Hi atrim
Are you meaning a major turning point? imo i would like to see a close firmly above 5630 before contemplating a long right now
steve
US stocks rallied hard this evening. Wiped 250£ off a short I had! So there might be a bit of buying at the open, but I have a feeling it will be short lived. As above I have no interest in buying into bear markets - it's a shortcut to the poorhouse. I shorted the US indices (nas + s&p) before the close today, expect we will be back to much of what has been over the last few weeks tomorrow, rising oil/falling stocks.
Do you think FTSE and other stocks will break channel resistance? I am listening to a lot of TA people saying the markets have a good chance of hitting resistance and maybe breaking etc... I just really can't see it, unless we have some super positive news in the market which changes the whole economic outlook, which IMO is very unlikely to happen anytime soon. Hence I am staying short on stocks; FTSE index included. Will hop in after the morning rally (if it even does).
I made profit with my long and then grabbed another later which I also exited in profit [if a little early]. I think this strength was a result of the US manufacturing and construction data released at 3pm UK time.
Do most of you guys use SB for your trades? I use index options so unless bought with a good delta move slower per tick than it seems your platforms do, have traded intraday up till now with options but can be a nailbiting experience at times trying to catch small moves, may leave them now for big trend moves only and swing with SB instead.... any thoughts would be appreciated
steve
steve
steve - I SB my index positions and try to never open intra-day stuff - as you say, too stressful, too much like hard work, and I can't be at screen eneough to justify the risk.
I use a conventional execution-only nominee share account to swing trade shares (long only) though these usually have a longer time horizon than index positions. But the distinction is not key - I could find myself buying FTSE100 i-Shares and SB shorting a company - its the flexibility that is useful and SB wins it here as its so easy to short. I am not going to be using sufficient capital to make direct access worthwhile, and I don't like the overheads associated with options and CFD's.
I use a conventional execution-only nominee share account to swing trade shares (long only) though these usually have a longer time horizon than index positions. But the distinction is not key - I could find myself buying FTSE100 i-Shares and SB shorting a company - its the flexibility that is useful and SB wins it here as its so easy to short. I am not going to be using sufficient capital to make direct access worthwhile, and I don't like the overheads associated with options and CFD's.
Hi Tom
My options account is £30 round trip comm, no matter what size position i take, so 1 pip covers this and loch charges, but its the delta that slows down the gains unless you can buy deep ITM contracts which will move quicker, alas i cannot.
SB seems the logical approach for the smaller moves
steve
It takes two, or more, to make a market! I never hold an index position overnight------too stressful!!
I've tried, that's why I follow this thread.
Split
I never hold an index position overnight------too stressful!!
I've tried, that's why I follow this thread.
Split
Hi split
Yes your right lol, what i meant was that with 5 contracts, after the MM's spread i only need one pence to B/E then its on its way so with an average spread of say 3 pence + 1 pence comms on 5 contracts i need the price to move 4 pence in total to B/E, then depending on the delta say around .50 it will move around 1 pence per 2 ticks in index movement
steve
Stress and positions - I think I may have set people along a certain line of thought when I seemed to equate stress with the duration of a position - to go into a little more details if you don't mind, I 'd be happy to hear what people think about this -
For me the stress arises from 2 issues -
Q1 how much can I lose?
Q2 as the price changes from my entry point, what will I do?
Both these are addressed pretty well (though not perfectly, obviously) by swing trading. If my entry is the high of the day and the stop is the low of the day, my risk is that day's range. On the FTSE, if the range is 5800 to 5860, my risk on a long would be 60pts, assuming I could enter at exactly the high. If my capital is £100,000 (if only....) and I wish to commit a max loss of 2% per trade, my max loss on this trade would be £2000: entering at 5860 that would equate to a max SB of £33.33p per point.
This all answers Q1 and 2 pretty well - I know from experience that at least 2 times out of 3 the uptrend I have joined will continue, and I know my max loss and where to take it. In fact I can set my stops when I enter and go away on holiday. There is no more TA, no more FA, no news-watching, no decision-taking to be done, except that it is always tricky to decide where to exit a profitable position, but I'm not going to get too stressed over that.
So what I mean is that exposure to overnight developments or news does not stress me, what happens happens. Its unanticipated decision-making with an unknown list of subjective parameters that I find hard to live with. For me that is summed up in 'daytrading'.
For me the stress arises from 2 issues -
Q1 how much can I lose?
Q2 as the price changes from my entry point, what will I do?
Both these are addressed pretty well (though not perfectly, obviously) by swing trading. If my entry is the high of the day and the stop is the low of the day, my risk is that day's range. On the FTSE, if the range is 5800 to 5860, my risk on a long would be 60pts, assuming I could enter at exactly the high. If my capital is £100,000 (if only....) and I wish to commit a max loss of 2% per trade, my max loss on this trade would be £2000: entering at 5860 that would equate to a max SB of £33.33p per point.
This all answers Q1 and 2 pretty well - I know from experience that at least 2 times out of 3 the uptrend I have joined will continue, and I know my max loss and where to take it. In fact I can set my stops when I enter and go away on holiday. There is no more TA, no more FA, no news-watching, no decision-taking to be done, except that it is always tricky to decide where to exit a profitable position, but I'm not going to get too stressed over that.
So what I mean is that exposure to overnight developments or news does not stress me, what happens happens. Its unanticipated decision-making with an unknown list of subjective parameters that I find hard to live with. For me that is summed up in 'daytrading'.
Hi tom
Your last 2 sentences epitomise my thoughts on stress in daytrading!
A long term trade (few days - few weeks) well placed given as many parameters as can be realistically accounted for, ie small pullbacks, is imo the way to go for eliminating a great deal of stress that can dog the daytrading approach :smart:
Be well
steve
barjon
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tom,
Yeah, I can share that
I suffer more angst trading in my "daytrading" play account than I ever do in my main account even though the amounts involved are small beer in comparison. Mind you, a fairly recent run of 7 consecutive losses in the main account got the juices running a bit
.good trading
jon
