Jan 23, 2009

No trades

Flirted with ABX but stuck to my plan, waited for my setups and nothing happened. No regrets. Have a great weekend.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

WYE
GERN

life is good after F-U pattern delivers handily.
thx

Anonymous said...

Nice post on the focused and disciplined set-ups.

I have a suggestion:

Can you backtest the principal ideas you plan to daytrade over the past 3 months, on a day-to-day basis, based on your money management system? If so, does your system net your minimum monthly profit expectations?

Only then, perhaps, do you have a viable system that can make you money going forward?

Hope this helps.

Rudy

OONR7 said...

anon: I'll have to check those out.

Rudy: I certainly can't backtest them going back 3 months. If I had a way to do it I would. What I can do is look at my existing WL candidates from the previous 2 weeks in addition to all the charts I save every single day. I honestly don't think I need to look back that far to convince me of these patterns. These patterns have always been there but I have been zoned into them.
What I am going to do is rewind this week to see all the trades I should've taken with my exit strategy in place. This will be a good exercise. Maybe this will be a regular weekend feature.

Anonymous said...

"I certainly can't backtest them going back 3 months. If I had a way to do it I would."???

When you run your scan for intra-day gaps, don't you save the scan? If not, I can e:mail you my intra-day gap scan for everyday, for the last 6 months (excel files - cut&paste into trading software).

Don't your trading software allow you to "replay" 5/15 min bars?

I use Ameritrade's Strategy Desk and scan for intra-day gaps. It allows me to pull-up any chart for the last 2 years on any time frame. I can literally scroll the chart bar-by-bar to re-visit my entries & exits, as if in real-time. I am sure Tradestation, can do lots more. maybe, Traderam, etc, can shed some additional light?.

For subscription to Ameritrade's Strategy Desk, all you need is a $2k trading account, and its free, with no monthly premiums. In addition it has great real-time candlestick charts, and works as a good back-up system.

Good to know your confidence in your set-ups are high, however, can you convincingly establish that your set-ups will deliver your minimum monthly R's? If not, I fear you're trading "expectation without confirmation".

Besides, think of the metrics you can derive from a well thought out backtesting plan, such as: what time of the day provides the most profitable/unprofitable trades? You can define the type of set-up, trigger bar, set-up grade, etc. By setting up a simple excel spreadsheet, you can experiment with various exit strategies.

The problem with "evolutionary trading" is the constant adjusting to the ever changing wind, and, thus, loosing sight of your original port of call. By the time you get to your final destination, you have carved out a new routine.

Knowing exactly, precisley, what your set-ups can deliver, will prevent you from manipulating your original system. This internalization of singular vision, can only come from tirelessly backtesting.

Hope this helps.

Rudy

bl said...

What? MSCC LUV GE XRX HOG TPX GERN STEM HIG(WL?) ABX RGLD NEM golds?

OONR7 said...

bl: didn't say I had no candidates in my watchlist... just no comfortable entries. STEM??? That's a $2 stock. Actually all the stocks you mentioned are well under $15 which I do not trade.

Rudy: I understand your logic and I do have Strategy Desk and will look into figuring out how to implement my setups. In the meantime... it's business as usual over here :)

OONR7 said...

anon: wish I could take credit for your success but I don't seen any viable setups in GERN and WYE.

Anonymous said...

gold stocks on friday - like the old days... base and break, base and break... when they get hot, they are tough as the first PB usually has the least risk, but if you dont take it, you are liable to get impatient and get in too late.

ive been thinking about opening a TD Ameriturd account - i've read the RT data stream doesnt lag... thats good to know.

QQQBall

bl said...

Most +/-% stocks are under $20. You might consider 2 scans: >/<20(or whatever your min is)just to see what gives you the most bang for your buck.

Tyler said...

Rudy,

Would you mind sharing your data with me? I am wanting to do some backtesting and the list of gappers would be very helpful.

My email is amibald08 at gmail dot com. Thanks in advance if you are able to help.

Thanks,
Tyler