Tag Archive for 'trading plan'

My Screens … Part 2

Published on December 14, 2008, 10:38 pm in Psyche, Tools and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

So I ate and drank way too much last night at a neighborhood Christmas party, but I’ve recovered and thought I’d move on to a few more screens that I use for stock trades.

Desktop #4 is another “overall market” screen which plots the Advance/Decline issues and volume of the NASDAQ and NYSE separately. It also plots separately the VIX and TRIN of each market. I have a small plot of the NYSE Put/Call Ratio, TICK, and A/D volume differential. This pretty much tells me what the markets doing overall.

NASDAQ and NYSE market status screen

Market status screen

And my last screen is just my watchlist. This usually changes from day-to-day based on the scans that I do each evening. It usually ranges from 100 – 150 stocks, which are sorted realtime by percentage change. You’ll notice I have a column that also alerts ne to what king of candlestick may be forming on each particular stock.

My watchlists screen

My watchlists screen

I also have an options screens, but it is pretty much the standard one that comes with Tradestation. I’m experimenting with some other arrangements and different screens and charts, so these may change at any time…but I’ll let you know once I have some successful history with any of them. ;)

Let me know if you have any questions on what you see on these charts or clarification on how I use them. Happy Trading! :mrgreen:

My Screens

Published on December 13, 2008, 3:31 pm in Other Traders, Tools and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Dr. Brett Steenbarger recently had an entry in his blog, Trading Screens and Trading Decisions: Finding What Works for You, which got me thinking about my own screens….and why I have them and how I use them. I thought I’d pass it along ;)

I use three screens in Tradestation for my trading. I trade stocks, options and index futures, mainly ES, the S&P 500 e-mini contract. Screen #1 is my main screen for no matter what I’m trading. It has 4 charts: 5min, 15min, 60min and daily. It also holds my Matrix window which provides bid and ask prices and market depth. I can also place my orders from the Matrix window.

Charts and Matrix on Desktop #1

Charts and Matrix on Desktop #1

On Screen #2 I have a 2min, 5min, and 15min charts with RSI, Stochastics and MACD indicators. I also use Bollinger bands and Pivot Points.

2min, 5min and 15min charts on Desktop#2

2min, 5min and 15min charts on Desktop#2

Screen #3 has a view of the overall market using an Advancing/Declining Issues histogram, and A/D Volume histogram, TRIN and TICK values. There are also 2 charts that I use strictly for Index Futures, 512 Tick and 1 minute charts. In Tradestation it is very easy to change the time value for the charts, so I can quickly change the time scale to 1024 ticks and 3 minute charts.

Market overview, 512 tick and 1min charts on Desktop#3

Market overview, 512 tick and 1min charts on Desktop#3

How do I use them? Well, since I’ve been trading a lot of ES futures contracts, here’s what I’m looking for in an entry: I want RSI3 rising from an oversold condition on the 5min. In the MACD (12,26,9), the fast ma must be above the slow ma, and, the fast ma should be above the zero line. Stochastic should be rising and I like to see the 3ema crossing up through the 13ema. I place the order with a stop loss 4 points below my entry. When price gets 3 points above my entry, my stop loss comes up to breakeven and I trail the price 3 points behind from there on.

So there you go. I’ll try to get my stock buying actions together in another post before the weekend is out. Until then, eat, drink and be merry! :lol:

Trader’s Parody

Published on August 12, 2008, 4:24 pm in Book Review, Other Traders, Psyche and Tidbits. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Gee, someone composed a song about the “What The $%@&* Trading!” method :lol:

It’s a great video with a lot of truth. John Carter from Mastering the Trade is the trader. Enjoy!

Weak Open, Strong Close

Published on March 4, 2008, 8:48 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Although neither the Dow or S&P turned green by the end of the day, they did reverse and end in another indecisive day. So the bulls and the bears can’t decide anything :(

Although the markets are undecided, there are several good plays during the day in which money can be made. Today, UTSI, SUPG, OPTV were good to go…up. And if you caught the Qs near the bottom, you could’ve made a dollar in 90 minutes. I unfortunately did not. And there was even bigger money to be made shorting, but I did not participate :(

This is strictly a day market for me. If I get in during the morning, I start looking to get out. Yes, I’m leaving money on the table, but a small profit is better than no profit.

Happy Trading!

Just like we predicted…

Published on February 22, 2008, 10:02 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

S&P Feb 22, 08Now, if I would just listen to my own intuition. Friday was another ugly day…for most of the day. But wow, those last 45 minutes were a godsend for the bulls. And if you were short going into the last hour today…ouch!

The chart shows the S&P 500 and the wedge that has been forming for over a month. It’s gonna break one way or another, but which way? I guess it really doesn’t matter which way, as long as we are prepared to take action on the break….long or short. So this weekend I’m going to build a few scenarios in each direction and make a couple of watchlists. Have a great weekend everybody :!:

GCA Chart

Published on February 17, 2008, 8:44 pm in Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Here’s another on my watchlist for Tuesday…GCA. It had a strong volume run up in late January, but has been conolidating in a 50 cent trading range for the past two weeks. gca.PNG' title='GCA Feb 15 ‘08' target='_blank'>GCA Feb 15 ‘08Also notice how the volume during the consolidation has been below average.

Again, I’m looking for it to cross through the 8ema…and stay there. Last week it was bobbing up and down through the 8…teasing me. I’ll get it on one of these pops :!:

My Trading Universe

Published on February 17, 2008, 10:48 am in Tools and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

When I’m talking with family, friends and even some newbie traders about looking at charts to find stocks to trade, they get very confused on how to look at 8,000 charts every day (even more if your looking at pink sheet and OTC stocks). I tell them I don’t. I first create my own “trading universe” before going through the charts.

Using TCnet, I first tell the program I want to look only at stocks priced between $1 and $15 dollars. All of a sudden those 8,000 stocks have been reduced to 3,300. Cut more than half, but still too many. So, I need to check volume. Since my universe is in lower priced stocks, I need to make sure that there is enough volume to get out whenever I want. Getting in is easy no matter what the volume, but if you need to get out in a hurry, low volume stocks can be rough. So I look for stocks that have averaged at least a quarter-million shares a day over the last month. Now my list of 3,300 stocks has been shaved to 872. Approaching manageable but still too many.

Using those 872 stocks, I now scan for particular chart patterns or indicators. I can look for a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern and now I only have 43 charts to look at. If I add stochastics to be in the oversold area, I’ve reduced that to 26 stock charts to review….not bad. Or lets look for bullish harami patterns from the previous day that were confirmed today….only 4 charts to look at. (BIOS FINL PMI BKT in case you wanted to know)

Here’s a neat one….let’s find stocks whose 20 day moving average is greater than the 50ma and the 50ma is greater than the 200ma…uptrending stocks for sure. I came up with 5: MFA AIQ VIV COIN and TIVO

So you see, scanning the stock market looking for charts that you want to trade is neither time consuming nor difficult. There are several stock scanning programs and websites out there. I have to pay for TCnet, but I feel it pays me back more than what I paid for it :mrgreen:

If you’d like a copy of my scans, let me know.

The need for control…

Published on February 6, 2008, 9:20 am in Psyche. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Here’s a pertinent article for all traders: Acceptance, brought to you by Michael S. Shopshire, Ph.D at MarketWise.com.

Traders strive to control the markets, but in the end, they find that they must accept their fate and settle for controlling their emotions. When your money is on the line, it’s difficult to remain calm, rational, and in complete control.

Thinking that the way you interpret the charts is what the market should do will put you in a deep hole. Follow the market and accept what it does. Work on making winners a bit bigger than your losers…you WILL have losers, y’know. Accept it ;)

Don’t trade like this…

Published on February 1, 2008, 10:59 pm in Other Traders. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So I was working on putting a list of my “trading don’ts” together, when I came across chrisperruna.com, another trader’s blog, and his entry Trading Mistakes: Avoid at all costs . Read it, memorize it and use it. It will serve you well :!: