Best Thread US day traders thread.

Mr. Charts said:
samtron,
Re- your questions about pre-market.
Yes, sometimes pre-market moves and price levels are very important, other times not.
You need strategy, structure and method to know when they matter and when they don't.
Re- IB level 2
As davevdh implies "slow" is not helpful............fwiw esignal level 2 is far superior imho.
However, IB is a great broker imo.
Richard

thanks Mr Charts and Davev,

I have read (forget where) that IB level 2 data only contains Market Makers orders, leaving out ECN's data, which if true makes much less useful. Does anyone know if this is true?
 
DavidS said:
Did you take a position? ;)
Hi Dave,
I thought about it and concluded that if I did go long WFMI and post on this thread as well, the stock is then guaranteed to drop like a stone! In consequence I would not only be poorer but my rapidly fading reputation on these boards would take a beating as well! So, no is the answer to your question. Actually, I'm focusing on a swing trading strategy which wouldn't be able to capitalise on the type of move that WFMI has exhibited today. When I posted the chart, I very much had day traders in mind. Hope someone got a piece of it.
Tim.
 
timsk said:
Hi Dave,
I thought about it and concluded that if I did go long WFMI and post on this thread as well, the stock is then guaranteed to drop like a stone! In consequence I would not only be poorer but my rapidly fading reputation on these boards would take a beating as well! So, no is the answer to your question. Actually, I'm focusing on a swing trading strategy which wouldn't be able to capitalise on the type of move that WFMI has exhibited today. When I posted the chart, I very much had day traders in mind. Hope someone got a piece of it.
Tim.

For completion's sake here are the charts (incomplete day candle to show the context and today's move).

The one you posted earlier could have gone in your "stonking charts" thread Tim. What's the real name?

(It's taken me ages to put this post together- what with answering the door to various ghouls and witches!!! :devilish: )
 

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Does anyone know if IB's Level 2 data is worth subscribing to?

Definitely not. There are much better alternatives that are no more expensive in my view.


Paul
 
plater said:
Hi Naz
Just read the last few posts you may have already mentioned this. Whens your scanner ready. Will there be a free trial?

Thanks plater

For any info wanted on the scanner and a demo of its power,like the $13 move on It called on GOOG today.
I'll be demonstrating that and various trading techniques along US coach Adrienne Toghraie mentioned in John Pipers books. FREE on Sat 12th Nov.Details at.

http://www.clickevents.co.uk/amorningwithalan&adrienne.htm


Alan
 
Parl

Just watched this move happen as the news came out.

Didn't trade it- I'm experimenting with some stuff right now!
 

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squawk

davevandenheuvel said:
Pollux,

It costs $ 125 per month. It sounds expensive, but it's really worth it. Try the trial. Gives you a better feel of the market and you don't have to watch the index charts all the time. You just hear what positions locals are in, what paper (institutionals, banks) is doing. You probably know all about it from back in the day.
I'm a volatility man, I trade anything that moves. LOL.
RIMM is not always easy to trade. Somedays it trends really nice. But today is choppy. AMGN is good today though. GOOG at the open. But I got whipsawed in the first bar. How stupid can I be. So made no bucks on GOOG. ESRX made me some dough. But that's it for today. Been a bit lazy today.
How do you find your trades. You use a scanner? The one Naz is testing seems great. Seen it?

-Dave.

Fijn weekend to you to. Do you speak dutch?

Hi Dave - sorry not to get back sooner. I speak about 23 words of Dutch....but am a bit of fan of the language. Have not seen the scanner but sounds excellent. I trade mainly core stocks in tough markets, and small cap in better markets off stories, earnings etc. So I pretty well only trade stocks I know. Hence scanners are less relevant although I have used O'Neil Daily Charts in previous strong bull cycles when you can pull fruit off trees without your heels leaving the ground. Basically the market is my big picture scanner for the most part, ie what's the NQ and its brethren trying to tell us. If the message is clear I have too many stocks to choose from!! Hva e just watched my team stuff Anderlecht which should please you cloggies. Daag!
 
In my view the number of shares traded on PARL is just too low with only 250K for the entire day to consider trading it. Personally I would like to see around 1M shares traded per day.


Paul
 
The no brainer to have been in today was EXPD.
Highly liquid and easy to trade. Personally I had three trades in it. They just kept on coming back for it till it signalled it was done with its huge rise.
Richard
 
Trader333 said:
In my view the number of shares traded on PARL is just too low with only 250K for the entire day to consider trading it. Personally I would like to see around 1M shares traded per day.


Paul

PARL comes in below my threshold too. My prime interest in this case was to see how the market reacts to news and to test a method for my own trading.

(I shall carry on testing and see what the results bring.)

Richard- see what you mean about EXPD- nice one!
 
Nice move up on the markets today from the consolidation breakout.This is how i viewed it.

Alan
 

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Naz said:
Nice move up on the markets today from the consolidation breakout.This is how i viewed it.

Alan
There was good action today. Great breakout on ERTS.
NVDA was good the last hour. KYPH was great all day. AAPL too.

Are you gonna be able to release the scanner mid-november?

-Dave
 
Naz said:
Nice move up on the markets today from the consolidation breakout.This is how i viewed it.

Alan
Naz
Just a quick question about your new alert/scanner, in your commentary will you be recommending stop-loss and take profit values or will that be left discretionary?
 
I have just finished reading all 97 pages of this thread and must say what a fantastic and informative thread it is to a newbie like myself.

I have been stuck with my trading for sometime, mainly trading UK stocks over a week to a month, but just got too emotionally involved riding the highs and lows. Therefore I have decided that intraday trading the US market will suit my personality better, i.e. like to bank money everyday, no holding positions overnight, like the fast moves and I can trade the evening session when I get home from work.

I am a student of Naz but I need some help in getting myself ready to trade.

Firstly is the cost of subscribing to all the different chart, news and level II packages. Whilst paper trading I want to keep this cost as low as possible.

Secondly is choosing a broker with a small minimum deposit. I don't want to commit $25k to open a day trading account as I dont feel I will be ready. Can I choose a broker that will give me all of the above whilst I paper trade on their demo platform?

I thought GNI might be worth it, as I could demo trade on their platform and they have a £5k minimum, plus 10/1 margin.

Can anyone give any advice?

Many thanks
 
I was doing a live markets coaching session y'day and my client was asking about "scalping".
This used to be thought of as selling on the ask and buying back on the bid immediately, (or vice versa), to capture the spread. These days with decimal trading, (rather than teenies - fractions), and tighter spreads that definition has evolved. Most full time traders think of it more as a very quick trade for a few cents.
Here's an example from today. I had already had two very nice large profitable long trades from FAST and after it topped out I suspected it might waterfall provided the pivot high of 74.11 and later pivot low at the same price was breached.
I sat and watched it and when my microanalysis of level 2 & T&S warned me it was imminent I shorted, getting my entire order filled on smart routing at an average of $74.0863.
As this really was, imho, a bit of a no brainer, it did indeed waterfall with much of the speculative bubble of earlier trading bursting on magnificent volume.
Had I waited to see what volume came in I would have been too late to take that trade.
My micro-analysis warned me of the volume collapse BEFORE it happened.
A dimension beyond and in advance of volume you might say.

The instant it paused on micro-analysis I covered at an average of $73.7525.
The point is this was a typical scalp for me, taking 33cents in fewer seconds (21 seconds).
You need both chart reading and micro-analysis skills and direct access for this type of trade and when you can see it setting up and it then triggers, you simply and immediately execute.
When the collapse pauses it might or might not reverse, I don't care because I will just take what the market offers me at that moment and move on to look for the next high probability trade.
The great thing about intraday trading of US shares is that you can swing trade from minutes to hours or scalp as and when the opportunity presents itself.
Here's the chart shot taken a couple of seconds after covering and also the broker execution screen.
Richard
 

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PitBull said:
Secondly is choosing a broker with a small minimum deposit. I don't want to commit $25k to open a day trading account as I dont feel I will be ready. Can I choose a broker that will give me all of the above whilst I paper trade on their demo platform?

I thought GNI might be worth it, as I could demo trade on their platform and they have a £5k minimum, plus 10/1 margin.

Can anyone give any advice?

Many thanks

FWIW I use Interactive Brokers. You don't have to deposit $25k or its equivalent unless you want to do more than 3 trades in any 4 days (correct me if I've got the number wrong). The minimum deposit is £1450, which also allows you to trial their demo before going live.

While the electronic paperwork is a faff, I got confirmation of my account the following day.

Their transaction costs are possibly the lowest.

Up to you though :cool:
 
PitBull said:
I have just finished reading all 97 pages of this thread and must say what a fantastic and informative thread it is to a newbie like myself.

I have been stuck with my trading for sometime, mainly trading UK stocks over a week to a month, but just got too emotionally involved riding the highs and lows. Therefore I have decided that intraday trading the US market will suit my personality better, i.e. like to bank money everyday, no holding positions overnight, like the fast moves and I can trade the evening session when I get home from work.

I am a student of Naz but I need some help in getting myself ready to trade.

Firstly is the cost of subscribing to all the different chart, news and level II packages. Whilst paper trading I want to keep this cost as low as possible.

Secondly is choosing a broker with a small minimum deposit. I don't want to commit $25k to open a day trading account as I dont feel I will be ready. Can I choose a broker that will give me all of the above whilst I paper trade on their demo platform?

I thought GNI might be worth it, as I could demo trade on their platform and they have a £5k minimum, plus 10/1 margin.

Can anyone give any advice?

Many thanks

Hi Pitbull


I too had a day or two with NAZ.

I used these guys (see website below) to trade a demo account with and also did a 30 day free trial with esignal and briefing.com

http://www.directaccesselite.com/

The benefit of using the demo account was gaining some experience with the Level II screen and the order entry interface.

The main problem I found with the demo account was that you get no real sense of what your slippage and order fill may be in real life.

I have started trading a real account and have very quickly realised that things are a lot different when trading with real dosh. Especially on the emotional front.

Examples

Getting stopped out of a trade by 1c which then went on the $1 run, never happened in the demo account or prices going through your stop so you get slippage, once again rarely happened in the demo.

Trading breakouts

Demo account fills were a lot better prices than the real life account, which in turn impacts where you place your stop.

You can learn a lot more (IMHO) trading live all you do is trade 200 share lots. By doing this I have limited my losses (and there have been a few) to reasonable amounts. $88 yesterday over 6 trades and $234 today 7 trades (bit of a bad one).

Admitly not great results in fact pretty bad but on a $25,000 account the financial impact is minimal and by analysing my trades afterwards I can see where I went wrong.

You also identify your weaknesses earlier with a live account (one of mine that I never thought I had was "chasing" a share when I have been stopped out, this caused a number of losing trades that I later looked at and thought "why did I trade that")

Anyway just my 2 cents worth

Hope it helps

Andrew C
 
PitBull said:
thanks JJ.

Who do you use for L2 and charts?

I'm not using L2 yet, although the benefit of having that info available to you is obvious, particularly when you look at Richard's post above. I've got other things to learn first!

If you're not looking to blow too much on charting software in the short term, subscribe to www.quote.com. From memory, I pay roughly £10 per month, which gives me live NASDAQ stock charts. You have to pay more for NYSE etc. The 1st month is free. It ain't sophisticated, but I only use price and volume so I'm not after whistles and bells. Briefing.com is handy too.

Just got to get all the ducks in line in the trading plan. And that takes time, particularly since I'm using the Timsk template, which is fairly exhaustive!

(Wrong thread I know, Tim, but as a bit of feedback, I've developed the psychological piece quite a bit to include a very full personal inventory and roadmap)
 
jimmy1jag said:
(Wrong thread I know, Tim, but as a bit of feedback, I've developed the psychological piece quite a bit to include a very full personal inventory and roadmap)

Cheers Jimmy - glad it's proving to be helpful.

Weekly chart for LRCX attached which might be worth keeping half an eye on. Long term trend is strong. Three weeks ago saw the stock power through resistance at $32.00 and it's now knocking on the door of the previous 'post bubble' high of $35.50 set back in Jan' last year. If it is able to capitalise on the gains made yesterday and move above this level, then it's into clear sky territory. I need hardly point out to you good folks that the flip side to all this is that maybe it's hit its head on the ceiling and is about to come back down with a crash!
:cheesy: ,
Tim.
 

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