Now that WAS exciting I have to admit. The S&P hit R3 and executed my order at 21h57 my time (three minutes to the close of the NYSE cash session) while I was watching on a 5-minute chart. The Dow ALMOST made it but I closed it out manually at the same time as the S&P TP was executed…
Now THAT’S what I’m used to with this system. And two perfectly executed trades with some really decent profit to boot.
NASDAQ is still on a tear. For all I know it could hit its R2 before the Futures break in just under an hour. But even if it did RSI(2) would not be at or above 70 so trade stays open. But whatever the case: it closed above its 200-day SMA. The Dow just missed really.
Facebook made a semi-decent recovery. But no signal to TP. Also managed to close above its 200-day SMA (was flirting with it yesterday big time).
Hong Kong: unless somebody kicks off overnight or has nothing better to do than play with their Twitter machine there should be a real nice gap up when it opens a bit later.
Gold only up slightly and not enough to warrant me sticking around to scale-in another portion.
Both Oils also did nice today but no signals to TP.
So that’s about it for now.
P.S.
Actually that’s not it. Just in case you think I’ve forgotten of course.
It may be worth mentioning that just about every single one of those trades that I closed out at BE on Friday would have closed out at profit today. I’m not spending the time tracing them through point by point. But so far as I can tell from a quick inspection: all of the trades on the EU indices would have closed out at profit today and that included Italy. FTSE too. Hong Kong would still be in a loss. Oil would still be in a loss (although this only because it’s tanked in the last half hour). And alright and so as to not skew things here: today profits on the S&P and the Dow would not have been as good BUT small profits nevertheless.
I state the above not because I’m crying over spilled milk i.e. I would never have been able to keep those positions open anyway as I had to withdraw as we know and, as result, had to reduce position sizes which I could not have done had I not closed the trades on Friday. However: I state the above as testament to the robustness of the system.
Anyway. I see the NASDAQ Futures still on a tear with only one minute to go until the close. No idea what happened to OIl though i.e. both tanked a few minutes ago. Nothing major. Just noticed though.
Today’s closed trades equate to 6.81% and with some floating profit currently not taken into account.
I need to post a correction to yesterday’s gains stated above (didn’t want to just go and change the figure as that would look like cheating). Gains for closed trades yesterday, and including the small profit just realized on the Hang Seng (more on this below), are 3.99% and not 6.81% as stated last night. Apologies. I forgot that I’d not quite closed out everything at BE last Friday so there was a little extra in the account before these trades from Monday.
Hang Seng. Yeh. I don’t get it. Normally this thing take off one way or the other and can put a smile on your dial. But it’s been stuck going nowhere for the last two weeks at least. And it hogs margin. I’ve made more money on dividends received than I have on trading the darn thing of late. So I (admittedly impatiently) just closed it out a few minutes ago for a small profit. I need to update my spreadsheet to see if the volatility calculation confirms this just for the hell of it. Anyway. I’m out of it. Let them go have their three daily breaks. My money has to work.
As for the rest: all looking extremely good. I see Gold is on a tear. Should be able to scale-in tonight if it carries on like this.
I just got a nice surprise. Turns out I don’t have to buy shares in blocks of 100. All this time never thought to try change the lot size from anything other than 1 (which is 100 shares) which was fine of course in a previous lifetime with CAPITAL. But at $1 052.15 per share of Google (Alphabet A shares) and with a margin requirement of 20% well do the math!!! LOL!!! So. FAANG stocks here we come.
Goes to show though what’s needed to make REAL money in this business though doesn’t it. Those shares per block of 100 have a daily ATR of $2 747. Margin requirement: $20 802, That ain’t playing around for us mere retail traders. Or 1 000 shares: $27 470 ATR. Margin requirement: $208 020. Nice work if you can get it!!! Try being on the wrong side of THAT though!!! LOL!!!
Long Alphabet A Shares (Google) at 1 040.01. Whole new world opened up!!! LOL!!!
It’s a full position i.e. a valid as advertised signal (ignoring the 200-day SMA of course) but a late entry thereto.
For the record: these trades where you can get in late are the best trades of all for obvious reasons. Would be a perfectly valid method of trading this system and with an almost 100% guarantee of profitable trades I’d go so far as to say. Problem is: not many (and certainly not myself) would be able to wait for the very last valid signal on something and then go all in.
You know: with enough instruments to trade I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be a perfectly good strategy to only trade long. Sure would suit my bias to begin with. Feels right. And with enough instruments you’re bound to always be able to find a trade or two or three. Just some thoughts.
Put another way and sadly I don’t have statistics: but I’m willing to bet that probably 80% of my trades with this system over the last five years have been long trades.
I actually did find myself looking (ROUGHLY anyway) at support on Google before I place the order. Will not lie nor fool myself i.e. would have placed it regardless. But it does add a certain level of comfort.
Something else to mention (I’m on a roll today):
One thing with individual stocks: when they get really beat down (like 2%, 3%. 4%) in a day then more often than not traders step in to buy. This I have indeed seen more often than not. And this is but one of my reasons for always saying that this stuff works because there are PEOPLE behind these moves. Obviously I’d not be looking at all stocks i.e. only these very few large caps. The reason: an individual stock can go to ZERO (seen that happen once or twice). So not something I’d do i.e. set up a stock scanner to scan every single stock where we have a signal. That’s just looking for trouble in my opinion.
80% of time beeing, stocks trend up, 20% they trend down.
a bull market has no limit in its duration, also it has no limit on the scale of how high it can go. a bear market has a limit in its duration and a limit of how low it can go.
with trading long only, you make sure that the odds are on your side in every trade.
the odds are
bull: 8/10 x to infinite
bear: 2/10 x to 0
not only are your chances of success higher by always beeing bullish, also the potential yield is higher as a stock can go from x to 0 in a bear move the sum that can be earned at max is x-0. a stock in a bull market has no limitation on how high it can go. it is x to infinite.
suppose buying amazon at 90 and selling it at 90.
chances of a successful sale are 20%, max profit is 90
chances of a successful long are 80/, max profit is 1627
shorting a stock (a market as well in itself) is a highly complicated procedure. it is said that a bear always suicides in the end. why? simply put, to short a stock you must borrow the stock of somebody who actually owns it, sell it and hope that you can buy it back later for less. the crucial part here is “buy it back” as you have to fullfill your contract with the original owner of the stock you must fullfill that contract and at some point buy the stock back. so once your stock went in the desired direction and you must start buying the stock back, the buying of you and fellow bears will make the stock rally again. depending on how many contracts have a closing date on or in the close aproximity of a date this “rerallying from suiciding bears” can be very strong in nature and within a very short time put the stock back to where it started.
the suicide of the bear has then been completed. he lived, some made profits some ended up with nothing and some lost, but in the end all the bears died out.
it is a very complicated procedure which can be carried out only by professionals. its complexity puts it in the categories of “rare” events. thus and therefore beeing a dogmatic bull increases your chances of succes by a huge ratio.
You see. This is why I said you and I should chat more.
Thanks for that great post.
As I’ve noted: I’ve always had an issue shorting. And not really for any good reason to be honest other than that it feels awkward to me. And I suppose another reason is that it’s logical really to assume that over time stocks are supposed to go up for a variety of reasons simply based on the reality of life and living really. I mean: nobody goes into business with the express intent of driving their stock price DOWN let’s face it.
And I AM making the assumption that you’re possibly one of two people (me being the other one) around here that actually sees the merit of Equities and Commodities vs. FOREX!!! LOL!!! (You don’t have to answer that one).
Like I said: keep in touch.
And I don’t expect you to pour over my thousands and thousands of words but any input from you would be noted.
on my old account and probably this one as well there have been nummerous times where i pointed out that trading forex it is practically impossible to make any money, take aside living of it or becoming rich.
forex is a highly manipulated market which demands of you to have overseen so many factors that it is impossible to directly say which factors are of importance and which arentnand which can play out when.
manipulated? why?: central banks on purpose manipulate their currency ti make their goods more competitive on the global market. politics supports this old practice developed by the italians 200 years ago.
you never know when a manipulation will be taken place.
factors which cant be overseen, why?
you have to compare 2 economies of two countries vs each other. it is hard to forecast if a company or a person will be sucessfull. how can you compare the numerous politics, social behaviours, patterns, competency of two countries which includes several hundret million citizen and several thousand companies to each other?
whoever claims that he can do that has his ego inflated to “godmode”
but if theres one thing i learned its: you cant tell people whats bad for them, the denial is overpowered in each and everyones personality. and the “selfcomparison” to god is a way too juicy thought that cant be put down that easily.
One day when I’m rich I’m gonna come have a beer with you!!! LOL!!!
You want to know something that’s really funny:
I have had no less than two people contacting me privately asking me to help them to become successful in trading FOREX. I’ve told them I cannot help them with FOREX but happy to show them what’s going on here and maybe make a FEW % per month. NOT INTERESTED!!! The moment it’s not FOREX and you’re not quoting +500% gains in a day: not interested. I don’t get it other than to say that this retail FOREX marketing machine is REALLY something to behold.
As I’ve just posted on another thread: getting mightily slaughtered on Oil at the moment. Although it has recovered somewhat since that post. Was just reminding myself of that “if your stop gets hit you’ll be glad it did” statement that I quoted somewhere above!!! LOL!!! But we’re now about of a third of the way to the stop. Support at around $50 would be really nice (that’s approximately half way to the stop).
Everything else doing fine. Facebook in profit. WAS in a small profit on Google (now a teeny loss). Quite surprising though i.e. wasn’t expecting to see a profit at all on Google today as the spreads on these things are not for the miserly or feint of heart I can tell you that.
And VERY tempted to double up on these two Oil positions by placing a limit buy at around $50.20 on WTI (and at the equivalent point on Brent). But is that trading proper??? It’s certainly not following my trading system. Could I ride it out down to $42??? Nope. Is that a valid support level??? COULD be. Worth the gamble (because that’s what it would be for me)??? VERY difficult question to answer under the circumstances. For sure have way enough margin to do this so that’s not a consideration.
Feel free to chime in anybody. I will not hold you responsible so no need for your input to be accompanied by disclaimers!!! LOL!!!
Just placed a TP at today’s high on the NASDAQ that price being just inside of R1. Seems a bit sluggish now but look what happened yesterday with the S&P. if it reaches the TP then great. If not: will cancel the TP if RSI(2) is below 70 at the close. Obviously will just take profit if RSI(2) closes at or above 70.
This just totally off topic but posted for the sake of interest and for another forum friend of mine.
The chart below is a daily chart of Nymex Crude going back to whenever. Take a look at what happens with the ADX line at every single turning point or pause in the trend (this being the white line obviously). Don’t bother with whatever the ADX value was at the time i.e. it’s just the shape of the line we’re interested in. In every single instance: the moment there is a pause or a reversal in the trend that line turns down within a day or two. That’s a very basic interpretation but it gets the idea across. Wilder actually says that when this happens (assuming you’ve been riding the trend) it’s rarely a bad time to take profit with a possible view to re-entering at a later stage and possibly at a better price (not sure I agree with the re-entry part but definitely with the booking profit part).
And by the way: these are not signals to enter a trade or reverse direction i.e. there’s other ways of trading this. it is only an indication of the strength or weakness of the trend.
If you look at the most current data: you’ll see what I meant when I said I’d be a lot more comfortable with Oil once ADX has turned down. But it is what it is according to my core trading system (TPS).
And if you look nice at that last huge downtrend: note how ADX first turns up, then down, then rises again but it’s a lower high. Exactly what I was referring to and as Wilder states: not uncommon for this to happen at the end of a trend i.e. the final “blow off” stage. Needless to say: not something I need to happen on Oil right now!!! LOL!!!
And this is not cherry picked i.e. you can put this on whatever chart you like (FOREX charts being an exception in my opinion of course but who knows).
Just thought I’d add an update and some realism here:
Dunno who I’m trying to fool!!! LOL!!! Very easy to say “well maybe taking only long trades is the way to go because it just feels right”. But it’s not that easy when you start seeing signals building up to short!!! LOL!!! Especially if you’re taking into account all of the uncertainty and nonsense going on in the world (which, I know in my case and with this system, I shouldn’t be bothered about). Becomes even more difficult if you’re actually able to even vaguely see areas of resistance above. And then of course there’s my system for trading double tops i.e. got no problem shorting there obviously. And of course I do need to bear in mind that this thing works only by buying or selling pullbacks against the prevailing trend. So I don’t know. Maybe time for me to revert back to neutral on this i.e. without a bias one way or the other.
The crutial part in long only (as in all trading) is timing. Its fairly possible to not do 1 trade for weeks or months. But then once at that low point the sentiment starts to shift you will find yourself confronted with the problem of having too many opportonities and then youll need to chose the ones which might outperform even the bullish run. And then you will enter positions and do absolutely nothing but hold on to them for weeks or months.
Edit:
Nothing wrong with going short.
The technicals are also that shorts are quick and nasty in volatility and longs are calmer and last longer. So when shorting do it very carefully and dont overstay in the short time isnt ur friend. When longing time is your friend and the longer you stay the better you earn.
You make some good points. I guess maybe I’m confusing myself with a trend following system (which I have not tried trading for many years) and a shorter term type trading system such as this one.
I suppose truth be told: given my circumstances I don’t have the luxury of sitting on my hands waiting for a bottom and then a trend to develop. So that plays a part too I’m sure.
Just saw your last paragraph. Yeh. At least with this trading system there’s no question when to get out and it leaves nothing to your imagination. Nice thing about being short and which we know is market phenomenon: markets fall faster but for shorter duration than going up. That’s the ideal for a system such as this.
Of course let me not forget that my best trade in life ever was being short with this trading system during the first Brexit referendum!!!
Be nice to ride a trend again (or at least try). Am busy looking at something right now (for want of something better to do in the day) that may or may not have merit. Will throw it open on a new thread for comment soon I think. For me: ideal situation would be to catch a nice trend and with pyramiding into the trend and just let that run on the side for weeks while doing what I’m doing now to pay the bills type of thing.
Of course there is one VERY good reason to only trade LONG trends (as opposed to short) and that’s dividends. Those add up pretty nice especially during earnings season. But they can cost you a LOT too if you’re short. Even with this trading system of mine and being long the Hang Seng for a few days: I made more on dividends than I did when I closed the position out (was being impatient) (of and course HOW DID I KNOW that the moment I did that it would start to move up i.e. has done nothing but frustrate me for nearly four weeks and THE MOMENT I get out it moves!!! LOL!!!).
Just an observation for those that MAY be monitoring this thread and the system itself:
Out of sheer boredom (waiting for something to move) I just pulled up a monthly chart of Gold (but take your pick of instrument really) with the as advertised entry and exit points (but removing the 200-day SMA which is then no longer valid). Well: if you look at the entries and exits they’re nigh perfect. With B-I-G capital I think you could be looking at the sports cars and fancy houses type of trades. But as I say you’d need B-I-G capital to make it worth your while even although the system is extremely accurate. Nobody is going to hold positions open for months on end with the potential profit in the hundreds if you see what I’m saying. But potential profit in the tens or hundreds of thousands but with decent capital: definitely doable.
I’d be willing to take those trades. Unwilling to study your system though LOL, would probably mess up my own. What say you Dale? Care to do a little experiment? I’d gladly set aside say $1,000 of my profits to trade some gold on a longer time frame.
Let me work out what capital would be required in order to trade that on the monthly charts (sort of reverse engineer my calculations if you like). Could be interesting to see.
