dc - other than the first 50 minutes this morning, this has been nothing but panic all day. The US are still selling everything except for the 5 minute bounce at 2:30pm ( so I won't eat all of my hat). Programmed selling all day. Until I see the US rally from 2:30pm to 5:00pm, then the selling will continue.
pb8856 - you need a strategy for strong trends, weak trends, capitulation days (like today), narrow range days (like wednesdays where the FTSE stays in a 20 pt range), wicks and tails days, wide trend channels, news events, economic data releases. And you have to be ready to change strategies when required and be able to recognise that the market has changed ( and that last one only comes from experience of watching the price action).
If anyone ever wanted to see what a futuristic war between robots looked like, then this mornings price action is a perfect example. The battle would be brutal and almost too quick for the human eye to watch. Trading has almost mirrored yesterday morning. One way up open. Reversal. Then one way down. But with loads of whiplash. It's tradeable if you are willing to move your stops out by a factor of 5. But I am not doing this live, it could really hurt me if I mistime it by a few seconds. On the sim I am up £4,000.00 and that is 1 to 2 contracts only.
These really are stupid markets. No logic to them at all. Just follow the lemmings over the cliff. This has all the potential of a flash crash. Just like what happened in May 2009. These bot trading programmes haven't been regulated since then and a flash crash could trigger again at any time. Best thing to do is stand aside and watch.
These really are stupid markets. No logic to them at all. Just follow the lemmings over the cliff. This has all the potential of a flash crash. Just like what happened in May 2009. These bot trading programmes haven't been regulated since then and a flash crash could trigger again at any time. Best thing to do is stand aside and watch.
I moved by stops out by a factor of 3 yesterday to take into account the volatilty. So I ended up using 13 pts for a stop, and just held on to trades with no specific target. On the sim, I ended up £3,500 and that was with single contract trades most of the time. I entered most trades with a stop order on a one tick break on the one minute chart, and in the direction of the trend. As long as the market is fluid, a one tick break seems to be adequate, but you clearly need wide stops to make sure you are not whipsawed out. I didn't trade this live because I wasn't prepared to give up £130 per trade if I got it wrong. It just didn't suit my comfort level. Also, I didn't have any hard and fast trading rules for this type of market. I do now.
pb8856
Active member
- Messages
- 117
- Likes
- 2
Good work ! could have stopped trading for the rest of the month on that kind of money.
Martin
Good to see that you have started this thread up again. I read it with interest a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to incorporate some of your ideas into my trading. I've been trading all sorts for about a year now without much success so I decided to just concentrate on one market and see how I get on. I've been demo trading scalping the FTSE since June and I'm looking to go live after 3 consecutive months of profitable trading, which will be October at the earliest.
My trading style is to try to aim for slightly bigger targets than you - typically around 15pts which will usually equate to roughly twice my stop. I have been trying out your smaller stop strategy of 4.5pts over the last few days but haven't had much success but I think this is due to the increased volatility of the market at the moment. It was interesting that you posted today that you have increased your stops to 13pts because of the volatility. That definitely makes sense based on my experiences over the last few days, the swings from one minute to the next are wild! In fact, I have stopped trading in the afternoon as it seems to be even more volatile once the US wakes up. Obviously, I have missed out on some nice moves because of this but I feel that I should be able to make more than enough in the morning to produce a good daily income.
I am slightly profitable at the moment but I will be a lot better off once I eliminate the odd bad trade where I am just guessing where the market is going or not waiting for confirmation of a breakout etc. At the moment, I'm doing at least one or two of these bad trades a day and I really need to sit on my hands more. It's frustrating as some of my trades have been really good but then I ruin it all by placing a gambling trade.
Still, if trading was easy then everyone would be doing it! I'm definitely heading in the right direction though and I look forward to reading more of your updates as I've found them very useful.
I noticed you said you are now using 12 for your BBs instead of 8. Any reason for the change?
Cheers
Mazdaq
Good to see that you have started this thread up again. I read it with interest a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to incorporate some of your ideas into my trading. I've been trading all sorts for about a year now without much success so I decided to just concentrate on one market and see how I get on. I've been demo trading scalping the FTSE since June and I'm looking to go live after 3 consecutive months of profitable trading, which will be October at the earliest.
My trading style is to try to aim for slightly bigger targets than you - typically around 15pts which will usually equate to roughly twice my stop. I have been trying out your smaller stop strategy of 4.5pts over the last few days but haven't had much success but I think this is due to the increased volatility of the market at the moment. It was interesting that you posted today that you have increased your stops to 13pts because of the volatility. That definitely makes sense based on my experiences over the last few days, the swings from one minute to the next are wild! In fact, I have stopped trading in the afternoon as it seems to be even more volatile once the US wakes up. Obviously, I have missed out on some nice moves because of this but I feel that I should be able to make more than enough in the morning to produce a good daily income.
I am slightly profitable at the moment but I will be a lot better off once I eliminate the odd bad trade where I am just guessing where the market is going or not waiting for confirmation of a breakout etc. At the moment, I'm doing at least one or two of these bad trades a day and I really need to sit on my hands more. It's frustrating as some of my trades have been really good but then I ruin it all by placing a gambling trade.
Still, if trading was easy then everyone would be doing it! I'm definitely heading in the right direction though and I look forward to reading more of your updates as I've found them very useful.
I noticed you said you are now using 12 for your BBs instead of 8. Any reason for the change?
Cheers
Mazdaq
