Thanks tradesmart and all the others - I'll reply to everyone asap.
Frugi - thank you for taking the time and trouble to post those charts. The easiest way for anyone interested to see what ERTS and SINA looked like at the point of entry and later the point of exit, is simply to cover frugi's charts so only the charts up to the time of entry is visible. Then do the same at the time of exit.
The entries are then visually obvious; the exit on ERTS is also clear as it was based on the SINA exit. The exit on SINA was because it had approached the whole number, been rejected after a quick run and started to fall with level 2 support falling away. Knowing how volatile SINA is, I decided to close the trade and take a substantial profit - the essence of intraday trading.
Of course, had I known what was going to happen to those stocks later in the day, (hindsight!!??)I would have waited till 8.55 before closing the trades and made a lot more money, wouldn't I !!! ;-)
Indeed, as indicated, I do require momentum in the direction of almost all my trades before entering them. This is quite different to any value based technical or mathematical method of trading.
The latter methods are, of course, valid and I appreciate the way Grey1 has posted extensively about them.
The behaviour of the stocks in the previous weeks is not relevant to my own style of trading - other than significant s/r levels etc.
I am in no way denigrating anyone else's methods or calling them irrelevant or disrespecting them. As can be seen, when I ask a question, I do so politely. If that person declines to answer, fine - no problem. If possible I try to answer a question as best I can and that I did. The response is there for all to read. I showed an example the next time I did a pairs trade. The response is there for all to read.
Please note that imo, these boards are for informed debate to everyone's benefit. I do not even expect courtesy from anyone, even after I have extended courtesy to them.
However NO-ONE is going to tell me not to post on a thread, unless it's the moderators.
I WILL make the judgement as to whether I can contribute something constructive and post accordingly. That, after all, is what everyone does.
We learn from one another and that's the way it should be.
These boards are big enough for informed debate and constructive ideas and an UNLIMITED number of contributors. There are very many ways to make money from the markets and that's what we are here for - plus all the very pleasant people who post ;-)
As far as I am concerned can we please get back to positive, constructive postings?
And a bit of tolerance.
