Active day and swing traders

[ale]

Thanks Euro - a very comprehensive answer.
Makes me realise how far away I am from a real strategy that doesn't rely on manual searching.
Clearly, with a manual system you cannot do so much and you need to have your criteria fixed in your head (and not too complex).
I suppose one advantage may be that you can spot things that highly specific criteria would filter out.
I wonder how many people use an automated search rather than a manual one?

 

[marben]

...I wonder how many people use an automated search rather than a manual one?

Hi Ale,

FYI, I use both! I use MetaStock for charting & searching. This has a feature called "explorer" which lets you search any selection of stocks using any algorithm you care to dream up. Standard indicators (e.g. MACD, stochastic) are provided as built in functions.

The only drawback is that as far as I've been able to find, the standard explorer can only be run on daily or calendar weekly figures (or quarterly, annual) , whereas manual charts can be created for, say, 5 day periods. So I use the explorer each Sunday and at other times during the week just scan the FTSE100 stock charts manually to find trading candidates.

Good trading!

Mark

 

[barjon]

evenin'

got home to find i've been triggered into aal short - thought i ought to mention it since i've been posting about the possibility

shame england couldn't turn the screw, but it could have been worse.

jon

 

[Splitlink]

Thanks split,


BTW for any newbies it is worth bearing in mind how many shares you are really trading in, to help you assess risk. E.G. a £50/p stake means 5000 shares.

Best regards,

Mark

There is another point to bear in mind while we are on this subject. The heavyweight companies like RIO, RBS and similar have prices of 15 pounds and up and a 25 point rise
is not unusual with them. Other shares of around 5 pounds, or less, may have one of 4 points.
After all, 1.5% of 1500 is 22.5 and of 500 is 7.5. Since the Spreadbetters are trading in penny points one has to be very careful not to overtrade on the more expensive stocks. Even stop losses are more dangerous because one could tend to put them too close, with the result that
he is stopped out in little time, possibly with a nasty loss because he was trading at 20 pounds per point (for example) when he should have taken the high price into consideration and traded with a smaller stake.

Split

 

[marben]

...Even stop losses are more dangerous because one could tend to put them too close, with the result that
he is stopped out in little time...

Absolutely! This was a lesson that I learnt early on. But the answer is to get your stops right: that takes time and experimentation, not to avoid using them.

Whether you use automatic stops or not, surely you'd agree that it's an essential discipline to have decided what the maximum movement against you you are prepared to take in any given trade? If you don't do this, you're likely to be on a rapid road to losing your trading capital.

Best regards,

Mark

 

[marben]

evenin'

got home to find i've been triggered into aal short - thought i ought to mention it since i've been posting about the possibility

shame england couldn't turn the screw, but it could have been worse.

jon

Hey, Jon

You'd better be very, very scared: for once I agree with you on the direction of that one :cheesy: (at least for the next week). However, with my current methods I also see I a contra-signal on it, so personally I'd stand aside for now.

The difference is that what you see as an up correction, that is about to end, in a downtrend which started in early August, I see as a possible continuation of an uptrend going back to early May.

This could be one of those cases where you make a profit from a short now and I then make a profit from a long later.

Does this make sense to you?

Good trading!

Mark

 

[barjon]

........Does this make sense to you?

Mark

mark

sure does

when i first mentioned it i said it was iffy because the break of the (apparent) swing low bar high only lasted for a day and it was a bit much to suggest a trend change because it failed. it may be that it's trying for a trend continuation and today's action was just a temporary blip - we'll soon know

jon

 

[2 blankets]

just got in from golf, me thinks the one thing [touch wood]that as kept my finns acc in profit is that i use s/l on every trade and the way i worked out (fore) me is ie iam short rio 1944 @50p a point with a s/l @ 2000 a bit wide with that 1 i no but being quite volatile wanted to give my self some leeway, but mainly four 50p a point trades i allow 20pt s/l eq a £10 loss.as my acc is up i have up stakes to £2pt max actually just the one, short sly 604 sl624 my idea of money management, thanks EURO D will check out sharescope still getting my head round charting but iam a newbie hope u bear with me....... thanks bob

 

[Euro_d]

There is another point to bear in mind while we are on this subject. The heavyweight companies like RIO, RBS and similar have prices of 15 pounds and up and a 25 point rise
is not unusual with them. Other shares of around 5 pounds, or less, may have one of 4 points.
After all, 1.5% of 1500 is 22.5 and of 500 is 7.5. Since the Spreadbetters are trading in penny points one has to be very careful not to overtrade on the more expensive stocks. Even stop losses are more dangerous because one could tend to put them too close, with the result that
he is stopped out in little time, possibly with a nasty loss because he was trading at 20 pounds per point (for example) when he should have taken the high price into consideration and traded with a smaller stake.

Split

Totally agree and that is why I use a % stop and % stake. That way the stake and the distance from the current is variable according to the value of the stock.

 

[Euro_d]

T A on Sharescope

Mornin all,
Yesterday I was overly critical of Sharescope and said that it was useless for filtering on TA.
I have to eat humbe pie as this is not strictly correct! The Datamining help menu has an example of "Find shares that has a rising 20ma that has crossed a 60ma"

So it seems that some form of filtering on TA is possible. I need to look more at what is possible.

Sorry for any confusion I caused.
Dave

 

[Euro_d]

Morning again,

Status for today,
I remain long in:
SIG bought @ 108 Stop 104 flat
SXS bt @ 582 st 590 profit locked in
SPT bt @ 54 st 51 flat
PAG bt @ 480 st 478 slight gain
AGS bt @ 115 st 117.5 profit locked in and still going strong
KEL bt @ 721.75 st 700 flat
STAN bt @ 1229 st 1200 minor loss but half stake

I would be long on CKSN and possibly VDY but have too many positions open so will pass

Am in UKX @ 5361 with stop @ 5352

Until I close something I will not enter more today, am off to play with Sharescope Data Mining!

Good trading to all

Dave

 

[barjon]

mornin' all

golf again today so screen time limited.

closed emg and bg. will set a tight stop on aal before i go.

good trading

jon

 

[silviaic]

Hi all

Hi, I found this thread just yesterday, and spent most of the evening catching up. Great thread!

Dave, yes, in effect, you can do some basic TA filtering with Sharescope. At the moment I'm using sharescope plus (intraday delayed 15mins), but I think in sharescope gold you have it too, as basically the filtering it's the same. Respect to MAs you can filter whatever you want, but it's the only TA mining you can do (well, you can filter by price too, percentage changes, etc), the rest is fundamental.

I'm going to give a try at this thread. I'm not sure how much I'm going to contribute, but I wanted to introduce myself in case I do. I'm still in the first steps of trading, and what I'm finding the most hard to deal with it's not the market, but myself. I don't like to talk about my trade before they're completed, because I tend to loose focus, but at the same time I think it could be useful to do it. So I'll give a try. I'm still a novice, so not very active.

I use deal4free spreadbetting, and also trade in real shares. The trades with real shares are intended to be held for a longer period. (At the size I'm trading the cost of stamp duty and commissions is equalled to the financing costs of spreadbetting after about 2-3 months, don't take into account taxes because I trade from an ISA). I'm mostly TA based, but I also check fundamentals when trying to catch a longer term. I try to keep it simple, so I just use s/r. Very recently I added ma's, which I think are working pretty well now, so I use them till they last. I used to look at the ROC to confirm trades with oversold/overbought zones and divergences, but don't use them very often at the moment. I still take a peek from time to time though. And I check volume, which I still don't feel I've got the hand of. So, there we go

Silvia.

I forgot! At the moment I'm just holding 3 longs in the shares account which I'm watching closely, may be I'll close them quite soon. These are

OOM B on the 02/08
HG. B on the 07/07
DGE B on the 17/08

 

[barjon]

hi silvia, welcome

not necessarily a good idea to talk about shares you're either in or interested in unless you can happily ignore all the comments and stick to your own judgement . we're a contrary bunch .

good trading

jon

 

[ale]

As a means of limiting the field ie reducing the number of stocks I review I am looking just at those with an sp of 70-700p, having chosen this purely for the risk minimisation issue.
Also, even if using % stakes and stops, the margin required for higher sp stocks limits your capital.
On another point, in order to minimise the effect of spikes such as that caused by the London bombings, it it a good idea to try to balance long trades with simultaneous shorts?
Ale

There is another point to bear in mind while we are on this subject. The heavyweight companies like RIO, RBS and similar have prices of 15 pounds and up and a 25 point rise
is not unusual with them. Other shares of around 5 pounds, or less, may have one of 4 points.
After all, 1.5% of 1500 is 22.5 and of 500 is 7.5. Since the Spreadbetters are trading in penny points one has to be very careful not to overtrade on the more expensive stocks. Even stop losses are more dangerous because one could tend to put them too close, with the result that
he is stopped out in little time, possibly with a nasty loss because he was trading at 20 pounds per point (for example) when he should have taken the high price into consideration and traded with a smaller stake.

Split

 

[Splitlink]

hi silvia, welcome

not necessarily a good idea to talk about shares you're either in or interested in unless you can happily ignore all the comments and stick to your own judgement . we're a contrary bunch .

good trading

jon

Contrariness, is that what it is! That makes me feel better, I thought it was just me!

The market took me out of my misery this morning with a stop on EMA. 10 point loss. Considering that I shorted at 813.7, saw it go down to 803 before rising again to todays levels,maybe I should go back to nursery school.

Split

 

[barjon]

...........On another point, in order to minimise the effect of spikes such as that caused by the London bombings, it it a good idea to try to balance long trades with simultaneous shorts?......
Ale

ale,

no (in my view). your method may well throw up longs and shorts in different shares at the same time but i've always found it more risky to trade against the market trend (when the water rises all boats tend to float and vice versa). to cater for that i only trade half-positions against the market trend. eg: aal short is half position and a good job too by the look of it at the moment

good trading

jon

 

[ale]

Hindsight is always 20-20 !
Take the shame (quote Catherine Tate show - anyone watch it?)

Contrariness, is that what it is! That makes me feel better, I thought it was just me!

The market took me out of my misery this morning with a stop on EMA. 10 point loss. Considering that I shorted at 813.7, saw it go down to 803 before rising again to todays levels,maybe I should go back to nursery school.

Split

 

[ale]

Good point.
However, wouldn't that mean you would never short in a bullish market?
I'm suggesting looking for sectors that are bearish whilst the general trend is up.
Ale

ale,

no (in my view). your method may well throw up longs and shorts in different shares at the same time but i've always found it more risky to trade against the market trend (when the water rises all boats tend to float and vice versa). to cater for that i only trade half-positions against the market trend. eg: aal short is half position and a good job too by the look of it at the moment

good trading

jon

 

[khi]

Hindsight is always 20-20 !
Take the shame (quote Catherine Tate show - anyone watch it?)

oi look at my face, do i look bovad??