Swing trading FTSE100 members

[barjon]

china

Well these things do tend to come along like London buses, but I'm surprised you've not had much coming up. you could widen the scope - liquid shares only, though - but what about the tightness of your criteria?

You use the floor trader thing don't you? Far as I recall, there's room for a bit of "discretion" in that - eg: some penetration of MA is ok as long as close is the right side. You might try looking to see how slightly looser criteria would have fared.

jon

 

[China Diapers]

Hi Jon,

I think I've missed the bus.

I have written my screener to bring up shares with an average daily volume of a million shares which I think ought to do it.

I don't want to start getting creative with the floor trader rules just yet, but I do exactly as you have suggested with the close and the MA.

My screener does throw up a fair number of setups but then I discard ones where the retracement is made of bars which are not narrowing, i.e. I like to see that the downward movement is losing momentum. Also I like to see a clearly defined trend. I have no evidence to back up the validity of these criteria, it just makes sense to me. If Tomorton keeps up the roll he's on I might have to rethink this.

 

[tomorton]

Hi China -

I don't know, perhaps we'll meet in the middle - you start with tightest filter criteria and take 3 trades a month, I start with none and take 30. It's too soon to say either is wrong but I bet neither is perfect.

 

[China Diapers]

We are in agreement

 

[tomorton]

Some observations on current EOD charts....

Tate & Lyle long stopped out by an outside bar. Shorts opened nicely in the money in general.

Added another buy order, Aggreko: half a dozen now lined up waiting for uptrends to resume.

Some new members joined this week, including Aberdeen Asset Management and Croda. Not taking as long opportunity on ADN as althouigh today's putative swing low is in an uptrend and above previous (29/02, 15/12 and 23/11) the swing high 14/03 is below swing high 13/02, so uptrend remains in place but weakened.

ARM has reached above previous swing high 15/02 so perhaps will be a long candidate in a week or two.

For strategic guidance I am referring to RSI8 on FTSE100: also interesting to read Marc Rivalland's index signals update at Marc Rivalland.com. Thanks Marc.

 

[tomorton]

Interesting divergence between swing charts for the US indices tonight - Dow shows third day of 3-day retracement in uptrend, Nasdaq shows continuation of solid uptrend since 19/12, while S&P prints an inside bar after a down day. Nevertheless, all look vulnerable tonight.

 

[tomorton]

Closed everything this am, leaving a string of 7 buy orders open from last night however. Will review and re-set tonight.

 

[tomorton]

Tuesday update -

Quite a bit of order-setting lately, as from last Thursday night I was accumulating a string of buy orders at respective highs of putative swing lows. Only a couple had triggered by the end of last week, and one was quickly stopped out, added more buys over the weekend, and yesterday's Bernanke-inspred upthrust took me into most of these. Now have 11 longs open, such as AMEC, G4S, SABMiller etc., though Burberry has already been stopped out. Interesting the RSI8 (simple) had got to only a fraction above 20 by Friday night: it doesn't often get below 20, so we were looking at a good probability of a rebound with strength. I'm not saying RSI is the dream indicator, but any indicator that has reached an unusual extreme is saying something that price isn't, so interesting.

Well in the money so far as markets drive higher on US QE3 hopes, with another 2 long orders still in the wings (plus a Vodafone sell order which is never going to trigger).

 

[tomorton]

Some end of month observations.

March 2012 -
58 trades
Win rate 25/58 (43%)
Av win: Av loss = 1.7:1
Gain on account +10%

Still have 8 open trades carrying over into April with significant unrealised profit, plus a couple of untriggered orders.

It was the volatility around the failed Bernanke bounce that really hurt, taking profits early would have been a good strategy.

Will review charts over weekend and adjust / add to orders.

Have a great weekend.

 

[China Diapers]

Way to go!

 

[barjon]

Some end of month observations.

March 2012 -
58 trades
Win rate 25/58 (43%)
Av win: Av loss = 1.7:1
Gain on account +10%

Still have 8 open trades carrying over into April with significant unrealised profit, plus a couple of untriggered orders.

It was the volatility around the failed Bernanke bounce that really hurt, taking profits early would have been a good strategy.

Will review charts over weekend and adjust / add to orders.

Have a great weekend.

coo, only 20 trades me - you have been hitting it hard, tomo

 

[Jason101]

Way to go!

Only being the devil’s advocate here ….Is it that good, with 8 open trades at any time he could go up to 16% down. A bit of bad news over the weekend or something and wipe out a whole months gambling winnings.

 

[China Diapers]

What a party pooper

 

[Jason101]

What a party pooper

Your right, I feel bad, with Easter nearly here as well, I will leave this thread now; with my tail between my legs.

 

[barjon]

Only being the devil’s advocate here ….Is it that good, with 8 open trades at any time he could go up to 16% down. A bit of bad news over the weekend or something and wipe out a whole months gambling winnings.

they might be shorts - so a bit of bad news might double the take

 

[Jason101]

they might be shorts - so a bit of bad news might double the take

I was thinking of bad news relative to tomortom.

 

[tomorton]

It's a fair question, weekends are an extended period when bad news relative to positions open is always possible, but impossible to react to.

Unrealised profit is currently +3% on the account. There are 3 shorts and 5 longs, all equal sizes. Even if all 8 go straight up / down to their (trailing) stops, total losses resulting would be -10%, effectively taking me back to the level at the start of the month.

Eventually, such an event will occur, but not I hope every month.

 

[tomorton]

Maybe surprisingly Friday produced a fair raft of putative swing lows in uptrends so I have added a number of buy orders above Friday's highs for tomorrow, such as M&S, AMEC, WPP etc. Notably, long orders entered on all 3 major supermarkets, plus 1 short, Rio Tinto. If the US markets are showing us the way, we should be up tomorrow at least.

Good luck all.

 

[tomorton]

All the Buys from Friday's swing lows triggered, portfolio well up into profit, though the remaining Shorts stopped out. Good rise yesterday but not much more progress today, and markets look weak. Therefore tonight moved stops to maximum levels close below positions and introduced a raft of Sell orders on charts such as Glencore, BAE Systems, Weir Group etc.

We're certainly seeing some action already in April but I want to be flat for Easter.

 

[tomorton]

Reverse wrked pretty well. Longs all closed for decent total return, and shorts triggered: currently in the money by a good margin. Wishing to be flat over Easter so have moved stops to just above current (trailing) stop levels on all but will cose them manually at a good opportunity in the morning if they remain open.