|
how strategies can be applied on different time fractals successfully
|
|
| Quoting tombvortx | | Quoting copperstl | I've found many of my strategies can be broken into day days or swing trades. The day trades can be broken into many intraday trades by using the confimation signals on a 60 min, 15 min, 10 min, or even a 1 minute chart. Let's discuss how. |
Reply: Exhuming this old thread. I am reading "Entries and Exits" by Alexander Elder wherein he talks about his Triple Screen method. That is, if he is trading on a daily chart he makes his strategic decision on the weekly chart before returning to the day chart to make his tactical decision: where to buy or sell. I tried that and it worked, plus gave me confidence or assistance in where to place my stop, whether to wait for a better entry... So I see when trading intraday the few times I've tried it, I could exit and re-enter a trade, but I'm not doing that paper trading in TOS cause it costs me commissions. Say I'm gonna day trade SPY. I've got a good signal to go long...I'd look at the weekly, monthly, yearly charts to see what the potential upside/downside might be; maybe a good place for a technical stop out of the noise. Sometimes I'll get the sense this trade is not gonna last long...hour or few minutes and that input often comes from the charts at the next up time level.
Is that what you are speaking to?
|
Reply: In a way it is..Its about matching up your fractals. If a stock is looking good for a one week swing on a runup..your using the daily chart. But that stock can also be played numerous times over and over via daytrades. To do that you need to shorten your time frames via intraday, 3day, 10 day charts with maybe 5min, 30min candles. And then you confirm using those timeframes hence the term daytrades! thats good you applied that strategy it should work out well. I never look at weekly charts really as i trade very fast 1 week holds..but i see ur strategy..good stuff
|
|
|
|
|
Bulls 3.0
|
|
| Quoting watchwatchwatch | Also a request for 3.0... can we get RSS feeds for the forums?
|
Reply:aah good idea thats a great suggestion
|
|
|
|
|
Broker, Software, Amounts
|
|
|
Im so sorry I just saw this. yes I belive that you can start with 5k i started with 500 dollars. Your house is your most important item for your family so thats always a good thing to take care of first. If trading is a passion of yours and something you see as a longterm wealthbuilder than you cant go wrong with a bows acct as your gonna learn from people who do it for a living. There is no book in the world that can teach you what following a live trader can do. Trading does take up sometime. There are swingtrades that we hold for 2-10 days that are easy to manage but daytrading is something that you either have to be at the computer or very disciplined in setting up a mechanical system to make sure you enter and exit at appropriate times. 5k is a decent start. This is not a get rich quick scheme we can show you how to make money that will cover your commisions and your membership but its not like its plausible to turn that 5k into 50k in 1 year just by having a membership alone.
sogotrade and optionshouse are the 2 cheapest. I think once you hit the 25k level thats when really ur commisions are less important as you want more features when u have that type of cash riding on trades with executions, research, software all being just as important as the commision. email me at kunal@bullson.ws if you got any questions that need more detailed answer:)
|
|
|
|
|
Charts & Custom Scanning Software
|
|
|
You can use esignal or Telechart or Stockfinder and you can use code to scan through the universe of stocks and etfs or even sectors. Telechart has been around forver. Thats what I use. its very old and somewhat limited but i like it as you can use a spacebar tap to flip through charts so i can go through 1000 of them in an hour if need be. but scanning is only 1-5% of trading. It basically streamlines vehicle selection but not is not a method of investing. Vehicle selection is just one part of the trading and investing game. Just as technical analysis is just a tactic that is applied to your method. Method is the key though...whether it be value, growth, momentum etc. Once you find that and really get into the nitty gritty the details of your method then the rest will fall into place. If your just looking for patterns try Thomas Bulkowski's encyclopedia of Chart Patterns. He has tracked every pattern over the last 30 years and quantifies the percentages of how often each one works.
|
|
|
|
|
Charts & Custom Scanning Software
|
|
|
You can use esignal or Telechart or Stockfinder and you can use code to scan through the universe of stocks and etfs or even sectors. Telechart has been around forver. Thats what I use. its very old and somewhat limited but i like it as you can use a spacebar tap to flip through charts so i can go through 1000 of them in an hour if need be. but scanning is only 1-5% of trading. It basically streamlines vehicle selection but not is not a method of investing. Vehicle selection is just one part of the trading and investing game. Just as technical analysis is just a tactic that is applied to your method. Method is the key though...whether it be value, growth, momentum etc. Once you find that and really get into the nitty gritty the details of your method then the rest will fall into place. If your just looking for patterns try Thomas Bulkowski's encyclopedia of Chart Patterns. He has tracked every pattern over the last 30 years and quantifies the percentages of how often each one works.
|
|
|
|
|
Trading from the SEP/ROTH IRA account
|
|
| Quoting tradernation | i have a regular trading account which I usually trade from...but apart from that I have some cash sitting in my SEP and ROTH accounts. I usually go LONG in these accounts, but right now I have very few positions.
do people trade from these accounts regularly to take tax advantage...is there any known strategy? I am in mid 30's..so still a long way to go before i cash out...so any thoughts/ideas would he helpful.
ps: for those who dont know the ROTH IRA...it is a retirement account where your earnings grow tax-free. thanks
|
Reply: I trade my IRA fairly aggressivley. I might not do all the scalps that i do in my regular account but I do momo trades and 80% swingtrades. One thing I do in the IRA is keep my cash levels around 30%. So when u see that big dip like we had last week..u can use ur cash and start legging into new positions. Otherwise i trade 1 day to 1 month swings in my ira..some stocks i hold longer but still pretty aggressively. One of the things i like to do their is keep a focus list of stocks that I would like to have and when they pullback to a big support level or the 50/200 day moving average i leg into a position and put a stop under the support
|
|
|
|
|
Room Specific Premium Messages
|
|
|
Hey wedge. Yeah I know that can be annoying as I get carried away sometimes with all the trades and messages. We are looking at adding that so you can just check it on and off if you want them or not and when you want them. thanks!
|
|
|
|
|
Short Squeeze stocks
|
|
| Quoting CJP55 |
|
Is there any information on the site as to what makes for a good short squeeze on a stock? Thanks.
|
Reply: I use shortsqueeze.com there are many ways to play shorts. from big sector momentum runs where I might scan for heavily shorted stocks that can add fuel to the fire. Or often I look for a stock thats about to breakout like an AMED or INCY that has a huge short float but is near highs. Once it breaks past highs...theoretically all the shorts are underwater which means the logical ones would cover which adds a lot of gas to the burner. check out GMCR earlier this year when it was in the 50s. It had over 50% of the float short. That coupled with great earnings, plus break past resistance really gave it a kick.
|
|
|
|
|
Trading Journal
|
|
| Quoting kevintinkle | I'm ashamed to say that I have heard, read, and thought that I need to keep a journal of my trades...but I still haven't done it.
**I would love to hear someone speak into why you think it's essential --or not essential.
What goes in a trading journal?
(from what I have read)
The essentials...
-Date
-Stock/option
-# of shares or contracts
-buy price/sell price
-strike & expiration (((if options)))
Now the other stuff is what I think I could benefit most from.
-Target prices
-stop price
-reason I'm buying/selling
-what indicators I used
-if I got the trade idea from someone else, who was it and did I do my own additional dd
Thoughts?
*side note feature request: It would be cool if something like this could be integrated into our BOWS profiles.
|
Reply: Trading journal is a great idea as it will save you from huge mistakes. Most traders mess up as they dont stick to their plan or they just dont have a plan at all. When I mean plan I mean entry, exit, stop loss, target, setup, risk to reward ratio, concerns of trade, potential roadblocks. Many of my best trades have not been trades for the biggest gain but a trade where I stuck to my plan exactly and thus saved me from disaster Here is something I do for swingtrades: This is what I do for every trade I enter. In a journal, right down your reason for entry, entry price, stop level, initial target and the reward to risk ratio. if the ratio is less than 2:1, you must right down the reason you think it's still a viable trade. After that: in the jourrnal once the trade is complete, give yourself a grade on the trade.
Here is an example of a trade I did in the summer from my journal SKS Buy 3.77 stop 3.60 (still have 1/2 in trade)Sold 1st 1/2 at 4.20. initial target 4.20(where i took 1/2 off) (200dma). This was an odd pattern. im not sure if this is a pattern that people can trade off but it looks really cool so im going to try. this stock is coiling in a triangle. But its also a classic swing because its oversold and has pulled back to support. Interesting. there is a trendline on the bottom that serves as support and the top of the triangle is actually a 200dma not some voodo i just drew myself....Im thinkng I can trade this as a breakout but since Stochastics are oversold and its sitting right on its trendline on the bottom I can swingtrade this with just a tight stop. If it gets to the breakout spot I can take some off the table and let it ride or I can just add more and play the breakout. Vol pattern bullish, stoch oversold, and sitting on a support line (thats been touched 5x). My concern on this trade is that im not sure that this is a real pattern and that even though on the volume there are larger green bars then red, there are more red bars in actual numbers but obv confirms that vol pattern is ok. Positives of this trade was that i played it right and was tight with it and made some money. Negative is that I didnt sell it the rest of it at 4.47 and just patiently waited for reentry for a breakout pullback play.
|
|
|
|
|
Need a new strategy
|
|
| Quoting oracle123 | | Quoting meemster | Hi Folks,
I need a new strategy to trade for income (I know I've only been doing this for ~4 months but unemployment benefits aren't going to last forever but I figure I'll solicit some feedback now before the 11th hour).
Some of you see me in the BF, where I camp out all day and try to stick and move with Kunal's and SG's picks. They are really good with their picks, to the point where I think Kunal may be a little psychic. I get some booms (I almost typed "boobs") too but I think there's something wrong with my trade management skills.
Here's my dilemma: I'm busy all day in the BF. Kunal and SG tell us their picks and I look at the charts and I make my trades, and I watch, and I watch. I probably trade 80% of Kunal and SG's picks per day, so maybe I do 5 trades a day. A couple of them break out and I'll easily make 5-10% in a relatively short period of time. My problem is that at the end of the day, I'm still breaking even. For the other trades, I stop out a lot.
I've received advice before that my stops are too tight -- I was setting them at 3% trailing stop but I recently switched to using hard stops at support levels, which is working a little better for me, but the whole reason I set them at 3% was because I wanted to only lose 3%, and now that I'm setting them at support levels, sometimes I lose 5% or 7% or wherever the support level is. Also, what I'm seeing is that the stock will drop, I'll stop out, and then the stock will climb back up to support and break out from there (arg!)
I read in one of my trading books that professional traders actually make more bad calls than good calls, just that their trade management minimizes their losses and maximizes their gains -- this is through the use of stops, conditional orders, bracketed orders, etc. I feel like I'm doing more or less the same thing, but at the end of the day, when you let 3 or 4 trades stop out at 3%, 5%, 7% etc, it all adds up, which is why I'm only breaking even at best, even given a few booms.
Sometimes it's frustrating because I'm feel like I'm busy as a squirrel all day long, trying to get a nut -- reading the charts, asking questions, soliciting opinions about X stock, reading the news, checking against Twitter, etc.. and at the end of the day when SG and others post their profits, they're way in the green, and I'm still out flat.
I know a day where "I don't lose money" is still a good day, because it means I've earned myself another day that I can stay in the game and learn how to trade, so I don't mean to sound like I'm rushing the process or that I'm ungrateful for this opportunity to learn and trade with my colleagues. I love and have fun with them, and I'd be in the BF with them whether or not I was making money.
My trading books tell me a lot of fundamental information, "fundamental" as in building a foundation for good trade practices, but I think I need to move onto a book that provides trading strategies in detail. In the mean time, does anyone have an opinion on what I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance!
Meemster/Mimi |
Reply: I want to share with you my trading plan and so far its been working out for me... As soon as I have earned something during the day, I start to reduce my position size on new positions and setting very tight stops on any positions that are still open to protect my profit for that particular day. My daily goal is to earn $500 and when I come close to that amount, I have to do my best to protect that profit because I have experienced days when I'm up $500 and end up losing $1K because of greed. I don't want that to happen anymore. My trading day will be something like this... buy the stock picks of kunal, SG, (usually kunal because SG is more of a swing trader) and I automatically book the first $100 gain I get. It doesn't matter to me whether the stock has more room to go because what I've noticed is that there would be times where I see myself having the chance to book a $ 130 profit only to find myself at breakeven point after 5 mins. If I bought 1K shares of $XYZ at $5, most probably I will sell it at $ 5.10 if it gets there. My logic is that if it goes up then "at least I profited from it." If it goes back to $5 then I get the chance to buy it again and have the opportunity of selling it again at $ 5.10. When I get to $500 I almost stop trading because again from my experience I tend to lose it very fast. And if I do trade, I usually buy 1/4 of my usual position size just to make sure that if the trade goes against me I won't lose my gain for the day. I just have to constantly remind myself of these things: 1. There's always something to trade everyday. 2. I will not run out of good trades. 3. I always remember what Cooper said in one of her blogs that "The more money in your account just means that you have more to lose." 4. I have wasted tons of money in the past becuase of greediness and overtrading
5. I always remind myself that if I earn $500 a day (net of commissions), that will be a 6 digit income every year on daytrading not including BOWS swing trade picks.
6. I just have to be CONSISTENT.
Well so far this strategy is working out for me pretty well and I hope this helps! |
Reply:hmmm thats the first time I have ever seen anybody trade my picks like that. Its actually a really good idea if you are trading for income. If your in a daytrade/scalp or a breakout trade they should start working in ur favor pretty quickly 1-3 move can be had right off the bat. I always say take profits, scale out, book them when u see them. this method give u a chance to make income and also have some left over. good stuff
|
|
|
|
|
Need a new strategy
|
|
|
very true chris very true. for most new people instead of focusing on having an up day. the key is to view a week as 1 day. focus on having a green week instead of a red week. once u nail that then u can make ur timeframes smaller. nice observations more on this later.
|
|
|
|
|
Need a new strategy
|
|
|
Stop placements differ greatly depending on the trade. If im swing trading I could have my stop anywhere from 1-10% away as Im putting stop under a major support area. For my IRA swings my stop might be even greater as Im building a position and put my stop under a huge break level. Daytrading is much different as ur timeframe of the chart ur looking at is different. For swingtrades we might be looking at a 3 month or 6 month chart. So the stops are going to be put under a support area on a daily. For daytrades I am usually looking at a 3 day chart with 5 minute candles. Also a 10 day chart with 30 minute candles to get a general direction on intermediate time frames. Obviously if ur looking at a 3 day chart ur stop under support is going to be a much smaller percentage as ur trading a very small time frame. That means ur gains are going to be much smaller too. Part of your mixup might be that ur stops are too tight on swingtrades (3%) and too loose on the daytrades. Also be mindful of when we are trading breakouts. A play that is a breakout if the breakout fails we unload the stock. Breakouts are played different than swings or pullback trades (which we are buying near support) On friday we traded PEIX and PSID 3 seperate times for 7-10% gains. These were daytrades. On these stocks my stops were extremely tight within pennies of the buy. Peix we bought at 1.91. I for this stock didnt look at its chart on the intraday or the daily. but I could tell the way the ticker was blinking and just the way it was nudging up that it was going to bust out. My out on this stock would have been 1.89 or so. Minimal risk but high reward as the initial target was 2 but we knew if it got past 2 it was going to run to 2.10 or so.
I know the info is a bit jumbled. Just be cognizant of whether its a swing, ira play, daytrade, breakout, or a play where we are building a position and requires multiple buys. Also ur commisions might be cutting into ur account in relation to how much capital u put in each trade.
5 roundtrip trades at 7 dollars a trade is 70 bucks in commisions. 5days a week x 70=350
50 trading weeks=17500 in commisions. Basically if your trading a 25k portfolio you need to double your money 100% gains just to make back commisions and taxes. What I will do for the premium guys is on a video log do a trade review that goes over the chart of what I saw how I knew it would go and where I put the stop on $psid since we traded it twice.
|
|
|
|
|
wash sale rules
|
|
| Quoting meemster |
|
Hello,
I'm sure many of us are anticipating tax season :( bleh. This being my first year of actively day trading, I would like to know if Turbo Tax (any of the versions) will handle wash sale rules w/ minimal input from myself. I'm totally dreading doing my taxes this year b/c I'm guessing that day trading is going to make it infinitely harder than it already is. Any advice is appreciated, even if it's "take your taxes to a tax accountant."
Thanks
|
Reply: I got a cheap accountant. he charges 80 bucks or so. I take my gains and losses forms from ameritrade and I just hand it to him and he figures it out.
A lot of us do quick trading so we dont really have much tax loss selling to do if ever.
|
|
|
|
|
Stock I'm looking @
|
|
| Quoting Ben_Le_Amazin |
|
The stock i'm looking at is Western Lithium. So far it's the only small-cap Lithium company in the USA. Something to look into guys. I'm not in it or getting in it anytime soon because i'm all in SYNM. But Lithium prices should continue to rise as the world trends toward electric cars etc. what do u guys think?
|
Reply: Lithium battery companies are very cool. Lot of different battery technologies out there. good thing to stash in an ira or something spread over a few stocks
|
|
|
|
|
Online Brokers
|
|
| Quoting joshpc | | I am trying to find out what brokers others are using. I have been using etrade. i get 9.99 stock trades. trading platform works for me. who is your broker? |
Reply: Your commisions are one of the most important things to nail for a new trader. Think about this. you have 10k account. You make 10 trades at 9.99.=100 dollars (p.s. most traders on twitter will make more!)
Lets say for math purposes you trade 50 weeks a year at 100/week in commisions= 5k. As a new trader your returns wont be the greatest. Lets say you learn quickly and you double the avg of the $SPY (avg 10%) and get 20% returns for the year 20% returns give you 12k. Then take away the 5k in commissions + Margin Expense. Your left with nothing. You basically would have to double your money just to make it worth your time and effort. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Get a cheap broker. 3 dollars or less. Sogotrade, Options house etc. Most of them have shitty service and not the greatest of platforms but those are always something you can scale into when your bankroll grows.
|
|
|
|
|
What does it mean to scalp and how do i do it?
|
|
| Quoting CSquaredTrading | lEARNING HOW TO SCALP IN THIS MARKET. Today I will introduce you to one of those Trading Techniques — this basic introduction will enable you to utilize the technique for yourself, and provide you with exceptional entry-and-exit points, either for multiple daytrades or for swing trades, depending upon how you set your charts. (After reviewing the technique below, I recommend that you “paper-trade” first, until you get the hang of it.) Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to: The Triple-Whammy Trading Technique (IMPORTANT NOTE: The Triple-Whammy Trading Technique only works 100% perfectly if the direction of the Bollinger Bands is primarily from left-to-right, rather than primarily UP or DOWN — and this will be the case, more than 95% of the time, and with more than 95% of the stocks you might choose to trade. Stated another way, if the Bollinger Bands are angled 45 degrees or more — UP or DOWN — the technique should not be used.) SET UP YOUR CHART: Ensure first that you have a good real-time streaming chart-package, and make your chart-settings as follows: (1) Time Period: For DAYtrading, 30 minutes or one hour; for SWINGtrading, 3 days or longer
(2) Chart Style: CANDLESTICK
(3) Chart Frequency: For DAYtrading, one minute; for SWINGtrading, 10, 15, or 30 minutes
(4) Upper Indicators: EMA (9 period) and BOLLINGER BANDS (20 period)
(5) Lower Indicators: MACD (12, 26) and RSI (14) Now you’re ready to proceed….. There are three essential components of this set-up: For quick profits with a Triple-Whammy Perfect BUY (Buy-Low-then-Sell-High; or Buy-to-Cover Short-Sell), these three legs are as follows: (1) The candlesticks will violate the lower Bollinger Band.
(2) RSI must fall into OVERSOLD territory, under 30, and preferably in DEEPLY OVERSOLD territory, under 20.
(3) The MACD (blue) line must be under the signal (red) line, and falling; and then must turn back upwards and cross the signal line. The crossover is the final confirmation — but if the turn upwards is sharp enough, you know it’s getting ready to do a crossover, so it’s best to go ahead and act, if the prior two conditions are already in place. (This is how STOCKGOD nails bottoms)
For quick profits with a Triple-Whammy Perfect SELL (ShortSell-High-then-Buy-Low; or Sell-to-Close Long Position), these same three legs are as follows: (1) The candlesticks will violate the upper Bollinger Band.
(2) RSI must rise into OVERBOUGHT territory, over 70, and preferably in STEEPLY OVERBOUGHT territory, over 80.
(3) The MACD (blue) line must be above the signal (red) line, and rising; and then must turn back downwards and cross the signal line. The crossover is the final confirmation. Utilizing this technique, you can comfortably and very profitably trade any stock, multiple times during each day, entering and exiting both Long and Short positions at the perfect points, and extracting amazing profits from the massive stream of money flowing constantly between those two Bollinger Bands. |
Reply: This is one of the strategies taht will get a new person. bankrupted....Its like using level 2. People who advocate this stuff are usually people are trying to sell something. As they say a man who needs to drive a sports car is compensating for something else. A man who needs this many fancy pancy indicators....is compensating for a lack of expereince and skill. U DO NOT NEED ALL THIS STUFF. yes a small subset of nich traders may be able to use this strategy semi effectivly. Maybe hit 50% of their trades. But if you want to make real cash. Learn how to do DD learn how to watch price action, how a stock breaks and bounces off support and resistance lines.
things like RSI SHOULD NEVER BE USED AS A WAY TO PICK ENTRIES. RSI is soley an indicator when used properly it will help you spot divergences in a trend. such as when a stock is making a new high but its RSI is lower than the previous high. That indicates weakening of trend.
you want a strategy that works...learn DD. learn the ranges a stock trades in. You will make much more money than slapping on 50 indicators. look on twitter the people that use a huge amount of indicators are trying to validate sometype of intellectual superiority but notice how none of them are the big name traders. Look at weeklyta, tradermarket247, codytrades. Most of the best scalpers use NO indicators.
|
|
|
|
|
What happened today? Boom and bust!
|
|
| Quoting TechboyUK | I can see from http://finviz.com/ that today started out quite well until around 13:30 then went downhill, but I am not sure why this happened. Please can someone explain? Thanks :-)
|
Reply: market is a little stunned and shaky...this is the first major test of our resolve in many months...ive looked long and hard trying to convince myself that this is the best buying opp of sometime now we had a low volume rally for part of the day coming off very oversold rally but then weakness in the finnies and the tension over the presidents state of the union shook the market... the market last year was able to shake of all the "noise" bad news didnt faze it as it was drunk coming off alltime oversold conditions and an excess amount of liquidity forcefed to the market. The fact that we can not shake that news these days and we continue to drop is worrysome...... until the speech we wont know much.....as 99% of the times in the past once the speech is made u will prob see little movement as its just something people use as an excuse... the fact we cant rally off oversold conditons or shake the "news" is worrysome.. the explanation of why is of no consequence....we need to look at the nature of the action..if bounces are faded or bounces are of low volume then we are in for some trouble..... if thursday after the uncertainty is taken out of the system and we rally hard than we got a good chance.
|
|
|
|