one thing I've noticed is that the posters on the BLOG as a
whole has been mostly bearish and so I think the bearish mentality
may have influenced a few of you. Only about 5 - 10% of the
active members of this website post on the blog. Try not to
be too influenced by members on the blog, be your own trader and
follow the charts as best you can and have a plan.
There was nothing wrong taking some shorts home over the
weekend, heck I had a small amount of SDS coming into today; it
sucked to take a loss but that's what you do sometimes, I sold it
in the morning for a manageable loss. However since we are in
an uptrend and Primary wave A is in, shorts will not work as well
as they did the last year 1/2 in primary wave A, so keep position
size smaller and logical. If you load up on ultra short SRS
and triple short FAZ, well those stocks move like futures and you
will not be able to stomach moves like this. When you
pick tops and bottoms, you have to have stops in mind in case it
goes against you and very often it does picking tops and
bottoms.
On the Watch List, the stocks I put on there are not about
picking tops and bottoms, they are classical stock patterns like
triangles, flags, wedges, etc and these work. Picking tops
and bottoms can cut you up. However nothing wrong with taking
a shot now and then at extreme areas near support/resistance
picking a top or a bottom, you just can't the boat with huge margin
and triple 3X ETF's, that's a casino bet. I see too many
people trying to 'hit it out of the park' you don't need home runs,
hit singles and doubles and you will make a lot of money
trading. The trick is to keep your position size, keep it
small enough where it is not a huge percentage of your portfolio
and causes your emotion to get the best of you i.e. like a
deer in the headlights
effect. Again this comes from a lack of risk
management.
This morning on the gap, the SPX opened at 887, which too out
Steve's trendline. You would have taken some pain covering,
but not that bad. Now on a positive note, I had a few
members who were short coming into today actually covered and went
long in the morning. If you went home using the 7/21 or 13/34, well
they crossed up this morning so you would have revered and went
long. If you follow systems, you have to take the
signals.
also sometimes take a look a the watch list, in a round about
way, that list is pretty good at seeing what the market is doing, I
have all Longs and one Short.
Posted by califman4u on 24th of Mar 2009 at 01:27 am
You are right on position size for sure matt. I learned
that the hard way with the gold stocks. My problem is that I
work and can't access the blog during the day. I guess Steve
posted a 780 possible long. I wasn't able to see
that....maybe I just missed it on the Sunday newsletter. I
took a reasonable trade in FAZ at 803 Spx with a tight stop and a
loss I could live with if it broke through the resistance. It
did and I'm happy I have learned to assess what I am willing
to lose up front before making a trade. Rather than paper
trade, I have concentrated on keeping my position sizes small so I
could learn without suffering insomnia. I truly believe it is
better to trade small than to paper trade. I've learned the
psychology has so much to do with being a success and you can only
gain that experience when you have some money on the line.....even
if it is a small size.
I have used many of your ideas on here and I have made some
incredible entries on stocks and commodities. I now have to
learn to let my winners run a bit more and not press the button so
quickly when I see green. Being comfortable with gains seems
to be important as I have heard that from many other
traders on here and elsewhere and found that they exit their trades
too early also. I'm working on that part of my trading.
Lastly, there is no way anyone should blame you or Steve for any
losses. I believe your site is for intermediate to advanced
traders. I would suggest that any new traders allow
themselves to go through a learning curve before they take too much
risk with any trade. By the way, tomorrow is a new day and
you have to have a new plan for trading it.
Good luck to everyone on here with their trading. I've
really appreciated my time spent here.
Well said Dave. Let me add to those that have encouraged newer
traders to trade small. There's nothing wrong with using your
system or analysis to trade 10 shares of something -- especially if
it's SRS or SKF! Trading always sounds like it would be great to
just start out and make a ton of money quickly. IMO the truth for
many traders is that if they manage to not blow their accounts out
for the first few years of study, practice and learning they will
be doing better than most -- it's not easy! It should be thought of
as study towards a career path rather than a trip to Las Vegas.
califman4u- exactly! you make a good point. my problem
with paper trading is that you are emotionally detatched and it's
so easy to trade perfectly that way. however throw some real
money beind your trades and the game changes. So I
agree with you; paper trading is fine in order to get your system
down pat and automatic, but you have to trade with real money to
experiece the ups/downs greed/fear of he psychology.
Posted by rgoodwin on 24th of Mar 2009 at 01:23 am
Matt, the reversal trade today I think was the key. I was just
looking at some of my systems - many of which were short on Friday
(I was flat for the weekend) but had I been holding all, then
reversed the trades on signals, would have still ended the day up
overall better than 3%. This isn't bad. It's not great, but 3% gain
beats losses of all levels. This market is tough and for those that
are having a hard time with losses - my suggestion would be to
avoid holding over weekends at a minimum. If you had taken profits
on Friday, and market went down more today, you could have
re-entered. More often than not, gaps up or down reverse in
the first half hour or so at least a decent amount - if you want to
get back short on Monday - then do it after the opening gap has
reversed. This way you are still working on prior profits, and
although you may have missed a few points, you are on the right
side of the trade without losses. My personal tolerance combined
with a news driven market, has kept me away from holding over
weekends much of anything outside of gold or energy trades.
Posted by junkmaylbox on 23rd of Mar 2009 at 09:31 pm
Well, Matt, I was one of the posters with bearish
inclination for two reasons: one, I was expecting that wave 1 had
ended and wave 2 began. By definition, wave B up is not supposed to
go above the top of wave 1, and wave C down should follow. Two, I
lost money last week by entering a premature short on Thursday of
the preceding week, and was eager to make up those losses.
This market is tricky for a reason, I am inclined not to
over-analyze it but simply take it for a ride, in an old-fashioned
manner: down and then up without having to check its progress and
mess up with my interference. Hopefully one of these days it
will happen.
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one thing I've noticed is
Posted by matt on 23rd of Mar 2009 at 08:18 pm
one thing I've noticed is that the posters on the BLOG as a whole has been mostly bearish and so I think the bearish mentality may have influenced a few of you. Only about 5 - 10% of the active members of this website post on the blog. Try not to be too influenced by members on the blog, be your own trader and follow the charts as best you can and have a plan.
There was nothing wrong taking some shorts home over the weekend, heck I had a small amount of SDS coming into today; it sucked to take a loss but that's what you do sometimes, I sold it in the morning for a manageable loss. However since we are in an uptrend and Primary wave A is in, shorts will not work as well as they did the last year 1/2 in primary wave A, so keep position size smaller and logical. If you load up on ultra short SRS and triple short FAZ, well those stocks move like futures and you will not be able to stomach moves like this. When you pick tops and bottoms, you have to have stops in mind in case it goes against you and very often it does picking tops and bottoms.
On the Watch List, the stocks I put on there are not about picking tops and bottoms, they are classical stock patterns like triangles, flags, wedges, etc and these work. Picking tops and bottoms can cut you up. However nothing wrong with taking a shot now and then at extreme areas near support/resistance picking a top or a bottom, you just can't the boat with huge margin and triple 3X ETF's, that's a casino bet. I see too many people trying to 'hit it out of the park' you don't need home runs, hit singles and doubles and you will make a lot of money trading. The trick is to keep your position size, keep it small enough where it is not a huge percentage of your portfolio and causes your emotion to get the best of you i.e. like a deer in the headlights effect. Again this comes from a lack of risk management.
This morning on the gap, the SPX opened at 887, which too out Steve's trendline. You would have taken some pain covering, but not that bad. Now on a positive note, I had a few members who were short coming into today actually covered and went long in the morning. If you went home using the 7/21 or 13/34, well they crossed up this morning so you would have revered and went long. If you follow systems, you have to take the signals.
also sometimes take a look a the watch list, in a round about way, that list is pretty good at seeing what the market is doing, I have all Longs and one Short.
You are right on position
Posted by califman4u on 24th of Mar 2009 at 01:27 am
You are right on position size for sure matt. I learned that the hard way with the gold stocks. My problem is that I work and can't access the blog during the day. I guess Steve posted a 780 possible long. I wasn't able to see that....maybe I just missed it on the Sunday newsletter. I took a reasonable trade in FAZ at 803 Spx with a tight stop and a loss I could live with if it broke through the resistance. It did and I'm happy I have learned to assess what I am willing to lose up front before making a trade. Rather than paper trade, I have concentrated on keeping my position sizes small so I could learn without suffering insomnia. I truly believe it is better to trade small than to paper trade. I've learned the psychology has so much to do with being a success and you can only gain that experience when you have some money on the line.....even if it is a small size.
I have used many of your ideas on here and I have made some incredible entries on stocks and commodities. I now have to learn to let my winners run a bit more and not press the button so quickly when I see green. Being comfortable with gains seems to be important as I have heard that from many other traders on here and elsewhere and found that they exit their trades too early also. I'm working on that part of my trading.
Lastly, there is no way anyone should blame you or Steve for any losses. I believe your site is for intermediate to advanced traders. I would suggest that any new traders allow themselves to go through a learning curve before they take too much risk with any trade. By the way, tomorrow is a new day and you have to have a new plan for trading it.
Good luck to everyone on here with their trading. I've really appreciated my time spent here.
Dave.
Well said Dave. Let me
Posted by bkout3 on 24th of Mar 2009 at 10:49 am
Well said Dave. Let me add to those that have encouraged newer traders to trade small. There's nothing wrong with using your system or analysis to trade 10 shares of something -- especially if it's SRS or SKF! Trading always sounds like it would be great to just start out and make a ton of money quickly. IMO the truth for many traders is that if they manage to not blow their accounts out for the first few years of study, practice and learning they will be doing better than most -- it's not easy! It should be thought of as study towards a career path rather than a trip to Las Vegas.
califman4u - exactly! you make a
Posted by matt on 24th of Mar 2009 at 01:57 am
califman4u - exactly! you make a good point. my problem with paper trading is that you are emotionally detatched and it's so easy to trade perfectly that way. however throw some real money beind your trades and the game changes. So I agree with you; paper trading is fine in order to get your system down pat and automatic, but you have to trade with real money to experiece the ups/downs greed/fear of he psychology.
Matt, the reversal trade today
Posted by rgoodwin on 24th of Mar 2009 at 01:23 am
Matt, the reversal trade today I think was the key. I was just looking at some of my systems - many of which were short on Friday (I was flat for the weekend) but had I been holding all, then reversed the trades on signals, would have still ended the day up overall better than 3%. This isn't bad. It's not great, but 3% gain beats losses of all levels. This market is tough and for those that are having a hard time with losses - my suggestion would be to avoid holding over weekends at a minimum. If you had taken profits on Friday, and market went down more today, you could have re-entered. More often than not, gaps up or down reverse in the first half hour or so at least a decent amount - if you want to get back short on Monday - then do it after the opening gap has reversed. This way you are still working on prior profits, and although you may have missed a few points, you are on the right side of the trade without losses. My personal tolerance combined with a news driven market, has kept me away from holding over weekends much of anything outside of gold or energy trades.
Well, Matt, I was one
Posted by junkmaylbox on 23rd of Mar 2009 at 09:31 pm
Well, Matt, I was one of the posters with bearish inclination for two reasons: one, I was expecting that wave 1 had ended and wave 2 began. By definition, wave B up is not supposed to go above the top of wave 1, and wave C down should follow. Two, I lost money last week by entering a premature short on Thursday of the preceding week, and was eager to make up those losses.
This market is tricky for a reason, I am inclined not to over-analyze it but simply take it for a ride, in an old-fashioned manner: down and then up without having to check its progress and mess up with my interference. Hopefully one of these days it will happen.