US open

[JasonC2]

 

[Mornington Crescent]

a bit unusual for newbies to start handing out advice. ?

 

[Racer]

the dow was up from open by midday (US)?

 

[lemput]

He made £400 whole pounds. Give him some credit........

 

[Hoggums]

He made £400 whole pounds. Give him some credit........

pride comes before a fall.....

 

[Hoggums]

pride comes before a fall.....

I've just looked at the DJI chart and at 12pm US time it was UP 13 points on yesterdays close - close to the days high. The only way you could have made £400 profit by opening a bearish position in the morning was to be running a ~£400 loss for much of the morning. Sounds like a risky strategy to me.

 

[Quercus]

"advice" ???????????????

I think I'd be a bit more careful with word selection if I were you.

Quercus

 

[stevespray]

Afternoon traders, ok listen, here's what i said, I said i was slightly bearish on the dow from open to midday(US), when i say midday(US), i don't mean bang on 12.00pm EST, i mean around lunchtime 12-1pm EST and looking at yesterdays chart, we can see very clearly that just after 12.30pm the dow plummeted and by 12.45pm, was down from open at the 10790 level and remained there till after 1pm, so i was right in my judgement here, remember i only said i was slightly bearish, ok, now the second comment i made was that, in my view, anyone who was long on the FTSE (as the FTSE had been bullish throughout the day) should be looking to close before 2.30pm when the DJIA opens (to avoid any corresponding fall in the FTSE from a bearish DJIA) i suggested this because i myself was long on the FTSE from the morning and was running a nice profit that i wanted to shield from the DJIA influence on the FTSE, now, look at yesterdays chart of the FTSE and you will see that at the time of the US open, the ftse did indeed fall, the bull run ended and the ftse turned bearish till close - my judgement was correct, i closed my long position before the US open and secured a handsome profit of 400 pounds, which is fine for an intraday trade that only lasted a few hours.

anyone who was long on the FTSE and had ignored my advice, would have either lost profits or capital depending on where they entered

Are you in anyway related to VS?

Steve.

 

[timsk]

what's VS?

JasonC2,
Not what, but who! I suspect Steve was probably referring to a gentleman much talked about around here . . .
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=5186&highlight=Vince+Stanzione
Enjoy,
Tim.

 

[stevespray]

Tips on writing market commentaries....(Part One)

1) Alway try to be as vague as possible - That why it is easier to make what the market does fit into what you said after the event.

 

[stevespray]

I'm pulling your leg mate. No one can, or indeed is expected to, call the market that tightly. The smaller the time frame the more random it becomes. Intra-day trading is the hardest trading that there is. Had a large fund been buying today then there is a good chance we might have been up. There are very fine balances in the market. As it happens there hasn't been any real aggressive buying today and the results can be observed on any chart. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? It is always worth bearing in mind that the best traders with the best systems look to gain an 'edge' of about 4% - 5% over the market as a whole. This isn't done by 'gut reaction', its done by following hard and fast rules. Too many people fall foul of thinking that trading is about developing a second sight and trying to predict what is going to happen next. In my opinion that is not what trading is about. You need a plan and then you need to follow it. The best trading plans allow profits to grow whilst clearly limiting losses. In my own experience my best trades have come about from not fearing the loss of a profit. People often talk about taking a profit while it is there but to my mind that is simply the market removing you from the game cheaply. Well done on your £400 FTSE punt, looks like you were right to get out when you did. Personally I would have run it and, in hindsight, lost it! Does that make me a better or worse trader? Who knows! All we can do is use the lessons of our own experiences to develop better trading habits. I've read many books by many traders - One thing I noticed is that none of them mentioned that they had become better traders (or indeed wealthy) by following someone else's trades. I think thats a valuable point - Why? Because, as I already mentioned, successful trading is about developing you own trading personality and learning to follow your own rules and you can not do that if you simply 'piggy back' someone else. I think that most people who post on this board have learnt that for themselves and thats perhaps why your posts haven't been received that well. No offence intended and my comments were ment purely as jest. If you want to the do carry on posting and dont be put off by such horse play. All that I would say is that many unsuccessful traders drift into market commentary. Ask yourself why that happens?

All the best,
Steve.

 

[frugi]

The smaller the time frame the more random it becomes.

With respect, I would have to disagree with this Steve. I'm not a believer in "noise". There is, imho, meaningful price action on every timeframe; order in every fractal, if you like.

A particular timeframe is, after all, just a way of slicing an abstract, fluid and non-linear progression into even blocks of a certain size. (Volume charts do the same from a different angle).

Often a certain choice of presentation will highlight the price action in a clearer, more comprehensible manner than others; for instance, a poor example I posted elsewhere - using a very short timeframe to read the crazy gyrations that often follow news should be of more use than using a 5 minute one, wheareas switching up to a 15 minute might yield the best opportunities in the context of a different style of price action, perhaps a strong 3 day trend with well-defined impulses and pullbacks.

I think I'm asking why should matters sudddenly become more vague, or "random" simply because one drills down into the same territory?

In fact I would go as far to say that 1. the market is rarely, if ever, random and 2. it is usually easier to understand what is happening on a smaller timeframe than on a larger one, but that may be 1. down to personal preference and 2. piffle. :cheesy:

But perhaps this is not what you meant, as I imagine "random" can be interpreted in several ways. In my view, every trade by every participant in an instrument will have an effect on it and as this effect is directly caused by a human (or black box originally instructed by a human) buying or selling (or staying flat) then it can hardly be called random, unless they are all using a coin and a Monte Carlo clock (well you know what I mean ) to decide whether and when to buy and sell and for how long to hold the position. A 1 lot may not move the price but the trade is still important.

I would be very interested to know what you and others mean by 'random' in a market context. And there's always Malkiel I guess. :cheesy:

My thought is that people mean that as price action cannot be broken down into obvious mathematical progressions with a statistically significant degree of consistency and ensuing predictability (this may rouse a320 from his jet and many others - I hope so!) it must be random, regardless of timeframe, but I admit that is a very naive interpretation.

Re. Gut feeling: Certain progressions of price action in certain contexts can often give very useful clues to the future, though of course the unexpected can still happen at any time, which is why we need stops. Hour upon hour of watching these scenarios, traps, spikes, hesitations etc. unfold time and time again in different guises can give rise to, "grow" almost, a certain gut feeling that has the capacity to alert one to them the next time they occur. The subconscious has seen it before and it lets you know even when the conscious may still be trying somewhat blindly to force an opinion on the thing. No new insights here. But worth pointing out that this gut feeling has to be earned through a lot of screen time to be available, trustworthy or useful or else it is likely to be detrimental. The screen time is essential to allow patterns to sink in and interpretation to blossom. I would add that of all styles of trading, scalping or ultra-short term trading can perhaps utilise "feel" more effectively than others, but I'm by no means sure why.

Sorry to sound so woolly on this, but I truly believe it. I deliberately use the weak "faith" position" here as it is difficult to prove empirically and, besides, I have another 30 years of "earning the right to discretion" to go as it is (I hope!)

Some excellent advice in your post, as ever. Thanks for the thought provocation too.

Cheers.