Reply:Hi Leigh,

For the vitamin plays, do you enter an order b4 the open to buy at market?

Also, I missed your webinars. Are they archived? thanks

Hey Leigh!

 

Before you "pull the trigger" and buy a stock; what kind of criteria must the stock meet? eg. volume, moving average crossover, break of resistance... etc.

 

Thanks!

@dazetrader

Reply:

 

Hi! I have so many strategies ...that each trigger-finger on my  hands must be trained to understand the strategy deployed.

 

I rarely trade anything under 500 million in daily volume. Under that - it moves to slowly for me. I lose patience and start acting ugly.

 

I don't trade  MA cross-overs since most people do. I watch those for confirmation.  On my watchlist, I give a good detail of confirmations.  I will post those on a blog separately. As a candle chartist, I use those as high priority for short trades. 

 

Swings: I look at patterns and weekly data as well.

 

Thanks for asking...I'll tweet the blog post with the confirmation outline.

 

Hi Leigh,

 

I don't know if my timing was off, but I bought $drys at what I thought was the dip at10:17am for 6.45. I set a stop for 6.43. The stock bounced 6.45-6.46 for a while as I watched the monitor. I barely left the room to make my son lunch, when I came back it was at 6.33. That stop only cost me 2 cents per share an saved me from a lot of grief. Did I miss time the buy?        Robin

Reply:  You are 100% correct on market games by market makers. I have spent years training in this area. They are a discreet lot of traders - their tactics are not that complex, but they keep us guessing at times.

 

It's too much to type all this out here, but suffice it to say - this is WHY I don't use stops. I like to keep THEM guessing. For smaller orders and beginners, yes ---use stops. But for larger or block orders  - I have my mental stops (which are just as solid as the real ones) and manage my trades.

 

I have this listed as a lesson topic. Honestly, I'd like to show you with live screens what they are doing as well.

 

Reply: I don't always place orders prior to the open. Some I do; others I don't. The strategies differ; I need to execute per strategy.

 

We haven't arhived the webinars yet, but will soon. We are planning more webinars as well --some will be premium  and others will be free.

Reply:

  3 things

 

1. @ 10:45 was there enough volume to enter into a trade?

2. what was your strategy? day, swing. etc?

3. your stop is tight and I mean tight...you'll most likely lose 9 out of 10 times

 

 

Reply:I know this is coppers forum but i will interject. There is no study done that says using a fixed percentage loss will ever lessen your risk in your portfolio. To arbitrarily pick a number and put a stop there does not give you an "edge" or a raise in the probability of successful trade.  Yes it does limit risk to certain extent but not really.  If you set ur stop at 5% and you get stopped out 20x in a row then your bust anyways!

 

Best place to put a stop is UnDER a strong level of support.  The support will depend on the timeframe you trade.  But if you look at a chart 90% of them have an easily indentifiable area of support

Hi Leigh,

 

I've got a question for you about the bid and ask prices (and sizes).  I'm not sure how relevant these details are to trading, but it's something I don't currently understand and would like to sort it out.

 

I recently added quotestream to my online brokerage account, so now I can see real-time charts, level 2, etc.  I started out by watching SYNM moving around, and although it's typically very low volume, I couldn't make sense of the bids and asks.  From my best guess, the "Last Price" would be at the Ask price if somebody 'bought at market price,' and would be at the Bid price if somebody 'sold at market price.'  Is that correct?  What I can't figure out though is why sometimes the bid and ask price would be the same (if they are equal, why aren't those shares immediately traded?), and why sometimes the Last Price is higher than both the Bid and the Ask.  I guess I'm also wondering what causes the price to fluctuate at all between the Bid and the Ask; what is the goal of the MM or whatever system it is that's deciding the current price?  Lastly, sometimes I can see the Ask price getting taken down, while the volume is not increasing.  Does this mean people are taking their Asks off the table?

Reply:  Now that's a loaded question too! Level II quotes are confusing to most traders. Honestly, unless I am bidding large lots, doing large scalps, I don't even look at it. Trust me, we only see one piece of the puzzle (what the market markers will allow us to view) as well. 

 

I caution traders to trade based on what they see on Level II unless they really know what the heck they are doing. Many have exited early, sold out at a loss, waited for a particular high order to get filled and missed profit at all,  and everything in between.  Although real time, you will see overlaps in data as you mentioned.

 

Also remember, just because the orders are sitting there it still doesn't pull up other pending orders still waiting to be filled.

 

You are pretty much on target with your assumptions.  Think of it as an auction environment, no buyers or sellers? no problem, market makers can still make a sale (and commission) by manipulating price flux.

I am trying to keep all the questions in this thread as I can't keep up with multiple threads.

 

Question:

I saw a tweet from you re making $1000/$3000 per day etc.  I have many ?'s on portfolio management but want to start with how do you monitor these daily gains.  The market is very volatile (DUH) so the expectation, especially for a new trader, to see a set amount everyday is unrealistic, at least I think so.  Do you monitor it weekly, monthly etc.  So if you have 20 trading days in a month and you want, for easy math, $500 per day that would mean from the 1st day of the month to the next 1st day you would increase by $10,000.  

 

I do see tweets from traders stating they made $ today so do they have accts they monitor daily that are specific to this strategy of money management?

 

 

Leigh's answer:

 

This volatility is what makes  the money for us in the market. Day and swing traders love this...it's awesome! 

 

I am a day trader accustomed to making certain amounts everyday. ( usually pull over 6 trades per day conservatively)

I am a swing trader, accustomed to making amounts every week and every month.

I am an intermed/long term position trader --ditto!

Options, FOREX  - ditto!

Investor trader - ditto!

 

 

I keep my accounts separate. I do combine a few of my  day and swing trading accounts.

Question on puts:

 

 

Reply: Kunal, I just saw this...
it's illegal to have two husbands in the US...

BUT if I was not married, you would be next in line.

We'd "trade" ourselves silly all the way to the bank.  Ha!

He's a great catch Ladies.....Leigh-Harmony is taking applications.....subject line "Kunal"

Do you use the TICK or TRIN charts in any of your trades?

 

 

Reply: Yes to tick -no to trin --and I'll tell you why.

 

tick: I do on large lot day trades (and I mean quick trades on indices or other really really fast moving stocks)

 

no to trin as I don't need that indicator any longer for oversold/overbought

I used it years ago and (as most of you know I don't use stochastics either - no worries I do teach it though) Actually, I fibbed. Maybe on occasional I'll pull the trin just to see what it's revealing, but it's rare.

 

My charting is so far past that now, it's a moot point for me...in my style of trading.

 

 

Ask @copperstl questions here......