a disc or email to yourself or whatever, and if everything is lost or if something gets messed up, you can restore everything like it was when you created the archive. (I also do it so I can put it all onto a second computer if my first one dies for some reason.) I do archiving about once a week and I email the file to myself. The process of creating an archive stops all backtesting though, so make sure you don't do it while you're in the middle of something important. If your computer has been doing backups automatically, you might try to restore a recent one, and that should have all of your strategy files as they were. (I'm posting on this on the blog so that others can benefit from it if things go wrong.)

Did anyone else think about Bollinger Bands while watching that, or was it just me?

I think you mean 9:30 - 4:00 Eastern, right Matt?

Looks like I only got one trade out of the day (a nice one though!) I suppose it's a nice break after Monday and Tuesday when all of my strategies were crazy busy. For those of you who are trading mechanical trading systems manually, let me tell you about my trading day: I woke up in time to make sure my computer was running, took my kid to preschool, went to the bank to close an account, sat around for a while and ate pretzels, picked my kid up from preschool and took him home, took the car to get the brakes fixed, went to some random Japanese restaurant and ate some things that assaulted my sinuses, and then came back to check on my trades about 15 minutes before the close. And I still made more than my average workday. So while these mechanical systems can be traded manually, you might want to think about all the other things you could be doing instead. Just a thought.

That happened to me when I started using the mechanical system for GDX. 6 losing days in a row! But I stuck it out and had some good gains later, which more than compensated me for those losses. It's just how mechanical systems work.

Today was my best trading day in about a year, and my entire trading portfolio is up a solid 30% since the end of February (about 2 months!). Not too shabby! It wouldn't have happened without this great community. (I don't post often, but I sure do listen!)

Since you're expecting it, then probably not.

Unfortunately I don't think it would work the same. The trick with EMAs is that they place more emphasis on more recent candles, and so that would mess it up (since you have twice as many candles on a 3 min as opposed to a 6 min). I'm sure you could find a good 5 min one that works nearly as well. I'm personally a big fan of 15 minute systems though (mainly because the 6 min are a pain to backtest), and I think you've got a few 15 min systems at your disposal. 

I use mkt orders too, but I only buy/sell at market when it's a highly liquid stock or ETF. (SRS, SSO, etc are great for this). But if it's lightly traded, then it's generally best to use a limit order. I once bought some shares of a lightly traded stock for about 11 cents, but they filled at around 17 cents. Why? Because nobody was available to sell to me at 11! A limit order would have saved me the trouble since it wouldn't have filled that high. But highly traded stocks and ETFs almost always get filled instantly for me when I buy/sell at market.

I cut out the last 15 minutes as well and end at 4:00 Eastern. (The after hours stuff is low volume anyway, and my systems work great without it. Plus you can't place market orders after 4:00 and so my automated buying/selling doesn't work then anyhow). I set my end of day at 3:59 so that my system can sell by 4:00. (That gives my systems 1 full minute to liquidate my positions at market. So far it hasn't failed to do so.) That means my final candle is only 14 minutes long, but it doesn't seem to affect the system much. (At least I don't think it does.)

Hi John,

Sorry to hear about your losses. I think that some people on this blog (I know a few) has lost at some point almost all of their portfolio while they learned some big important lesson. (Think of it as very expensive tuition). Something I'd suggest doing is to sit back and think about what you've learned in the process. Many people in your situation go into "break even mode" where they throw caution to the wind even more in an attempt to gain back what they've lost, but that rarely turns out well. (Remember, you haven't lost everything yet. Don't make that mistake.) You might also want to adopt a few rules for yourself to avoid situations like this in the future. Three rules that I always use when trading these markets (leveraged ETFs especially) are these:

(1) I never hold leveraged ETFs overnight. Some people can, but I've found that I do quite well intraday without the overnight terrors. Doesn't work for me emotionally.

(2) ALWAYS use a stop loss. If you can't decide on a stop when you enter your position, will it be any easier when your stock is dropping? (You're finding that it's a nearly impossible decision now. Been there!) I'm sure that a well-placed stop would have prevented you from getting into this situation. It's difficult to lose everything when you're stopped out early.

(3) NEVER develop a bias in your trading. I've lost big money in the past thinking that the market should do this or that. But the market couldn't care less what you or I think. So don't anticipate - participate!

I have to use rules and systems, because when it comes to predicting what the markets will do, I ABSOLUTELY SUCK! In fact, I challenge anyone here to show a worse record of predicting what the market will do than me. But I've learned to make money by using systems, letting my profits run, and cutting my losses short with stops. There's lots of good information on this site about how to do that, and people here are willing to help.

Again, very sorry to hear about your losses. Try to use this opportunity to learn as much as you can. I'm sure it's no fun at this point, but you'll never learn principles better than when you're pondering them in the wake of catastrophic losses. One day in the future I'm sure you'll be quite successful, and you'll have one heck of a story to tell. You've got a good attitude. Good luck!

That's assuming they don't hold the bazooka/rocket launcher backwards. If that happens, we've got bigger problems. :)

I know how you feel. I've only had 4 days in the past 2 months where I haven't traded the systems, and each of those 4 days would have been quite profitable. (The last one would have been my most profitable trading day so far, but I wasn't trading.) I don't plan on missing a trading day again for a while. Unfortunately for me, today was my biggest losing day of the year. It seems that almost all of my short strategies were triggered just before the market started moving up. Thank goodness for stops! But I guess that's the price that one occasionally pays for the convenience and profits of mechanical trading systems. I just hope that tomorrow's a good day.

I can't say I'm liking this day much.