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gosu
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Everything posted by gosu
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stop at 2528.25.......going out for a quick lunch...
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will wash at 2529.25.....this is now a "free" ride
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if i get the opportunity within the next hour, will add above 2530 and see how pm start up goes... forgot to state that this is playing the ST and will look to hold beyond eod depending on pm...ST p2
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short nq 2529.50......
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There is a reason why you don't see any "chess psychologists." They would starve.
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After you do that for a few earnings seasons, you will see that there are only a handful of names to keep an eye out for. Currently Apple is numero uno and is practically a proxy for the NDX. You will see the build up on CNBC going into the release. The upcoming week has a few economic releases to be aware of, the major ones being Apple earnings, FOMC and GDP.
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I'm not sure what you are asking. What is "UI"? In any case, I trade stock index futures not stocks so there is no need to make it complicated. There are only a few names to keep watch for, mostly in technology. Financials are less important now because of their steep drop in prices. C has been dropped altogether from the DJIA; JPM and BAC are still left. Banks usually release premarket at the beginning of earnings season; techs usually release after the close, sometimes during the 15 minutes between the close of the cash market and futures market. Why is Apple so important? It makes up a big part of the NDX (around 20%) and it's also a significant part of the SPX (around 2%). It's not in the INDU, but we know all of these indicies are related and therefore correlated. This should make a person think about what it is he is actually trading when he says he trades ES or NQ or YM. These are not isolated markets. If I understand what you are asking, I do not screen for big stocks in the earnings calendar. During earnings season, I just scan (with my eyeballs) the upcoming week's calendar and the names pop out at me and I make note of it. I don't care what the estimates or actual numbers are, just the day and whether pre- or post-market. Takes me less than 5 minutes.
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I know the top 5% sounds like an exclusive club and is often spoken about as the population in the trading world that has "made it," but based on casual observations I don't think this is true. I am talking about traders strictly and not money managers whose income is derived from fees and commissions. I've been around hundreds of "traders" over the years and I would guess maybe 1 or 2 out of 100 who give it a SERIOUS go at trading get good enough to last in this business. I'm talking about people who are SERIOUS, which is really a minority group. Counting the punters who have no chance at succeeding, that would put the percentage much less than 2%. Compare trading with another skill-based activity that has a lot of stats on its population: chess. I've attached the USCF ratings distribution table for people who have gone through the motion and paid for membership, club dues, tournament fees, etc., and played in rated tournaments. There are a lot more people who play casually who are not rated. The USCF counterpart to the 95th-percentile person in the trading world is the Class A player rated 1900+ who is in the top 94.62% among rated players. It takes a chessplayer to understand that, notwithstanding the impressive percentile, these players are nothing special and they comprise the fodder in a typical club tournament where they get beat up by masters and experts. Now, I'm not saying that trading and chess are related in any way other than that they both require knowledge, skill and experience to excel. And it may be that being "good enough" in trading is easier than it is in chess. In any case, being in the 95th percentile does not necessarily cause egos to inflate.
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Be prepared. yada yada yada - 20 character minimum requirement is lame. Less is more.
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Hi joshdance, I use briefing.com for no particular reason and there are others that are referenced by a helpful person in the above post.
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Google earnings miss. Keep a cool head and chalk it up to a lesson. Always know the releases ahead of time.
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ST = short term p2 = point 2
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close short 2421...on gift. was looking to hold for a day on the retrace but i always take extraordinary profits when they arise.
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I'll wash at 2441.25 if it reaches there and look to get a better entry above 2442.50.
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2441.50 short the NQ here for a retrace from ST p2... at least a day hold.
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The distinction becomes clear again when the husband becomes aware of the urge to suck on the other nipple.
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Rande, this is worse than tripe. First of all, a "trade not to lose" approach is quite good. I liken it to a "drive not to crash" approach to operating a car. Defensive trading, just like defensive driving, is based on the fact that you cannot control the traffic around you and avoiding accidents is a function of avoiding and anticipating risky situations. Secondly, to people who do not know what they are doing, the market IS a dangerous place (to their account). This doesn't change by deconstructing or reorganizing anything to adopt a belief of "I am a manager of uncertainty and have an edge toward positive probability" and gosh dang it people like me. Your biggest weakness is that you cannot discern a sound trading approach from an unsound one and so you make the assumption that the person coming to you has a sound trading approach already in place. That's quite convenient for you but far from the reality. A sound trading approach cannot be bought, sold, or given away, nor can it be obtained by showing up to a class. It is developed over a period of time in SUCCESSFUL stages, from the most rudimentary where participation is limited to more and more participation as knowledge, skill, and experience are acquired. In this way, there is no separation between the trading methodology and the "psychology" part of it. The methodology is effective for the trader because his trading mind has been built on it through gaining knowledge, skill, and experience, not by adopting "beliefs" about uncertainty or whatever.
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I get where you're coming from a bit better now. In my experience, the premise just doesn't hold. However, it's not my intention to discourage you. Good luck.
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I think the suggestion was to not over complicate as you seem to enjoy doing.
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Let's be more exacting here for even more fun. If the psychologist came to my door saying he was a TRADING PSYCHOLOGIST and had techniques to help with mental issues related to TRADING, I would hear him out. If he then started talking about fear of pulling the trigger as a central issue and how overcoming limited thinking about money that is inherited from our parents is the formula for dealing with uncertainty in the markets, yet he himself cannot trade, I would take out the vacuum from the closet and tell him he had better get to cleaning if he wanted to make any money from me. Just because trading is a mental game does not mean a person has "mental issues (not the illness types)" if he cannot do it. It is much more likely the person lacks the Knowledge, Skill, and Experience needed to extract from the markets. Regarding learning from nontraders, of course I have learned from people who don't or can't trade that has benefitted my trading. The person I consulted for my computer systems doesn't trade. The electrician who rewired my office doesn't trade. The support people who answer my questions regarding my software may or may not trade. Picking their brains about their fields of expertise has benefitted me as a trader. In any case, I do agree with you that everyone should make his own choices about what is helpful to him.
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Is your accountant, cleaner, gardener, or mechanic claiming he can show you how to develop a trader's mind so you can extract for yourself from the markets? I'm thinking no, and that you go to them for accounting, cleaning, gardening, and getting your car fixed. You would benefit yourself immensely by taking a course in logical reasoning. Fun thread.
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A small suggestion: Drop the posting of ongoing results on this forum or anywhere else on the internet. You have nothing to gain by keeping an audience on a message board. Use this place to ask questions about software/hardware/housekeeping and for casual chit chat with others interested in trading. Keep an even keel about daily results; they are not important. It might also be wise to agree with your wife that you will update her monthly on your trading and that neither of you will concern yourself with the shorter-term. This is what you will agree with her but for yourself make the weekly results the unit of measure of your performance and keep them to yourself. Use the weekend to review the prior week, make adjustments, move on and focus on the upcoming week. Rely solely upon yourself for encouragement. At the end of 2012, post how you did for the year, if you care to. Good trading.
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What you describe isn't luck. You did something to extract and you did something to lose (probably the same things). You think your gains were due to luck because you gave them all back when conditions changed and in retrospect you realize you didn't have much Knowledge, Skill and Experience (KSE) when things were going good. The truth is it takes much more KSE to retain profits than it does to get them in the first place. Why? Because of the element of time. Whereas substantial profits can be had in a short time under one set of conditions, staying in the game exposes them to different conditions over a longer period of time. Most people get wiped out on the initial change of conditions under which they were successful, and usually the wipeout is even more spectacular than the success because of increased stakes and/or increased leverage at the end.
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I don't know what you mean by "professional" but I funded my first online account with $10,000. I won't reveal exactly how much I made on that account the first year because I am just an amateur and don't want to show up any of the professionals you know who can't make six figures with a $75,000 account. I will just say it was at least an order of magnitude. That was an extraordinary year for me. Of course, there was no such thing as a PDT rule back then. The internet broker I used was not Scottrade but it was just a run-of-the mill kind that didn't even have updating real-time quotes. I had to submit a quote request after logging on to my account and I was allotted only so many free quotes for every $20 commission-paid trade I made. I thought it was the greatest thing in trading at the time. Now it could be that I'm much older than you. When I bought my first stock, I had to phone it in and use day-old quotes from a newspaper. After I placed the order, the broker called me back and told me the price my order was executed at. Sometimes I got lucky and was put on hold and told the price after a few minutes. The commission was over $100 per trade on even lots and this was with a "discount" broker. A lot of people today take for granted their access to the market and especially the market data they receive for practically nothing. Still, I don't think the game itself has changed all that much except that it's possible to gain or lose much faster now.
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Now you've done it. . . .