JillyB's Blog

[JillyB]

Update on Yesterday

Sorry I didn't get to update the journal during the day, things rather overtook me and then we had friends round in the evening.

Well, it seems that the general sentiment of the BUY trade then the SELL trade was correct, it was just the target for the high that was out. Instead of surpassing the high of Friday at 11,608, it only reached 11,585. This was a much shallower bounce than expected.

That isn't to say that I didn't make a profit trading the system yesterday - though as usual I got out too early!

So I'm not sure how to rate yesterday's trade. The target wasn't hit, but neither was the stop order - which at 30 points below the open was at 11,513. As the trade did go in the direction stated and didn't hit the stop I'm going to leave this as a no win and no loss day - just as if it hadn't been traded. I think this is fair.

Let's hope for a bit more of a dynamic move today.

The 1 hour Inside Candle Bollinger Turn Trade system is still working nicely, though the last couple of trades have been difficult to get in on as the price has moved quite quickly (even when there was no news at that particular time - I'll come back to this later) and not come back inside the target zone for a better entry point. The Yen took a loss on this system, but that's only the second one in 12 trades, so the odds are still in its favour. Where as the Cable now has 126 trades since 13th March with only 14 losing trades.

The object of waiting for the price to come back inside the range of the inside candle once it had broken the high or low, was just to afford a better entry point and to take out the spread from the equation. It also helped to reduce the potential loss should the trade go against you. However for the records I have kept I have always assumed an entry point where it breaks the high or low and the losses have been recorded as their full value - not a reduced value assuming a better entry point (hope that makes sense). So even based on these figures the system is still very profitable and I have to wonder if waiting for a better entry would mean that I would miss more trades than I would get?

I am wondering if these days - when it does break the high or low and keep on going - are tied to days when there is news. Although the inside candles happen after the big move on the news - hence the strong canlde piercing the bollinger - is there still momentum there that when it breaks the high/low it keeps on going? I think I will start to keep some notes on this and see if there is any correlation.

 

[Joules MM1]

G'day Jill.
You are doing very well. Brilliant. I am interested in how you keep yourself honest with "... got out too early!.." and I'm not sure that's true...a little like a guy who runs a shop and always closes at five only to see, as he leaves (as usual), there's a flood of customers walking past but considers that by the time the shop is reopened they'll be gone...so was he right or not ? I think he was right, a good business practise, pragmatic or discilplined, whichever is appropriate labelling. I think if you have a solid system that is linear in its approach (a subset or parameters that are rigid) and the exiting is inline with that then that says the regimen is good. English rugby hero Johnny always kicked the ball the same way and assisted England to win the workd cup, but you know, he never knew which way the ball would bounce after he kicked it...still, his percentage return was very high...good hunting
Julian

 

[JillyB]

What's in Store for Today?

At the moment the Dow is at 11,568 which gives me Trade 10 for today.

This is a BUY trade up to the high at 11,585 and possibly on to around 11,595 - 11,605 (use a trailing stop for this last section).

Then look for a SELL trade above 11,585 for it to come back down to the close at 11,550.

I believe that with this trade, if it hits the close before going up to the high, then you should exit the trade. I've had this once before and it was a pretty good call. However, just because it happened once does not make it gospel, so I shall see how this goes.

EDIT: 15.26
Well the open was at 11,563 and as I'd warned it went down to touch the close and this happened within the first two minutes. When it's done this before, the index has carried on down to the low of the previous day - and same thing today. The only question is what will happen next?

 

[JillyB]

It gives me a SELL

The Dow is currently at 11,575 which is Trade 32. This has only happened once before on the 2nd June and it was a SELL trade down to the low.

The Dow has been going up all morning, so I have my concerns about this - but then I have to trade the plan - so I will go with it.

EDIT:18.48
Well it did what I thought and not what the trade said. So this is recorded as a loss of 34 points. I am also putting a note of caution on Trade 32 - to watch and observe when the trade occurs again. We now have two opposite trades and more information is required before this can be fully assessed.

So as of today we have a total of 81 trades, 65 winning and 18 losing.

Winning trades (65) = 1986 points
Losing trades (16) = 419 points
Nett points = 1567

65 Winning trades out of a total of 81 trades = 80.2% win rate. Still on the right side of 80% (just).

 

[macbonzo]

Yes I had a sell sign two. I've covered at a small profit, largely because, I hate FOMC days, as they seem so much of a gamble. Certainly the oil price continues to fall and the A/D line looks strong, but who knows what the statement will say or indeed what the market's reaction will be. I feel that there could be a buy programme out there.

 

[JillyB]

One or the Other

At the moment the Dow is at 11,616 which gives me Trade 6, however a few points higher is Trade 10, so I think it's going to be one or the other of these today.

Trade 10 gives a BUY up to the high at 11,627 (again if it touches the close at 11,611 before it goes up to the high exit the trade). Then we will be looking for a SELL trade above the high - it may go as far as 10 points above - back to the open.

Trade 6 gives a BUY up to the high and above to around 11,646-56. If it goes above 11,666 there will be no reversal. Otherwise look for a reversal SELL back to the open. Try and get an entry for this around 11,646.

I'll update this later to see how things are going.

 

[JillyB]

Failed Again!

Well that's two losing days in a row and that's not good! The win ratio has now dropped below my favoured 80% and the positive expectancy is below 5. I'm hoping this is just a temporary glitch and that I'll see some more winning trades tomorrow, but it does rather dent my confidence in it.

The system was stopped out at 17.06 this afternoon for -32 points. I managed to scrap out with -8, which is better for me, but I won't be using this to record the statistics for the system.

We now stand at a total of 82 trades, 65 winning and 17 losing.

Winning trades (65) = 1986 points
Losing trades (17) = 451 points
Nett points = 1535

The win ratio for the system is now 65 wins out of 82 trades = 79.2%
The positive expectancy is at 4.38 (it was over 6 at one time so this has come down dramatically).

The inside candle bollinger turn trades on the cable and Yen are still turning in good trades. I missed the 3pm one today on the cable as I was fretting over the Dow, (I will have to remember to check the charts on the hour, just in case). There was a trade this morning on the Cable which netted the ususal 20 pip target as a continuation of the uptrend.

I've also discovered that with the Yen it doesn't matter what time the inside candle happens either. There an inside candle set-up that broke at 10pm last night and I could have left it to trade last night with a stop and limit order and it would have made a great little trade. I think with the Yen you can do this as their markets open around midnight so there is going to be some activity on the cross in the small hours of the UK morning.

 

[JillyB]

More Selling Pressure Today

At the moment the Dow is at 11,522 which gives me Trade 6. If it drops from this before the open it will give Trade 1, but they both say the same.

SELL to the low at 11,496 - this may go down further possible 15 -20 points - so watch.

BUY below the close to go up to the open or close. If it's Trade 6 then this may bounce up more to around 11,550. But use a trailing stop if it does.

If this lot is completed before 6pm then there could be a final reversal SELL trade back down to the low. If the above two trades don't complete before 6pm then there will be no third reversal trade.

Hope this makes sense and I'm hoping for a more pofitable day today.

EDIT: 15.14
Well the Dow had a late upward move and the open was at 11,530, but that still came within Trade 6.

So as I said we had a Sell down to the low at 11,496 - which just netted 30 points after the spread.

We are now looking for an entry at or below the low of 11,496 for a BUY back up to the open at 11,530 - this may also go above the open to 11,560-570, but use a trailing stop on this to lock in profits once you have achieved the 11,530.

EDIT: 15.21
Entry for BUY at 11,497/501

EDIT:16.37
Well I chickened out and took +3.

EDIT: 17.17
Well I sort of feel quite pleased with myself getting out and taking just 3 points as the index has now slipped back to 11,487. I could always get back in again for another trade??? The system is still in as it hasn't hit either the stop or the target as yet.

EDIT: 21.05
The Dow closed at 11,503 which makes the system take a 2 point win - assuming an entry at 11,497. The stop was never hit, although neither was the target. So all in all I would still have to register this as a winning trade.

The statistics now look like this.
84 Trades in total - 67 winning and 17 losing.
Winning trades (67) = 2018 points
Losing trades (17) = 451 points
Nett points = 1567

67 Winning trades out of a total of 84 gives a win ratio of 79.7% (A little better)

 

[JillyB]

Bit Late Today

Sorry I'm a bit late today with the journal entry, I had to take my better half up to the airport. He's off to Bangkok for a week to meet his first grand-child (due on Thursday by caesarean). So I'm now here on my little ownsome.

Anyway the dow opened today at 11,518, which gives me trade 10.

BUY up to the high at 11,530 - this may possibly go on up to11,540-550.
Then look for a SELL trade back down to the open at 11,518

The first part of the trade has already happened with the Dow currently at 11,536. An exit now would take a profit of 14 points from the open and this is what I will take as far as the system is concerned.

I'll update this later with the second part of the trade.

EDIT: UPDATE
Well the second part of the trade happened perfectly too. The Dow touched 11,540 but was unable to go through and a re-entry for a sell at 11,536/40 took me back down to the open at 11,518 for another 14 points. This gave me 28 points for the day and 2 winning trades.

The statistics now look like this.

86 Trades in total - 69 winning and 17 losing trades
Winning trades (69) = 2046 points
Losing trades (17) = 451 points
Nett points = 1595

69 Winning trades out of a total of 86 gives a win ratio of 80.23%

At the moment the system doesn't seem to be performing quite as well as it did earlier in the summer. Perhaps it's not catching the big moves and thus large points that it did. As a comparison I looked at the following.

If the system is 80% successful then you would expect 8 out of 10 trades to be winning and 2 losing.
At the moment 86 trades have generated a maximum points of 2046, so:-

2046 / 86 = 23.79 points per trades x 8 winning trades = 190.32 points
Assuming the 2 losing trades were 32 points each this would then give:-
190 - 64 = 126 points
So for every 10 trades you can expect to nett 126 points.

At the beginning of July this was at 140 points, so there has been a definite drop there. However the average points per week since I've been testing this has only dropped from 79 in July to 78 now. But in the middle of August this was up to 91 and the points generated on the 80% calculation above were at 154.

I'm definitely going to test this up to a 100 trades, but after that I'll see whether it's worth continuing with it.

 

[JillyB]

Up to Start With

At the moment the Dow is at 11575 which gives me Trade 6 - this is:-

BUY up to 11605 and possibly on to 11,615.
If it goes above 11,625 there will be no following reversal trades. Otherwise SELL above 11,605 to go back down to the open at 11,575.

I'll update the entry later in the day.

UPDATE:
The Dow actually opened at 11,568 which being lower than expected also changed the trade to Trade 1.

This was a similar trade with a BUY up to 11,576 and possibly on to 11,608. If the Dow hits 11,625 there will be no reversal back down to the open.

The opening trade up to 11,608 netted 36 points and as this pushed on up and hit 11,625 there was then no reversal trade. However I am now wondering about whether to suggest that if it does this to look for another entry point for a BUY trade and hold this until the close. If you had done this yesterday you could have netted another 40 points which would have been well worth it.

Anway the statistics are starting to look a bit better. We now have a total of 87 trades - 70 winning and 17 losing.

Winning trades (70) = 2082 points
Losing trades (17) = 451 points
Nett points = 1631

70 Winning trades out of 87 Trades in total gives a win ratio of 80.46%.

 

[JillyB]

Old Trade

At the moment the Dow is at 11,653 which gives me Trade 17. This trade hasn't occurred since 2nd February and therefore has not been live traded - only backtested. Anything before 22nd February was part of the backtesting data used.

The trade gives a SELL to around the low of yesterday at 11,559.
All I can tell you is that on the 2nd February the Dow opened at 10934 - it's highest that day was 10,940 and it's lowest 10,817 - the previous days low was at 10,860 - so the fall took this out.

As for today I will watch, observe and take notes.

EDIT 14.37
The Dow opened at 11,655 and I have already noted one difference between the two trades. On 2nd February the Open was lower and further away from the previous day's high - 34 points. Today the open is only 11 points away from yesterdays high, with the close in between them.

I'll see how this affects todays price action.

 

[JillyB]

Apology and Update

Sorry I haven't posted over the past few trading days. My mum took a bit of a tumble outside the house and ended up in hospital. It happened Friday lunchtime, but I couldn't get a flight up to Manchester until Saturday morning - so that's where I've been for the past few days. The hospital decided to keep her in for a couple of days as they weren't too happy with her breathing - apparently she'd badly bruised her chest when she landed, but fortunately nothing broken. My dad was totally lost without her, though I think he was more worried than anything else.

It really quite shocked me, as I suddenly realised that my parents aren't young anymore - they're both 73 - and not as mobile as they used to be. Seeing mum in hospital really jolted me as she looked quite frail. For some reason I still think of my parents as - well, not being young exactly - more middle aged. I just haven't thought that they are older now than I recall my grand-parents being when I was young.

When I started school at the age of 5, I used to go to my grandmas for lunch as she lived nearby. I used to think that they were quite old then - but doing the maths on this the other night, I now realise that they were only 68.

The other thing that stunned me was looking back at some photographs from 1994/95 and seeing how much my parents have aged in the last 10-12 years. It's really made me realise that they're not going to be here forever and I have to make the most of the time I have with them.

Anyway enough of that. I'll now go on to update my Dow Trading Plan, starting with last Thursday -

Thursday - Trade 10 - BUY up to the high at 11,714 - 7 points and SELL above the high back to the open - 7 points. TOTAL 14 points.

Friday - Trade 6 - BUY up to the high at 11,724 and possibly on to 11,740 - say 16 points. SELL to the open at 11,710 - say 10 points. TOTAL 26 points.

Monday - New Trade 61

Tuesday - Trade 23 - BUY below the low at 11,637 to go up to high at 11,725. TOTAL 84 points.

Wednesday - Trade 1 - BUY up to the close at 11,731and on to 11,743 - 36 points. If it goes above 11,770, there will be no reversal so look for a second BUY trade to take another 35-40 points - say 31 points. TOTAL 67 points.

The statistics for the system now look like this.
94 Trades in total with 77 winning trades and 17 losing trades.
Winning trades (77) = 2273 points
Losing trades (17) = 451 points
Nett points = 1822

77 Winning trades out of a total of 94 trades gives a win ratio of 81.9% - which is looking more healthy.

 

[rav700]

I hope your mum gets well...God Bless you and your mum

 

[JillyB]

Yesterday's and Todays trades

Yesterday's trade was a bit of a non-entity really. It wasn't that it didn't give me a trade number, because it did, but it's a trade where I'm looking for a separation zone between the two and yesterdays open happened right in the middle of it.

To set a difference between two adjoining trades I usually select a whole number as a starting point - say 20. More than 20 away from the previous high it will go one way and less than 20 it will go the other. This gives me a good starting point that over time begins to get refined into a new number - it could drop down to 12 or could go up to 30, but 20 is a good point at which to start. Yesterday the open was 17 points away from the previous high which was too close to the middle to know which way it was going to go - therefore I watched, observed and made notes for future reference.

Today the Dow is currently at 11,834 - and as far as TA goes we are now in uncharted territory having broken the previous high of 2000 - I wonder how my Dow system will work now?

At the moment we have Trade 12 which gives me a BUY up to the close at 11,862 and the look for an entry above this for a SELL back down to 50% of the rise - but may possibly go down to the open - use a trailing stop for this.

EDIT:15.25
Well stopped out on this trade for -29.
My entry was 11,836/40 and I exited at 11,811/15. I did get back in and made +6 on the bounces - but I won't count this for the system analysis.

So the system results now look like this:-
95 trades in total with 77 winning and 18 losing trades
Winning trades (77) = 2273 points
Losing trades (18) = 480 points
Nett points = 1793

77 Winning trades out of a total of 95 trades gives a win ratio of 81%

 

[JillyB]

Trade 24

At the moment the Dow is at 11,824, which gives me Trade 24. This states:-

BUY up to the previous high at 11,854 and possibly on to 11,860-880.
If this target is hit prior to 6pm look for a SELL trade back down to the open.
If the target is not hit before 6pm then there will be no SELL trade and the index may consolidate at this higher level.

I'll update the trade later in the afternoon.

UPDATE: 16.03
Dow open was at 11,831 and this still gives Trade 24, but the final targets of the BUY trade are a little higher at 11,865 -890.

Entry was at 11,829/33
Stop at 11,801/05
Initial target 11,854/58

UPDATE: 18.25
Initial target hit at 11,854 and trade exited for 21 points. There will be no reversal now as it is past 6pm.

So the system statistics now look like this.
96 Trades in total with 78 winning and 18 losing trades
Winning trades (78) = 2294 points
Losing trades (18) = 480 points
Nett points = 1814

78 Winning trades out of a total of 96 trades gives a win ratio of 81.25%

 

[JillyB]

Trade 10 today

At the moment the Dow is at 11,863 which gives me Trade 10 for today. This says:-

BUY up to the high at 11,873 and possibly on to 11,883-893.
Then look for a SELL above 11,883 to go down to the open.
Forgot to add if it drops and touches the close at 11,856 before it goes up to high - exit the trade.

I'll update this entry later in the afternoon.

EDIT: 17.26
Well this trade never got started. It opened at 11,863 and dropped below the close at 11,856 within the first minute, thus negating any trade. A well traded stand aside day then, as after climbing back to 11,869, it then fell away to go down 40 points. It was only after this that it started to rally back up to the previous high and just exceeding it by one point.

So if you had entered just after the open, you could have made a small profit, but watching the account go out like that and wondering if it was going to come back would have been too much for me.

 

[JillyB]

Unsure

At the moment the Dow is at 11,824 which gives me a new trade 52. However if it moves a little just before the open it may slip into the area of an existing trade - I will have to wait and see what it opens at.

Forgot to click on the Add Entry button. Sorry.

Anyway it opened at 11,820, which had slipped down into Trade 68, this gives a BUY up to the close at 11,863.

As I didn't post this before the open I'm not going to count todays trade.

 

[JillyB]

Possible new trade?

At the moment the Dow is at 11,885 and tending to drop slightly - if it drops below 11,883 we will have a new trade - 31. If it rallies slightly before the open then we will have Trade 32.

Trade 32 gives a SELL trade down to the close of yesterday at 11,850 - however this is where instinct and my trading plan clash as the Dow is exerting definite bullish tendancies and not giving any hint of such a drop.

I'll have to wait and see what happens.

EDIT: 16.31
Well this is one time when my instincts proved correct and the trading system failed. It hasn't happened often - most times the system has been right and I've been wrong. But hey, I had to be right sometime - just a bummer that I didn't trade my instincts today.

Stopped out for -30 points, so another losing trade to add to the statistics which now look like this.

97 Trades in total with 19 losing and 78 winning trades
Winning trades (78) = 2294 points
Losing trades (19) = 510 points
Nett points = 1784

78 Winning trades out of a total of 97 gives a win ratio of 80.4%

 

[JillyB]

Trade 6

At the moment the Dow is at 11,941 which gives me Trade 6

This states:
BUY up to the high at 11,956 and possibly on to 11,971-981. If it goes above 11,991 there will be no reversal.
Otherwise look for an entry above 11,971 for a SELL down to the open.

I'll update this later in the afternoon.

 

[JillyB]

Variation to Trade

The Dow fell just before the open which varied the trade.
The open was at 11,933 which gives me Trade 24.
This gives a SELL at the open to go down to the low at 11,883
(Not sure how plausible this is - but I just state what it gives me.)