JillyB's Blog

[JillyB]

Todays Trade

Sorry for the delay in posting this - I've been in a meeting this lunchtime.

Today the Dow opened at 11,954 which gave me trade 6.

This says that initially the Dow will go up to around 11,964-974.
Look for an entry around this area for a SELL to around 11,924-914.

If this goes down more than 100 points from the open there will be no reversal.

I still have to update on Fridays trade as well, which I will do later.

 

[JillyB]

UPDATE

Here's the update for Friday and yesterday.

On Friday the system gave me a SELL trade to the low at 11,883. I thought this sounded a bit ambitious, but traded it never the less. To my surprise (I have to add) it did go down with the low being 11,903 - so the 11,883 was a little ambitious - but I was stopped out when it started to bounce back and exited at 11,916 for 13 points (my entry was at the open at 11,933). My stop was at 11,916 as the last high in the downtrend, so when it started to reverse and take out the last high that's when I got out.

However on Friday neither the stop, nor the target were hit - so what should I do? The trade gave the correct initial direction and for me it was a winning trade, but that was with me using a trailing stop. If I had left it to the end of trading the Dow was then at 11,954 which would have given a loss of 11 points + spread. The question is - how would you have traded this?

I would welcome any thoughts on this from anyone that reads my journal. How do you think I should record this trade? Win, loss or discount the trade for the records?

Mondays trade also gave me a SELL, but this time with entry targets of between 11,964 -11,974. Initially we had an entry above 11,964 at 11,966 for a SELL and the target was 11,924. However, just as on Friday, it didn't reach it's target and 11,948 was the lowest. I was stopped out at breakeven and didn't trade again as it became obvious that the index was starting another uptrend. This time, different to Friday, the stop would have been hit at 11,984. So I feel justified to record this trade as a loss.

Before adding this to the statistics of the trading system, I will wait for any comments on Fridays trade. If I get a general feeling of how to record the trade then I will update the statistics to include this as well.

 

[Pat494]

I think FWIW that to snatch a profit from the daily trading of the markets is a definate plus. However this is done. Your system seems strongest on the first few hours of the market.
The say a week in politics is a long time but in trading a few hours is a LONG time.

 

[JillyB]

Today it says UP

After giving me two days of SELL trades, todays trade says it's going to go up.

At the moment the Dow is at 11,952 and if it stays around this for the open then we will have Trade 24.

This says BUY up to the high of 11,993 and possibly on to 11989 to 12009.

I'll update this later.

EDIT: 15.23
Well stopped out on this trade for -27. Not a good one. I'm starting to wonder what's going wrong with the system. Ever since the Dow broke the all-time high it seems my system has gone awry. We're getting sells on buy days; and buys on sell days. Compared to previous trading the market is behaving quite oddly at the moment.

That's two losing trades in a row (and if you counted Friday as losing it would be three in a row). Terrible.

I've decided to leave Friday as a no show. As Pat494 said, any profit in the market is good. So that gives me losing trades for both today and yesterday.

The statistics now look like this.
99 trades in total - 78 winning and 21 losing trades
Winning trades (78) = 2294 points
Losing trades (21) = 567 points
Nett points = 1727

78 Winning trades out of a total of 99 trades - gives a win ratio of 78.8% (back below 80% so not happy).

Positive Expectancy
(29.41 x 78.8) / (27 x 21.2) = 4.04

I've now bee posting these trades for 24.5 weeks (give or take a day) and the system averages 70.5 points per week.

 

[JillyB]

An Open Above 12,000?

It looks as if we will have an opening of the Dow above the magical 12000 number today.

At the moment the Dow is at 12,014 which gives me Trade 40. This says BUY up to around 12,037 and then look for a reversal SELL trade to around 11,994. It may consolidate around this area before falling further down to the high at 11,973.

Let's see how we get on today.

UPDATE: 15.03
So the open was at 12,014 and the first part of the trade was completed successfully for 16 points

I'm now on the SELL part of the trade with my entry at 12,043/47 and my stop currently at 12,023 to lock in some profit.

UPDATE: 15.07
Stop moved to 12,018

UPDATE: 15.21
Wow, well it touched my stop but didn't go through it and it's now hit the target of 11,994. So that's two successful trades today. One for 16 points and the second for 45 points - Making a total of 61 points.

Finally I have some perfect trades after a few days of banging my head against a brick wall.

So after today the statistics look like this

101 trades in total 80 winning and 21 losing trades.
Winning trades (80) = 2355 points
Losing trades (21) = 567 points
Nett points = 1788

80 Winning trades out of a total of 101 trades gives a win ratio of 79.2% (Still not over the 80% - which is what I was hoping for when I'd completed 100 trades). I think 100 trades is a fair analysis of a system - and although not quite as good as I was hoping it would be, it has still performed quite well and a positive expectancy of over 4 is not to be sneezed at. For the moment I'm going to keep posting the trades, but at some point I may stop this, as the point of the journal was to give the system a fair trial and I think that has been achieved.

After yesterday and the disaster of Trade 24, I spent an hour or so looking at this trade again. It is one of those trades that can go down significantly and it has done this before. The catalyst for this appears to be the proximity of the open to the low of the previous day - allowing for total reversal of trade it gave me yesterday (I had BUY then SELL, it performed a SELL then BUY trade). In view of this, and after some detailed analysis last night, I have now revised this part of Trade 24 to reflect the effect that the proximity of the low can have on the trade. There have been 16 occurrences of Trade 24 since the start of my records at the end of October last year - and only 2 of these do not fit the revised plan (making 14 that do - 14/16 = 87.5% which is above the system average).

 

[JillyB]

Update on Bollinger Inside Candle Trades

This is one set-up that continues to surprise me with it's reliability. Even when I look at the charts and think - no way, that's going against the trend - it still manages to outperform it. The only time it has any major hiccups are when it's trading near major news times - FOMC rates, Non Farm Payrolls, CPI, PPI etc. and the spikes that these can sometimes create do make it record a loss.

However so far - since 13 March - it has delivered 156 trades with only 18 losing trades with a nett points gain of 2584.

The positive expectancy is also good at 8.53.

I've also introduced a moving stop in these trades as well, so once the cable has moved 10 points in the right direction the stop is moved to breakeven. Then after it has moved to 15 points in the right direction you move the stop to +5 points - locking in some profit should it return.

This has now started to limit losses as well, so some trades that may previously have been recorded as a loss are now shown as breakeven trades.

All in all not a bad little system and quite simple to execute.

The Dow system averages about 70 points a week and this system averages just over 82 pips per week, so between them they don't do too bad.

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

Jilly - Enjoy reading your journal. Is the Bollinger Inside Candle strategy you're talking about the same as this one, other than being adapted for one-hour charts?

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/06/BBInsideDay.asp

Thanks Jo'C.

 

[JillyB]

No Trade Today

Sorry folks no trade today. The Trade would be Trade 1, except that it is on the cusp of a variation within that trade and as yet I don't have enough data to see whether the figure I have chosen is correct or not.

More trading tomorrow hopefully

 

[JillyB]

BUY up to High

The system is giving me Trade 24 which says BUY up to the high at 12,026 and possibly on to 12,075 -85

I'll update this later

 

[JillyB]

Silly Jilly

Oops Sorry folks. I got it wrong. Nope it wasn't the system that fouled up today, it was me. I read the close of last night wrong - read the candle on the half hour chart back to front. Candle dyslexia! Whatever next?

So todays trade should have been
SELL to the low at 11,961 and possibly on to 11956 then
BUY back up to the open at 11,986.

Sorry about this folks - trust me when I say it wasn't the system. For the sake of fairness, I'm not going to include the trade in the statistics, then at least no-one can say that I'm making it up.

 

[JillyB]

Trade 24

At the moment the Dow is at 11,983 and this gives me trade 24.

This says:-
SELL to previous low at 11,948 - this may go past by up to 20 points, but will at least go to 11,953.

Look for an entry point below 11,948 for a BUY trade up to the open.

If it goes down as far as 11,908 there will be no bounce

 

[JillyB]

Stopped Out

Well stopped out on that one for -30 points plus spread = -34 points.

The statistics now look like this

102 trades in total with 80 winning trades and 22 losing trades.
Winning trades (80) = 2355 points
Losing trades (22) = 601 points
Nett points = 1754

80 Winning trades out of a total of 102 trades gives a win ratio of 78.4% (not good).

I seem to have lost the plot at the moment - or the system does. It seemed to be doing really well for a while, but now we are definitely struggling. Let's hope this doesn't continue too long.

 

[JillyB]

Trade 1 Today

At the moment the Dow is at 12,095 and this gives me Trade 1.

This gives:-
BUY up to the close at 12,114 and possibly on to the high at 12,122 (use a trailing stop for this)
SELL above 12,122 to go back down to the open. (However if it goes above 12,065 there will be no reversal and no SELL trade).

I'll update this later.

EDIT 15.16
Well what a change to have 2 winning trades. I was starting to lose confidence in this little system of mine. I've lost so much over the last few weeks - always seems I'm trading when it's a losing day, like yesterday and then I don't stick with it when it's a good day like today. I only took 4 points today and after a loss this morning with the inside candle on the Cable I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself. I seem to be going through a phase where my tried and trusted methods are all going a little awry and I seem to be backing all the losing trades instead of the winning ones.

Anway enough of my moaning, lets have a look at the statistics.

An entry at the open and an exit at the high would have netted 25 points after the spread. A Sell entry at the high back down to the open would also have netted another 25 points - although slightly better than this was available (I was looking at an entry at 12,128 for a Sell, but chickened out). So in total the system made 50 points today.

The statistics now look like this.

104 trades in total with 82 winning trades and 22 losing trades
Winning trades (82) = 2405 points
Losing trades (22) = 601 points
Nett points = 1804

82 Winning trades out of a total of 104 trades gives a win ratio of 78.8% (Still not good enough for my liking).

 

[JillyB]

Summary of the Dow System Performance

I thought I would post a little chart to summarise how the system has performed since I started recording it back on 8th May 2006.

I've been getting a little despondent with it these last few weeks and have even been wondering if it was worth carrying on with it or if it should just be shelved and archived as another trading system that didn't pan out. However putting the chart together made things seem a little more clear. July was an outstanding month for the system and I think I've been trying to recapture that, when in truth the system has a good steady return.

* for May is that this wasn't a complete month and records started on 8th May.

Using trailing stops would make the system even more profitable, as it would lock in profit on those days when the target wasn't quite met and it fell back to record a loss. Readers of my journal will know that there are several days when I've recorded a personal win with the system even though the system has chalked up a loss.

October so far has notched up another 133 points nett bringing a total trading at £10 per point to £18,040.

 

[JillyB]

Trade 24

At the moment the Dow is at 12,114 which gives me trade 24.

This says
BUY up to the high at 12,133 and on to 12,150-12,174 (use a trailing stop for this last part)

SELL above 12,150 to go bck down to the open.

I'll update this later.

EDIT: 15.23
Initial target of 12,133 has now been hit. for 15 points (after spread). I've now moved my stop up to 12,118 - locking in 2 points as the open was 12,112 and with a 4 point spread breakeven would be 12,116.

I'll see now if we can make any of the higher targets, though it looks as if it will be very slow going today ahead of the interest rate statement tonight.

EDIT: 15.37
Well that was me stopped out for +2. Congratulations to anyone who just decided to exit at the high and took 15 points.

An entry point for the second part of the trade has not been triggered - i.e. a SELL above 12,150. So it looks as if we just have one trade today and I'm going to record this as a win at 15 points - seeing as some of you think I'm being a little too harsh on the system - I'll allow it this one win.

So the statistics for the system now look like this

105 trades in total with 83 winning trades and 22 losing trades
Winning trades (83) = 2420 points
Losing trades (22) = 601 points
Nett points = 1819

83 Winning trades out of a total of 105 trades gives a win ratio of 79% (Starting to feel a little better about this).

 

[JillyB]

Todays Trade

At the moment the Dow is at 12,157 which gives me Trade 46.

This says

There will be an initial drop back down to the high at 12,145 - possibly down as far as 12,135. After this look for a BUY trade to go back up to the open and possibly on to around 12,179-184.

I'll update this later.

EDIT: 14.32
Open at 12,153
Trade 47 Wait until the index is below the high at 12,145 and BUY up to 12,183 - 193

 

[karmit]

Hi JillyB
What do you mean by "Trade23" and "Trade46" etc?
Do you have a list posted somewhere?
Regards,
Karmit

 

[JillyB]

Last Minute Change

Hmm, well that didn't go too well. The last minute dip in price before the open took me into a different trade and one that hasn't happened since 7th November last year.

I should have realised it with the basic way the trade was written that it hadn't been traded in real-time. Realistically it should have been a watch and observe day today. So sorry about posting the trade - I didn't realise until afterwards when I started checking back in my records and saw that there was only one other time recorded for this.

Looking back at what I noted down last year, the trade actually went back below the close of the previous day, before it started to rally and return - that particular day it took out the previous high on the this rally.

For some reason I had the trade written as only going down to the high - this could just have been a cut and paste error, or an error in the data referencing, I'm not sure. Anyway I've now corrected the error and amended the trade. So let's hope it's all sorted now.

It just goes to prove that the system is still very much work in progress. I still have some missing trades from the system - though not too many now - and there are several other trades that have only occurred once in the last year. I don't think I will be getting better consistency with the trades until I have a couple more years of data inputted and tested in the system. By then it should be quite reliable (hopefully!)

 

[JillyB]

Trade 24

At the moment the Dow is at 12,130 which gives me Trade 24.

This says.
SELL with a target of 12,100 (30 points) though this may go down as far as the low of yesterday at 12,1091.

Then look for an entry point below this for a BUY back up to the open.

EDIT: 14.41
The Dow opened at 12,132 and the initial target of 30 points below the open has been hit at 12,102 and the trade exited for +26 after the spread.

Now looking for an entry point below 12,102 for a BUY back up to the open. It is bouncing up at the moment and I could have missed the trade, but I have a suspicion it will retest this level before it continues upwards.

EDIT: 14.49
Entry at 12,101/105 for a BUY back up to the open

EDIT: 15.01
Stop moved to 12,100 - last low on 1 min chart now that it has made a new high

EDIT: 15.41
I was about to say move the stop up to 12,106 - locking in 1 point of profit. 12,106 was the last low on the 1 min chart after it made a new high.

But then before this page would load, it went and hit the target and bagged 27 points after the spread. So for today that's 53 points in total and 2 winning trades.

The statistics now look like this.
106 trades in total with 84 winning and 22 losing trades
Winning trades (84) = 2473 points
Losing trades (22) = 601 points
Nett points = 1872

84 Winning trades out of a total of 106 trades gives a win ratio of 79.24% (nearly back at the 80% target!)

 

[dcarrigan]

ex call jill, spot on.