JillyB's Blog

spot on both ways. thats the way to trade in and out twice in less than two hours. ex calls.
 
Trade 23

At the moment the Dow is at 12,074 which gives me Trade 23.

This says

BUY up to 12,1079
then look for a reversal above this for a SELL back down to the open

HOWEVER
An open at the low of 12,070 or just below would give a SELL signal.
So we need to wait and see what it actually opens at.

EDIT: 14.40
The open was at 12,068 which gives me Trade 52 and a SELL signal. However Trade 52 has only happened once before on 5th December last year and so hasn't been real-time traded. Therefore, in accordance with all other trades like this, it should be a watch and observe day.
 
Trade 10 today

At the moment the Dow is at 12,093 which gives me Trade 10

This says, at the open
BUY up to the previous high at 12,116 - this may possibly go up to 12,126 - 136.
However if the index hits the close of yesterday at 12,084 before it hits the high then exit the trade.

If it does hit the high, then look to place a SELL trade above this level to go down to the low at 12,044 - this may go down further than this to around 12,010.

I'll update this later.

EDIT: 15.03
Well the open was at 12,096 which was still Trade 10 and after an initial upward surge, it tailed away so that yesterdays close was hit at 12,084 before the high was. This is the signal to exit the trade with a 16 point loss (including spread).

The statistics now look like this.

108 trades in total with 85 wins and 23 losses.
Winning trades (85) = 2473 points
Losing trades (23) = 617 points
Nett points = 1856

Another losing trades doesn't help with the win ratio though, which is now down at 78.7% (just when I thought we were getting near to 80%).

All in all, October has been an awful month for the system. It's registered it's most losses per month and least points with only 185 gained nett.

This is possibly due to the unchartered territory of the breakout above 12,000, I'm not really sure. Breakout moves seem to present different characteristics, though in experiencing this, it may be something that the system will cope with better when (if) it happens agains.

Let's hope November is a better month.
 
Trade 34

At the moment the Dow is at 12,112 which is just above the high of yesterday.

This says
There will be an initial drop below the high and look for an entry point here for a BUY to continue the uptrend. This may go up to 12,152 - 72, but may take until 5pm to do this. Use a trailing stop to lock in profits.

After an initial 10-15 point rise it may fall back to retest the high and bounce off this. So taking profits and getting back in may be a good option.
 
No Trade

The Dow actually opened up on what I thought at 12,117 which has taken us into a new Trade 42.

So today will be a watch and record day.
 
Trade 4

At the moment the Dow is at 11,995 which gives me Trade 4

If it varies much from this level though, we may be into the realms of another new trade. I will let you know this as soon as the open is confirmed.

Trade 4 says
BUY up to the low at 12,003

Look for an entry above 12,003 for a SELL trade to continue the downtrend - to around 5-6pm.

EDIT: 14.30
Open at 11,989
New trade 38
 
No Trade Today

The open was at 12,047 which gives me yet another new trade - Trade 45.

What a week this has been - 3 new trades!
 
Stand Aside Day

The open today was at 12,008, which gives me Trade 58 and this is a stand-aside day.

It will either go up all day, or will go up initially and by 3pm will start to fall and continue to do so all day. Which way it will go, I have no way of knowing, which is why it's designated a stand-aside day.
 
Today Trade

At the moment the Dow is at 12,117 which gives me Trade 1

This is SELL at the open to the low at 12,098 and this may continue down to 12,077 - 12,070 (use a trailing stop for this part). If it goes past 12,065 there will be no reversal and it will keep going down.

Otherwise look for a BUY trade below the low at 12,098 to go up to 12,148.

EDIT: 17.55
Well that was another two winning trades for today.
Yesterday we had one win out of two as the entry point for the first part of the trade wasn't achieved - it was a sell above the high at 12,118, but instead the index moved straight down and hit the target. However the second part of the trade (a buy up to the high at 12,118) worked perfectly and would have netted 12 points after the spread.

So in total that's another 3 winning trades to add to the system. The statistics now look like this.

111 trades in total with 88 winning trades and 23 losing trades.
Winning trades (88) = 2519 points (28.62 av points per trade)
Losing trades (23) = 617 points (26.82 av points per trade)
Nett points = 1902 (av for 111 trades = 17.13 points)

88 winning trades out of a total of 111 gives a win ratio of 79.28%

The positive expectancy for the system is
(79.28 x 28.62) / (20.72 x 26.82) = 4.08

I've now been trialing the system here for 26.5 weeks and it's averaging 71.77 points per week - which isn't too bad.

I think I'm going to call it a day now with posting the trades before the open of the Dow each day as I think I've achieved what I set out to do in the first place. I've now proved to myself that I have a viable system with a 78 - 80% success rate and a fairly good postive expectancy. In posting the trades before the open, I've also proved that it is possible to trade this quite easily without getting panicked at the last minute when the Dow opens. I also think that the signals the system gives aren't too difficult for anyone to trade - even if you don't really understand charts or the stock-market, you simply have a target price and a stop loss and let the market hit one or the other.

The only part of the system that is more suited to discretionary trading are those trades with further targets that may be achieved using a trailing stop loss. Here, I agree, that a knowledge of the market, TA, etc would be more than useful.

Anyway I hope this journal has been as useful to anyone reading it as it has been to me in keeping it. The system has evolved well during the last six months and I'm really pleased with where it has come to. I still have one or two tricky trades, and there are still several new trades to fill in, but this will just take time. In the meantime I will just keep trading it. My one worry is something happening to it - so much so, I have the computer copy and three back up copies as well, just in case anything goes wrong. I really don't know what I'd do if I lost it, there is so much information in there that I wouldn't even know where to start to try and replicate it.

Anyway, happy trading to all - as I sign off my journal for the last time.
 
End of Year Update

I thought I would just update my journal with the results of the Dow
Trade up until the end of 2006.



November wasn't a good month for the system with it returning only 91 points nett.

December faired relatively well though and gave me my longest winning run of trades - 11 in total.

The overall picture - from 8th May 2006 to 31st December 2006 looks like this.

Image1.jpg


So far this year it has maintained it's usual winning ratio with a total of 215 points nett for January and a win ratio of 81.25%. The win ratio is up on 2006, but will probably fall back a bit as the year progresses.

Image4.jpg


To analyse the data for last year - and to start with this years - as well as looking at overall performance, I've produced the following.

Image3.jpg


It seems that the system maintain a win ratio around 78 - 80% and currently has a positive expectancy that looks like this.

Positive Expectancy for 2006
(79.59 x 26.8) / (20.43 x 28.31) = 3.688

Positive Expectancy Overall
(79.74 x 26.59) / (20.26 x 28.84) = 3.62
 
Top