Swing trades

[GladiatorX]

I will say Thank You for posting the above, but me that is way too much information. I would rather die by strangulation & be eaten by an African python than involve that much analysis. To each his own, so I will show you respect & thank you again for the effort

I did meat a successful trader once & he gone about just looking COTs & price action confirmation. I am interested in simple approaches.

Who is your target? who do you plan to take money from?
Mine are
A) Those who wait for confirmation and react slower than me
B) Those who aren't 'In the know' of whats important to the Day-trading cycle of the ES
C) Taking money from those who are less reactive to price levels/order flow
D) Those who are ignorant to important variables

I hope Simplistic trading will work for you;
- There are many variables important to Supply and demand
- For trading to be simple and profitable; You have to be using a very important variable in its weighting on Supply/Demand

Hopefully you feel confident you have identified such a variable, that you can asses to give you a positive expectancy.

Good Luck

If we make trading as simple as ' Buying ' when we drop popcorn on the floor, which i think as a variable would have a rating of 0 on Supply/Demand then trading is easy - But we don't have an edge and we'll lose. Make sure whatever you are using to analysis price is important either TO traders or important in ACCURATELY IDENTIFYING traders behaviour.

look forward to see your management of S&P 500 trade

 

[piker]

Mr Piker,
So your target is still 1120 for this trade right?
And your stop 1085(ish) ?

Ok..... couple of things..... you took the decision to close out on friday and reopen at the open. Tell me the spread provided by your broker? And the cost therefore incurred? Now tell me how many points you are looking to get out of this trade?

The answer is not great is it?

(just seen your post above.... you figured the point out already).

Yes, target changed to 1200, spread is 0.4

 

[piker]

Mr Piker

Do you notice how much thought and planning has gone into Mr GladiatorX's post compared to yours? His trading probably has the same attention to detail, if not more. This is the kind of stuff we are looking for. Your approach still has the "i want to take a swing at it" feel......

May I suggest something...... find a reason not to trade, rather than a reason to trade......

Yes, rocket science has never been my favourite. Have you ever come across people that do great at school, yet struggle in business? On the other hand some of their classmates that underperformed in school did extremely well in business. Not saying that simple stupid is the way to go, but it sure is the way forward for me. I would rather be a trend following turkey, then an Egghead.

 

[robster970]

Tiger Woods makes swinging a golf club look simple. Ryan Giggs makes scoring against Arsenal look simple. Lance Armstrong makes riding up the Alps look simple.

Competent profitable trading looks simple.

It's all in the prep. The execution, mgmt and exit are all manifestations of the prep.

Seriously man, stop swinging at trends with a driver and see if you just need a little chip with a wedge. You're smart enough to do this.

 

[piker]

Long S&P500 cash 1104.9, stop 1080 (Revised)

Target 1200 (Revised)

Reason - uptrend remains intact, buy signal triggered of a rising trend line & 4 hour chart's oscillators.

Sold 1109, not holding long stock index over weekends, will resume Sunday night

Re-entered Long 1110.9

 

[D70]

Hi Mr Piker,
I will sit on the sidelines til this trade progresses.

But..... in the mean time, i think you need to have a think about a couple of things.....

"I dont carry long trades over a weekend" ....... in my view, given your "new" target of 1200, that rule needs some serious consideration.

Also, are you going to move your stop up if you get to x ?
Will you be adding to your trade on retraces or new highs?

At the moment, we are playing sunday football.

 

[cr6196]

Yes, rocket science has never been my favourite. Have you ever come across people that do great at school, yet struggle in business? On the other hand some of their classmates that underperformed in school did extremely well in business. Not saying that simple stupid is the way to go, but it sure is the way forward for me. I would rather be a trend following turkey, then an Egghead.

the only reason why that is is because often people who do great don't have social intelligence or who lack creativity...

trading is simple you buy and you sell, quite like school in one way, you get told the answers and you even get told what subject ur going to get tested on but...

but actually trading, like actual intelligence, isn't quite as simple as that, as mentioned above you have to know what your edge is and who ur taking money from cos its got to come from somewhere (this of true of almost every successful trader/investor you can think of) and you have to a plan. Unless your an amazing analyst (if they even exist?) with skills that enable you to tell the future, you have to take the money from somewhere else. You have to know the market and its inefficiencies, and that isn't simple, it requires ingenuity, creativity and experience.

On the other hand, if you over complicate stuff and make trading into something its not then "intelligence" is a problem. Robert Merton didn't so well after all, despite the Nobel prize. But all that really proves is that the definition of intelligence as someone who has a phd or even who did well at school is faulty. It isn't difficult to do well at school or even at university because your given the answers, trading is difficult cos it requires the ability to not only get your own answers but, even more challenging, to ask your own questions.

 

[piker]

Hi Mr Piker,
I will sit on the sidelines til this trade progresses.

But..... in the mean time, i think you need to have a think about a couple of things.....

"I dont carry long trades over a weekend" ....... in my view, given your "new" target of 1200, that rule needs some serious consideration.

Also, are you going to move your stop up if you get to x ?
Will you be adding to your trade on retraces or new highs?

At the moment, we are playing sunday football.

I have decided to change stop to 1080 SPX, because trend maybe long in the tooth & I don't wish to overcommit at a point which may prove to be a top, even if an intermediate one. As others have pointed out 1085 SPX zone has been tagged a few times already whereas 1080 has been tagged once. A lot of indicators showing overbought conditions on weekly chart, BUT trend remains intact. So I stay with it, if & when weekly chart turns, then I will flip & look for short entries. Yes it is simple, perhaps too simple. But in the world which offers so many reasons, opinions, outlooks, I have to go for basics & basics is price action. Sorry guys, that's my firm opinion & I won't change that.

Stop will be trailed, no scaling into position will take place.

 

[Black Swan]

You should have your trades for this week planned already.

Really? I don't want to get involved with this messy bi-polar thread, but what do you mean by this?

 

[piker]

SPX 1103 or let's round it of to 1100 is very important IMO, it is the pivotal of this massive pennant, lock above it we continue up, lock below it & we go down. Simples

(re-edited chart with better attention to trend lines)

This is a weekly chart, I know it states Daily on chart, please ignore

 

[D70]

Really? I don't want to get involved with this messy bi-polar thread, but what do you mean by this?

Hi Blackswan,
So what do I mean by........
"You should have your trades already planned".........
Well, it's as it says on the tin!
I dont know how to explain it any further without just re-phrasing.....

 

[virtuos0]

I will say Thank You for posting the above, but me that is way too much information. I would rather die by strangulation & be eaten by an African python than involve that much analysis. To each his own, so I will show you respect & thank you again for the effort

I did meat a successful trader once & he's gone about just looking at COTs & price action confirmation. I am interested in simple approaches.

This is to GladiatorX.. when I read this reply to your long and excellent post I felt like smashing my computer with a golf club, so top job on providing a civil reply.

 

[Black Swan]

Hi Blackswan,
So what do I mean by........
"You should have your trades already planned".........
Well, it's as it says on the tin!
I dont know how to explain it any further without just re-phrasing.....

You actually stated; "You should have your trades for this week planned already"...that doesn't make sense.... at all....

 

[piker]

This is to GladiatorX.. when I read this reply to your long and excellent post I felt like smashing my computer with a golf club, so top job on providing a civil reply.

The main trend is still up. You can analyse 24/7, but that ain't going to change anything, just your bias will get more & more tipped to one side. Look, there are people out there getting paid a lot of money to research, they have access to information that none on this board have, they have education, knowledge & access to news before it hits retail newswires, they see order flow before it hits our T&S. These people are trend setters, their footprint is in price action. I, like most that want to make money out of speculation, need to learn how to trade PROFITABLY, instead of analysing what others have analysed already.

There you go, you will easily find 100 top analysts with different outlooks here http://www.bloomberg.com/?b=0&Intro=intro3

 

[piker]

Gold (spot) is on weekly trend line pretty much, 8 hour chart is looking stronger in histogram, price needs to take out current resistance of 1142.7 or 1143 & go Long gold with a $35 stop as weekly trend is wildly strong, target would be 1200+

 

[piker]

You know I will try to negotiate with you guys regarding fundamentals, how about this - instead of looking at what changed how about looking at what hasn't changed? What is the most overwhelming consensus regarding main reason for stocks to rally? USD descent. It is bouncing alright, but nothing's changed about it, rates are expected to stay unchanged for some time.

 

[robster970]

So why is it currently rangebound rather than trending then?

 

[D70]

You actually stated; "You should have your trades for this week planned already"...that doesn't make sense.... at all....

Why does it not make sense.... at all... ?

 

[piker]

So why is it currently rangebound rather than trending then?

I don't know that. All I know is what is in front of me - trend. Just because we see congestion doesn't mean trend's over.

 

[timsk]

Hi piker,
I'll wish you luck with your trading and I'll look in on your journal from time to time, but I doubt I'll contribute to it any more because I've tried to understand what your set up and trade entry criteria are, but I can't get my head around it. Until I'm clear about what you're trying to do and the strategy employed to achieve it, I can't contribute anything useful. It's like being asked for directions without being told where it is you're trying to get to. A bit of a catch-22. If you know precisely what it is but prefer not to post on a public board like this - then fair enough. However, if you understand this point, it does bring into question why you bothered starting a journal to begin with? Your logic and thought processes are muddled. Until you have a solid foundation provided by a clear and simple trade set up, then there's little point in discussing the finer details like stop placement etc. Furthermore, piling on additional layers of analysis (e.g. Fib' retracements etc.) is more likely to muddy further the already murky waters - than it is to provide insight and clarity.

For your journal to do its job and help you move your trading forward to the point at which you're making consistently profitable trades, you'll have to address this issue, IMO. If you don't know precisely what it is that you're trying to achieve and precisely how you're going to achieve it, then you'll endlessly go round and round in circles. At the moment, you appear to me to be an exponent of 'Shotgun Trading', a hugely popular but rather ineffectual technique of taking poorly aimed pot shots at multiple moving targets and hoping to get lucky by hitting one or two of them.
Tim.