Swing trading FTSE100 members

tomorton said:
Hi China - If you can't adjust / react during the session (often my situation also), it really emphasises you need to have two exits in view and entered as orders as you enter - the stop and the target. If you can't see both, the entry on this market is negated and move on to another. Of course, if the position goes in the money but the tartet is not hit, you could adjust both target outwards and stop inwards, but I would not recommend the habit of pushing the stop further out for any reason at all.
Click to expand...

This is my current line of thought. Now it's a matter of confirming through trial and error. Thanks.
 
FTSE continues higher and keeps me in various assorted longs (14) from 7th and 8th. Only Vedanta has been stopped out in this period. Infact the upward movement across the market has been general but has exposed some other mining stocks so I have some short orders starting to appear on things like Anglo-American in case the sector drops tomorrow to resume downtrends. Maybe unlikely, but the orders are there just in case, otherwise, I am happy to hold my long positions a while longer until the trailing stops are hit.
 
FTSE has lost its upwards momentum and longs are being stopped out - 1 at stop, 1 at b/e, 1 at modest gain and 1 at a good gain (Prudential) which, with the benefit of a trailing stop, closed at a r:r of 1:4. The others remain open and mostly well into the money. The shift from bullish to bearish is very visible now, most of my short orders placed Tuesday night and last night have now opened, mostly across Resources, but these are not yet showing great movement one way or the other. Longs and shorts now almost equal.
 
No new orders available from charts tonight. Looks like we'll be going up tomorrow to catch up with the US markets, just as I start opening shorts. Damage should not be too bad though, as the short positions were in shares that were already in downtrends despite the bullish overall market behaviour, so a reasonable chance they will not be stopped out (and may even make a profit).
 
Market overall has shown three successive weak sessions and my positions have been thinned out. Several longs have been stopped out in the money, some shorts at initial stops, and the surviving longs' unrealised gains are reduced. The market is showing a high RSI which generally precedes either a fall or at least a sideways range so I am moving the stops on all longs right up to just beneath Friday's closing values: these will get taken out on any weakness tomorrow but the bulk of the gains will be secured.
 
Three successive weak sessions? We just made this year's closing high on Friday.

I've no longs in play atm since all exits triggered. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that shorts were beginning to appear and I've had a couple of testers (1/3rd position) - one win, one lose - with one in play atm - blt - that isn't looking too healthy.

jon
 
BLT looks like it could go either way: I have also been caught by mining shorts that didn't go down quite as I had hoped this week. Also using reduced size positions on some shorts as we pass the cusp of the market.

Of course, the question is are we passing the cusp, or simply moving towards new highs? I'm sufficiently unsure of direction that I don't want to open any new longs and will sleep easier tonight having tightened stops on the existing longs: alright, an early downward move will take them out in an instant but that's money in the bank and any that gap up will stay on the table.
 
Early market weakness took out all my raised stops on the longs, all in the money, securing most of the gains built so far this month. Closed the remaining 4 shorts for small overall profit as the market remains in an uptrend so I feel better taking the cash and running away before these trades got to anything like 'maturity'.

Currently no positions and no orders in the market, looking to re-set from tonight onwards, with preference still towards long side.

Best wishes.
 
Cheers Jon. I am still aspiring to an objective exit signal, FTSE100 index RSI looks a good guide, but anyways up, it's always good to get money into the bank.
 
Indeed. Orders set as follows -

Anglo-American (S)
ARM (S)
Associated British Foods (B)
BHP Billiton (S)
Diageo (B)
Eurasian Natural Resources (S)
G4S (B)
Glencore (S)
Kazakhmys (S)
Rio Tinto Caps (S)
SABMiller (B)
Tate & Lyle (B)
Couldn't find a large enough number of putative Buys considering we're in a bull market phase, so made their positions larger to balance.

Fingers crossed.
 
Yep, good session for me, all those mining shorts triggered and took me well into the money. Hoping they dig a bit deeper tomorrow.
 
Today's falls have clarified the charts to show a raft more putative swing lows in uptrends, such as Bunzl, BAT, Johnson Matthey, so I have entered a clutch of new buy orders if these highs should be breached tomorrow (which I doubt, but that's not the point). Also scrubbed the sell on ARM and lowered the buy order levels on Associated British Foods and others which fell further into their respective retracements.
 
you been a busy bee, tomo :). All I got is still blt short running and a few iffy long potentials. Dunno whether to be more nervous of longs or shorts atm, quite a lot seem to be turning over.
 
Over the past 2 weeks I have not had any shorts, and only two or three longs with only one getting triggered. It's starting to get frustrating.

My entry criteria are quite strict so I am thinking of widening my net and looking at the FTSE 250 or even 350.

Just thinking out loud.
 
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