Thrill of trading
I'm sure we've all been there... you enter a trade, it starts to do well but not well enough for you to start thinking you're the shit. Then, things turn against you... price moves sideways or worse... hovers within striking distance near your stop. As you agonize about what's going on with the 5ema and how this happened on such a nice setup... price literally moves within a cent of your stop. You're thinking "fuck... that sucked." But even though it's the worst moment of the day and you're down some bucks, that feeling, right as you're about to get stopped out but still hoping it moves your way, is about as good as it gets in trading. I compare it to the last second 3-pointer to win the game or that miracle play from Manning in the Superbowl. When all looks lost... your heart pounds, palms sweat... but you feel alive.
Of course, the happy ending is if you make a shitload of dough but that isn't always the case. I had two heart pounding situations that didn't go my way today and one that kinda worked out. FTO screwed me over twice (once my fault) and SVR was a nice trade that chopped me out before coming to fruition. Entered SVR off a break of the 1:15 bar high which was an inside NR7 just below the ORH and closed barely above the 5ema. Price moved in my favor and I partialed out a bit before getting exiting on a revised stop at the low of the 2:45 bar. Bummer as priced spiked up about .80 from there.
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5 comments:
Any reason you went looking at longs today? Shouldn't you usually go with the trend?
rz: I just looked at the charts and followed my rules. If I try to guess what the market's gonna do then I'll never make a trade. I also shorted KGC today and that reversed against me... so much for going with trend.
When I was paper trading I did some comparisons of using market direction. I.e. > only making trades in same direction as market. Overall I found that it didn't make much difference. Yes it kept you out of some trades, but then some of those would have been winners. I belive TraderX said the same thing on his blog.
(Egle today was a big gainer on a market down day).
oonr > Your commentary is getting more interesting each day > can't wait for the next instalment tomorrow :-)
oonr7 - I have a very rookie question to ask - I realize you use the low of the candle prior to entry to set your stop loss but exactly what type of stop loss do you use, trailing stop or sell stop limit/market?
I may not be using the terms correctly so let me pose a hypo: If your entry is 20.00 and you want to exit if price goes below 19.85, for example, do you initially set a sell stop limit order or a 15 cent trailing stop?
I have been using trailing stop because I do not fully understand the sell stop limit order - the reason is if I set a stop limit sell order at 19.85 and price is currently at 20.00 - wouldn't this type of stop loss order activate immediately because my activation price is less than the current bid price of , say, 20.01.
I am afraid of placing a stop order and having the stock immediately sell because I did not know what I am doing - I also find a trailing stop of 5 cents hard to manage with the fluctuations so what I do is hold the stock and set the trailing stop only to lock in profits - which is not smart because some trades go south and emotion overrides the need to cut losses. I hope my question is clear - thanks.
traderam: I agree with your analysis. Like X, I generally agree that the charts tell the true story. And glad you like the commentary.
Tom: I use buy/sell stop orders for exits. For longs, it would be a sell stop order and for shorts a buy stop order. Basically, I set a stop price below the current price (for shorts) that is the trigger price and then my order becomes a market order. I've tried stop-limit orders for exits but I haven't had much success with them. Maybe I don't understand either. But, and using a short position as an example, I figured that a buy stop-limit order would allow me to set the stop price (trigger) and a limit price (below the trigger price) which would allow for some slippage. That experiment was short lived as I realized I would much rather have the guarantee of a market order exit.
Hope this makes sense.
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