Dow 2007

[Atilla]

were you sitting on a big loss earlier? when the Dow was up?

Don't know I was at work. Was short from yesterday night.

 

[shortorlong]

Don't know I was at work. Was short from yesterday night.

Wow, that takes guts.

no stop set?
would you ever average a trade?
I have twice recently, it worked out but I fear the trade that blows up in my face by doing this .. another one I mean

 

[Atilla]

Wow, that takes guts.

no stop set?
would you ever average a trade?
I have twice recently, it worked out but I fear the trade that blows up in my face by doing this .. another one I mean

What do you mean by averaging a trade?

Here is my view from last night.

Must confess I did add to a losing position to recoup the loss last night. Bad practice I know but it worked that time.

I'm now flat and looking to short again.

 

[Atilla]

Looks like the DOW got support off the 13300 long term SAR line. Long term SAR lines are always more significant and potent support than short term lines.

Be interesting if it hits the highs of the Std Err Channel and drops down again or continues going up.

I'm still of the opinion it's a 60/40 chance of a drop.

However, having seen the volatility I'm now flat and will remain out throughout the weekend.

Good weekend all.

 

[shortorlong]

What do you mean by averaging a trade?

Here is my view from last night.

Must confess I did add to a losing position to recoup the loss last night. Bad practice I know but it worked that time.

I'm now flat and looking to short again.

Yes, I do mean adding to a losing position, averaging down, or up if there can be such a thing
That was a very good call last night. I wish I had your psychic powers.

 

[tafita]

Excellent work Atilla. After the two losses today I just did not have the correct psychology to trade. A weekend of brutal analysis needed. -60 for the day. +41 for the week.

Take care all have a nice weekend.

PS I'll post my offending charts sometime over the weekend.

Tafita

 

[Kevin21]

no one trade today. I managed to take 240pts today. Best day every so far

 

[lurkerlurker]

no one trade today. I managed to take 240pts today. Best day every so far

Very good. I finished +9 net of spread over 5 trades in 1 hour. I made the decision to stop for the day, however I took around 30 points on 2 paper shorts. What entry and exit signals do you use? Have you opened your IB account yet?

 

[Pat494]

A couple of thoughts for the week ahead

support 13250
basic trend up
flattish beginning of week before continuing up

More or less right forecast I made last Sunday for the week ahead imho

What about this week though

Probably a down week imHo

 

[rathcoole_exile]

More or less right forecast I made last Sunday for the week ahead imho

What about this week though

Probably a down week imHo

i'm still not certain (read:clueless) what direction will be this week -
the put:call ratio isn't immensely negative:
Total Put/Call Ratio 1.02
Index Put/Call Ratio 1.55
Equity Put/Call Ratio 0.65
and VIX is "only" around 16.
so bullish/bearish ? F.I.I.K.

I think I'm going to wait until after the July4 holiday rather than trying for anything in Monday's reduced session.

 

[lurkerlurker]

i'm still not certain (read:clueless) what direction will be this week -
the put:call ratio isn't immensely negative:
Total Put/Call Ratio 1.02
Index Put/Call Ratio 1.55
Equity Put/Call Ratio 0.65
and VIX is "only" around 16.
so bullish/bearish ? F.I.I.K.

I think I'm going to wait until after the July4 holiday rather than trying for anything in Monday's reduced session.

Could you give us more details on the US holiday? Will this affect forex or just the equity and futures markets?

Interesting point with the put call ratios. I'm still bearish in the medium to long term, but that doesn't really matter. If I stick to my system it should get me in and out at favourable prices for a major move. I've abandoned most preconceived ideas about what the market will do before it opens.

All I have in mind is long term trend, intermediate trend, important local S/R levels, and the high / low for the last week. Then I just watch the chart.

I'm down to exactly 1 indicator on my charts (14 period RSI on the 5m YM) which I use only for confirmation (it signals a 3 peak div at double tops and bottoms once in a blue moon, so I keep it around). Otherwise, I use price and volume for 5m, 15m, and 60m charts, with an eye on 5m NYSE $Tick for short term sentiment. My trading seems to be improving. My win ratio is definitely up substantially to around 80% (this is over a fair number of both small £1pp and paper trades), although my average win / average loss is still pretty terrible. I need to set and hold tighter stops, and stop scalping an exit on good position trades. Friday, I sold 5 ticks off a 2 hour high and banked 4 net of spread. This needs to stop.

If I may, I'd just like to point out how happy I am with my new E*Trade platform. I've not made trades in volume, or made withdrawals, or anything else so I know nothing about the customer service. However, a few things stand out.

4 point spread for the Dow "Daily Future" contract - effectively the YM for a 4 point spread. That is only 2-3 points above the market spread, with no commissions. IB charge close to £5 per round trip for a YM transaction last I heard, so for a £2pp trade it doesn't cost much more to use E*Trade. I'm still on £1pp but I'm happy with the interface at the moment. I run NinjaTrader and OpenTick in the background, so I have real time OHLCV, $TICK, and YM T&S information. I just use E*Trade for the orders. Further, there is a 2 point spread on EURUSD and 3 points on cable during London hours. Isn't that pretty close to the interbank spread? As you'll know, it is my ambition to move to forex in the long term, so this is a nice plus.

I've been trying to get over a 5 point spread with bad fills in TradIndex, and their obnoxious minimum stop of 30 points in the Dow (combined with a slow platform and my intermittent discipline issues) has cost me £30 more often than I'd like to admit. This isn't "blame the broker" here, and I've received great service from TradIndex, but I'd prefer to trade against a 4 point spread with minimum 10 point stops and decent executions rather than a 5 point spread with minimum 30 point stops and a buggy, slow to refresh platform, which has some bad slippage*.

A few things to note about the change in "brokers". Since I started trading the YM in earnest and formulated a system which incorporated R/R, I have never intended to risk 30 pips on any single trade. 20 including spread is probably the most I have ever wanted to risk. Letting my losers run can be a real problem. Waiting 20 seconds to cover an order with a mental stoploss less than 30 never quite works out. The platform can take this long at busy times in the market. A webpage loading while the market races towards the hard stop 10 pips away from where you wanted it. This adds up. Likewise, being unable to take profits as quickly as they appear in a fast market can hurt. I watched an open profit of £20 on Jobless Claims the last week disappear to +£1 net of spread waiting to load the close order ticket. E*Trade should help with enforcing discipline (I can place a hard stop when entering a trade okay, and I know I won't move it - this has never been a problem. Sticking to a mental stop with a slow platform is a recipe for disaster, and has left me eating -30 many times when I knew I was wrong at -15).

This is becoming less and less about the Dow - sorry. Just thought my musings would interest some here, especially the spreadbetters.

Good trading for Monday.

Again, if someone could give us the revised trading hours (London or local time) that would be very much appreciated. Also, aren't there important manufacturing numbers on Tuesday? Is the market open?

* - No doubt I'll be back within a few weeks to complain that E*Trade stuck me with an additional -5 in a fast moving market, but something tells me that won't happen anywhere near as often as I am used to. Perhaps it is premature to judge a platform from 8/9 trades, but I've used market orders, limit orders, stop orders, new orders, and everything but an OCO with them, and it works as expected. They also value open positions against the bid for longs and the offer for shorts, rather than quoting the mid price valuation to hide the effects of the spread. It is nice to see yourself down 4 pips instantly and it helps to see that as a proper "commission" rather than some abstract.

 

[rathcoole_exile]

07/03 Holiday hours: U.S. Equities Markets 9:30 am to 1 pm ET

07/03 Holiday hours: Customer service open until end of extended hours trading (2 pm ET)

07/04 Markets closed in observance of Independence Day
07/19 Last trading day for certain July index options.
07/20 Last trading day for July equity and all other index options.


sorry, it's Tuesday that's half-day trading, with Wednesday closed. I got my dates mixed up - sometimes trading +12 hours time difference i give myself emotional jet-lag and forget where and when the hell I am.
Having said that, I'm still going to avoid trading tonight. The way I figure it, most professional traders may have taken the opportunity of a mid-week holiday to take a few days for an extended weekend. Just look at the volume on the YM the last couple of days last week, a significant drop from normal ! So with all the whipsawing and jerking around recently, i'm still going to wait for significant evidence of a TREND.

good luck if you decide to stick your toe in the water. But I'm sure you'd be better off out on the golf course or in my case, whoring it up in go-go bars

 

[rathcoole_exile]

I'm down to exactly 1 indicator on my charts


At one stage I had up MACD, RSI, Slow Stoch, DMI/ADX, Williams%, Force, CMF, CCI, MA9, MA34, MA100, BB, Parabolic SARS, Pivot Points, Fibs, probably other stuff I can't even remember. None of it did me any good, so I fool myself it was time well spent evaluating each indicator for relevance/accuracy/ability to lead.

now I have pared things down to SARS plus MA cross-overs with ROC as confirmation. If I get all 3 lined up, it's a GO and once any 2 from 3 turn against me, SAYONARA !

 

[nkruger]

I'm down to exactly 1 indicator on my charts
now I have pared things down to SARS plus MA cross-overs with ROC as confirmation. If I get all 3 lined up, it's a GO and once any 2 from 3 turn against me, SAYONARA !

Glad to see you've got your strategy down to a simple number of indicators. I find the Parabolic SAR gets into the trade quite late, and I've now stopped using it. My Stochastic settings (39 2 8) seem to get me in very early (look at my IBEX thread on European Indices) and then the other indicators - MA, MACD and RSi - just act as confirmation. Give it a try.

Nick

 

[rathcoole_exile]

Glad to see you've got your strategy down to a simple number of indicators. I find the Parabolic SAR gets into the trade quite late, and I've now stopped using it. My Stochastic settings (39 2 8) seem to get me in very early (look at my IBEX thread on European Indices) and then the other indicators - MA, MACD and RSi - just act as confirmation. Give it a try.

Nick

Nick,
i'll run the SlowStoch that you suggest for a few days to compare it with my current set-up. A very quick backtest reveals that it does indeed seem to offer an earlier signal than SARS but with a greater likelihood of getting Stopped Out on price tests before the SARS kicks in as confirmation.
I'll keep a close eye on it, I suspect I may use it as an Early Warning System for a heads-up awaiting SARS confirmation. I'll do more backtests too, I've only had a quick look at dailys, the Stoch might work better on 60/15/5 m ? what are you using ?
i've got an armful of baby just now so i'll check it out later and update here ...

thanks for the tip,
Garry

 

[nkruger]

Nick,
A very quick backtest reveals that it does indeed seem to offer an earlier signal than SARS but with a greater likelihood of getting Stopped Out on price tests before the SARS kicks in as confirmation.
Garry

Hello Garry,
To prevent getting 'stopped out' so often, try this. When waiting for a short signal (ie. Stoch has reached +90) wait for the stoch to go below 75 and come back slightly, then enter short as it goes back down for the second time. Works 80% of the time !!
Nick

 

[lurkerlurker]

Bought 576 and sold 586 on the manufacturing news there. Net +10

 

[lurkerlurker]

Shorted, out with -10.

 

[lurkerlurker]

Shorted, out with -1. Watch the trade frequency. Take a walk and wait for a signal.

 

[lurkerlurker]

Out -13 (another short). I don't see this breaking 600, but maybe I'm wrong.