Posts Tagged ‘time frame’

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Today’s Profits: Finished in 7 Minutes !

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Today is Thursday March 26, and it was a quick day of trading.

Yesterday I had posted that I wanted to increase contract size and trade less. Well, I got my wish.

I was able to shift my thinking to attain my stated goal and it was nice. I had two trades, the first one for 1 point on 10 contracts, all in – all out. The second one was for 1 point on 5 contracts and 2 points on the other 5, and I was done.

This what I wanted to do as I wrote yesterday. $1,2oo profit after commission on two trades. Now I have the rest of the day to accomplish other things of interest. I would take every day in the same fashion, and will be working towards that end.

This was my original plan from the beginning and I will continue to work at it. Consistent daily profit is the objective, combined with the least amount of struggle to get there. Once you reach your daily goal, I will admit, it is and will be hard to stop trading. That is where you will also need a mentor, someone who is on the same desired path and can give you the support and discipline to stick to the plan.

Anyone who partners with me will have my full attention and support to help them see what I see and do what I do. It is hard to go it alone and you will most certainly pay your dues one way or another, but it would be my job to help make those dues as small as possible. There is usually no easy way around the fact that you will need help in trading consistently for daily profit. You will pay someone for the experience. Everyone does. You will pay the markets because of your losses and you may still not have learned how to trade consistently. Or you can pay someone who knows how to help you get there.

There are very few trading programs that are of any value and a lot of them are a waste of money. Many of them are focused only on indicators, or some other idea that puts you and your account at great risk before you are able to capture your occasional gain.

There are many ways to trade the markets and I believe that the way I approach day trading is one of the best available. When it comes to a choppy market, I love it. While others are just wishing for the day to be over. If we are seeing large swings up and down by several points, I love it. Because I can easily capture additional profits on extended moves. When the markets are showing long extended trending markets, no problem. We just look for low risk entry points along the way and pop in and out before anyone even spots us.

When you are able to trade the very small stuff, 3 or 4 ticks, you are able to take advantage of any kind of market, because you use the method to get you into a HIGH PERCENTAGE trade that gives you a pre-determined amount of profit. If you only need a couple of those trades for the day, it does not matter what kind of action the market is displaying.

In any of the three types of markets that I described above, you come out on top. There are many people out there that say scalping is the most difficult type of trading there is. In part, because they are not able to do it successfully, so they talk it down and people believe them. Then you look at the alternatives – trading a higher time frame chart, waiting hours for the right set up, risking 4 or 5 points on the trade, and then have it go against you for a loss. Now what do you do? You are running out of time before the day comes to a close and you want to be profitable for the day, so you take a less than desirable trade now for another loss and you are totally frustrated. Not a good day.

With my method, you will see plenty of trade possibilities in whatever type of action the market is displaying and have the ability to capture a nice trading profit each and every day the markets are open. That is the goal. Is it attainable? Yes.

If you have any questions, please email me and I will be glad to answer them for you. Have a great day.

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/gYuBtR2l              Today’s trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/GP2oGYTi            Today’s equity chart

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Consistent Day Trading Success

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

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At last, an up day

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Today is February 4th, and we finally got a move up.

It has been a long time since we have had a move up and it sure is welcomed. I had gotten that feeling that we would rally today, when I heard Obama say that Americana’s with the means should consider to buy stocks. It is not very often that you will hear a sitting president, to buy stock in the market. I think he got tipped off by Goldman Sacks. If we do get a rally, everyone will be saying, “see, Obama told us the bottom is in and we should buy stock”.  Knowing how people think, heard mentality, people went out like good little citizens and did what they were told, buy stocks. I am being a little sarcastic and maybe I should not be, but I can not help myself right now. I do not ever remember a president making a market call like this today and I have been following the markets for 25 years. Oh well, there is a first for everything.

The rally was welcomed, I am sure by all. I thought yesterday, that as the market closed close to the low of the day and Tuesday is the day that the sentiment numbers come out by the news letter writers, that the numbers must have dropped again, which is good news for the bulls. I will post those numbers tomorrow, because I get them two days late. I am not a subscriber so the best I can do is a little delay, I will take it. My guess is that it dropped 3-4 % to 23 or 24, with a reading under 35 as a traditionally a bullish signal. You need to remember, that all of the times we were in more or less, normal market conditions, these readings were very very accurate. But as we find ourselves in this massive sell off, which has happened before, like in 2000, sometimes the readings get stretched to extreme levels before the market reacts. This is such an environment currently. When the numbers got to the mid 20’s, we had a big market bounce off the bottom in November of last year. Since then the numbers started to rise and are now getting back to what they were before, pending Thursday’s reading. So, I am thinking that we may be in for a bounce up for a few day’s. In addition, I heard a lot of people starting to say that much lower levels are coming, like now. When you hear people on TV and Newsweek, Time, etc. saying the same thing, look for a move in the opposite direction. Those people are rarely right and it usually can pay to bet against them. With all that being said, the current trend of everything is still down. Let hope we get some follow through this week.

The market did sell off just at the close, by 100 Dow point and 10 S&P points, in just a few minutes. That sure was not good, so for tomorrow, look for a continuation of the pull back initially and watch for a rally back up. It is possible that we could get a few days of consolidation at these levels to give us a better footing for an up move, but we will just have to wait and see.

Yesterday, I made a comment about the Pension Funds being underfunded and I found a chart of just such a story, explaining the facts. Below I will post a chart of some of the underfunded companies that are having the most problems. Over all, I hear there is a $ 409 billion dollar shortfall in the pension funds right now. Last year there was surplus and now, a big underfunded liability. These companies have some time to make up the difference but if things do not improve soon, it is really going to hurt. They are regulated by the government to make these pension contributions to cover future retirement obligations. They are currently only funded to 60%, which leaves them 40% short. They are going to have to take more of there earned income and kick in a bunch of money to make up the difference and that is going to hurt earnings potential. On Wall Street, its all about the earnings. “What have you done for me lately”. That is an old saying in my family and is appropriate for the current situation hear. Oh, the reason for the big shortfall, is that a lot of these companies invest that money in the stock market and with valuations going down so much, it is putting a big strain on there balance sheet. This can turn into the old snow ball effect, if things do not turn around soon, lets hope. Just reporting the facts here.

In my day-trading effort, I only had a limited amount of time to trade and did so for only 15 minutes in the morning. I did get my daily goal with all gains. I placed 5 trades with 8 exits in the morning and as I said all were gains, nice. I found a few minutes in the afternoon session around 11 am and traded for about 25 minutes and added nicely to my gains. I posted around $1,300 for the day with 22 pieces of profit and 3 losses, 88% . I started out with a 1 point gain on 5 contracts for $250 profit, then started to reduce my size, played it safe, because I had a limited amount of time. If I had draw downs it would be harder to come back, not having the time. It worked out just like I wanted and so, I chalked up another days worth of gains. I think I am now about 30 days in row of posting solid profit every day, no loosing days. I had many days of profit before that, but in the last week of January, I started to post every day, no exceptions and it has been going great. I have had struggles and came close to my daily loss limit, where it is, that I will have to stop for the day, but my streak is alive and I plane to keep it that way, by trading smart and following my rules as best I can. Below is an equity chart of the days gains and a chart of some of my trades in the 233 tick. I am taking these trades in the 100 tick, but I am looking at other time frames to give myself a larger view and perspective.

 http://www.screencast.com/t/E8oNvlEsc6r         Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/KTX51dkd               Some of today’s trades in 233 tick

http://www.screencast.com/t/dOBUnSMx              Chart of, some company pension shortfalls

http://www.screencast.com/t/MAWnN1pts7b     Day trade chart of IBM, my promise from yesterday

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Tough start, strong finish

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Today is February 25th and today’s trading ended great. But boy I had a hard time getting started.

I should have known better and taken some of my own advice from the day before. If you let your guard down, you can get smacked around pretty easy from the markets.

I was sick last night and could not sleep, up all night and feeling crummy. That was my cue to take it easy, but I did not and payed for it in the early going. I was not focused, did not have patience and thought I could take the trades anyway. Well, that goes to show you, if you are not 100%, it is better to wait until you are or just don’t trade. I did neither but wished I had. It was a struggle. What made it even worse was I increased my size and so, consequently, my losses. I had been stuck on trading 5 contracts or less for a while and said to myself that today I was going to increase it.

After saying all of that, I turned things around after getting settled, but I hit my daily loss limit right in the face. I was down to my last trade for the day and needed it to be right. Fortunately, it was and I did not look back after that. I had something like 16 out of 17 winning trades after that and my equity went straight up.

As I was getting into the green, I at times started to pull back in trade size and especially at the end of the day (see chart below). When you are on a streak you want to remain careful. The reason being, I know that it is again very easy to let your guard down and get sloppy. I had done enough of that in the morning and was extra careful not to take a big draw down after doing well.

That is what happens so many times to traders, they have some nice trades and get ahead, let their guard down and then get slammed. Your biggest losses usually come after you have had your biggest gains, so be careful. Before you begin the trading day, you need to go over all the trends and different time frames to see where you are in the overall picture. Pre-market preparation is imperative.  More to come later. Have a great day !

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/pjRP3XdUAM5   Live Segment from today

http://www.screencast.com/t/IlD9XkG2              Screen Shot of a few trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/aR5EpglS               The days equity chart

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Day two / Sample Training

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Today is day two of a small sample training video I have put together.

Take advantage of the training and see how and why I do what I do. It is pretty straight forward and fairly easy to follow. It is only a small sample of what you could learn here. Trading is about support and resistance combined with probabilities and pattern recognition. You need to learn how to read the charts, naked. By that I mean price action alone should be enough in and of itself to make your buy and sell decisions. My method will work in any time frame like I have said previously. It can be applied to daily stock charts as well as commodities, forex currencies and for sure the S&P 500 E-Mini’s. It takes time to be able to understand so many other factors, but having a basic understanding of where price break entries are at, is the first key. Knowing where is your lowest risk point in any trade and knowing exactly where you are going to get out is imperative. I never put a trade on without having a stop in place at the same time. At times I trade without a target, but never without a stop. Having the right timing is what will make or break you. This all goes with knowing how to trade, understanding pivot points, price rejection, chart formations, breakouts, retracements and how to play each of them, will take time, but the rewards can be beyond your dreams for the dedicated.

It was a big day on the street today. The market did not like what the treasury secretary had to say about the financial mess. One thing I heard was, that there was not many specifics, what can you expect, looks like I see a pattern here. You could trade off of that pattern and that is what the street did today and decided to sell, sell and sell some more, minus 4 to 5 % for the market. It took us down to bounce off of the lower end of the range ,(purple support line I have drawn and spoke of before). I might add, if we break down from here, it could be lights out. That line has been hit about 7 or 8 times now. There is going to be a lot of sellers on the other side of that, I can assure you of that. Lets all hope it holds, for everyone sake.  I think sooner or later, it is going to break and we are going to go down several thousand more points on the Dow, but I hope it is not now. It is just a loose opinion that I have and not one that I hold onto tightly. The weekly chart tried to go positive this week, but was meet with what I call price rejection. Trend is still in tack for now, but tomorrow is going to be key, it needs to hold.

Today’s trading was fairly quick, about 20 minutes to reach my daily goal and that was good enough for me. Trades posted below. Have a great day!   Vince

http://www.screencast.com/t/TfnwXw0zEsU           Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/nvcf6ZTr                      Todays Trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/i2ZoV6Wk                   Sample  Training day #2

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Training series / First in a nine part series

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Hello, this post is for Monday, February 9 th, 2009 and today I will begin a 9 part sample training series on how to trade the S&P 500 E-Mini Futures for daily profit.

I know some of you missed Saturday’s training with conflicting schedules, but I have decided to give out some of my material to the readers of this blog. The information is, I feel, very valuable to the person who is trying to find a method that has the ability to take money out of the market every day.

All traders are different, in that you may find a group of traders who all use the same method, but they all use different entries and get different results. That being said, you can train yourself to react in a consistent fashion when you have repeatable patterns presented to you. The main idea is to walk away with a modest profit and do it again the next day and so on. It is a very attainable goal if you know what to do.

The first thing anyone who aspires to become a successful day trader is you need to know how to trade. That may sound a little simplistic, but you would be surprised at how many people do not trade with a plan but by the seat of their pants. I don’t mean to offend anyone out there who is able to trade this way, but whatever feels good or looks good usually does not produce consistent results.

There are so few people who are able to be successful at this. In a way, I guess that’s good because the returns would not be as large as they can be for some. For the person who makes a million dollars a year, the odds drop way down. One of the reasons for that is most people are not able to 1) trade profitably and consistently;  2) they cannot overcome the mental aspect of trading . You first need to know how, then you need to work on yourself in ways you may have never thought about before. Sounds like a lot of work and it is. Nothing worth while is ever easy, cheap and without cost.

Have you ever thought of the main reason for your trading pursuits?  One of the many benefits I find rewarding about living a trader’s lifestyle is you have the ability to make your own hours. For me, that is a high on my priority list. Not having to work for someone else is without a doubt high in the ranking. You know, the money is not as important for me as it may be for others, because I don’t need so much to meet my daily needs. The time freedom is probably the most valuable to me. The money just affords the opportunity to take advantage of that benefit. The answer to the question above is going to be different for everyone, but it is a good question, so maybe give it some thought.

This business is not for everyone and I will be the first one to tell you that. You need to have a desire and/or a passion to pursue this seriously because you will be going up against professional traders worldwide. You cannot take a casual approach and expect to consistently come out on top.  

Back to the training series. I have part one of a nine part series posted below. These are only 5 minute clips and they will continue the next day where I left off. The nine parts will last a total of 45 minutes and this represents just one complete trading day. I have moved up my chart to a 233 tick chart from what I usually trade, 100 tick.  I look at 3 different time frames during the day and make my final trading decision in the 100 tick. When you trade a higher time frame chart, two things happen. You usually need to account for a bigger stop, so your target needs to be higher as well to account for that, and the second thing is you have fewer trade setups.

The smallest time frame for me is the 100 tick as I have said and this is basically a scalping method by definition (taking small profits of a few ticks to a few points). I find that, it would be advantageous for someone to trade a separate account for a different style. Like trading for larger point runs based on the appropriate trade setup. With this style, I do like to gradually scale out of trades when I see nice chart patterns present themselves. Maybe taking off the first part at 1 to 2 points, then the second at 2 to 3 points and the rest, let it go to where ever the market says get out, that is easy to identify with my method.

I might add, there is another way I have handled nice trade setups and that is, I would identify the next biggest time frame up from the 100 (I usually go up in incriments of 4, for me that would be the 400 tick chart). When I see a nice pattern in the 400, that I know in the past has produced nice movement, I look to the 100 tick and go long with a standard order, lets just say 3 contracts. I will add another 3 at a new break out with my new stop in place and move up my old stop to the second add on spot. I will add again at a new break out treating it as a separate order with its own separate stop.  In a 10 point run you may be able to add 4 or 5 times safely without any additional risk other than your first order. Basically, I am pyramiding my position for maximum return without the risk. You stay within the larger trend which is pushing you higher and add in the smaller time frame for maximum return. You can do that if you are able to recognize patterns and be ready with your plan in place. Keep that in mind when you view the short video’s.

You can see the patterns more easily in a larger time frame. That is why I have gone up to the 233 tick chart. It does not matter the time frame, everything is always the same. There are a lot of ways to trade and no one can say that my way is the best way, because it may be the best way for you but different for others. I would say, I do like the 233 tick chart and I have traded it before. It is the maximum time frame I can go and still keep a small 5 tick stop, so it is a very good alternative to the 100 tick, which may be a little too fast for someone who is just starting out. This is still plenty fast and the trade setups are still fairly frequent. When I counted the trade triggers generated in the one day, there were 50 possible trades for this time frame (233 tick)

Again, the training is broken down into 9 segments of 5 minutes each, given to you one each day and represents the full trading day of  Thursday, February 5th, 2009.  By the way, Friday’s market action looks the same as Thursday’s and Wednesday’s looks the same as Friday’s, they all  more or less look the same, repeatable trading patterns that happen over and over again.

This is just a sample of what you can learn with me. If you decide to partner with me, you will be able to follow me in the morning for 30 to 60 minutes, capturing your daily goal. I think you will be nicely rewarded with new knowledge, experience and hopefully some extra cash to go along with it. 

Ask about my “Mentoring Special”, Learn While You Earn.

Have a great day!

Vince

http://www.screencast.com/t/WhGbWgD8Y                     Sample Training part  #1

http://www.screencast.com/t/44E4Uu492Qt                   Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/tBnsAUQswkN                   Today’s trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/kGkg0mjTPe                     Add on trade/1 entry 3 exits

http://www.screencast.com/t/ut61mZJgZn                      Updated equity chart

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Good to get it right

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

It is Friday afternoon, February 6th and I am just thinking that it is nice to get it right.

The markets were up almost 3 % today across the board with an overwhelmingly large amount of the market participating. The depth of today’s move was impressive with 6 stocks going up for every one that went down.

Just after the open today, the market had a real nice trend line break, 4 points across the bottom, forming a declining wedge in short term downtrend, then, BOOM – IT HAPPENED! The market went up so fast like I had said it would, catching so many at their pain thresholds, having to cover in a hurry.

The Dow went up 170 points in less than 30 minutes, as well as all the other major indexes. It kept going up and closed near the high of the day, a positive for a follow through in tomorrow’s session. The daily chart is now positive, with the weekly trying to turn into positive territory, maybe next week. I have a chart of the two below. The weekly chart may turn positive, but I do not think the monthly is going to go positive for a long time yet.

As I was discussing yesterday’s daily price action, I could see that the pattern was a bullish one that I have literally seen thousands of times before. You can see the same patterns in small time frames giving you the same results, time and time again. Reading the markets is not a science, it is more of an art. You do use probabilities and pattern recognition to help you identify areas that have low risk and yield you positive returns, but you have to know what you are doing. The only way that happens, well you guessed it, practice. 

Make no mistake about it, trading is not that easy overall. If it were, there would be a lot more people making money at it and you don’t hear that very much these days.  Having said that, I would beg to differ with those people who say that the average guy out there cannot compete with the professional traders all over the world. I say you can, if you have what it takes. 

You may be asking yourself, what does it take then? And if I don’t have it, how can get it or find it?  That is a question every one needs to take seriously if you plan on being successful. You need to find out what it takes and are you willing to pay the price.  I had to ask myself that question a long time ago and my answer was, what ever it takes and how ever long it takes.

Let me say, I would not do anything unethical to advance myself for the sake of advancement of my goals, but barring that, you have to work hard. If you have a mentor or someone who can show you how to cut down the learning curve, I am all for that.  Without learning from someone who has already done it, you will add many years to becoming successful, something I never had.

First, there are the three things you need to find within yourself to be successful and they are, “Discipline , Focus and Patience”.  Those are the first things you must have. I will go into more depth with these at another time, but these are essential. These qualities are from within you and you may have to dig inside yourself to find out where you stand. There are mental exercises you can do to bring the best of those qualities out.

I say all of this because trading is not only about putting on a buy or sell order. It goes way beyond just trying  to make money. If you are not prepared for the mental side of trading, you will end up doing everything wrong and you won’t know why that is, even when you know better at times. You need a solid trading method and solid mental skills and be willing to be honest with yourself and not think more highly of your skills than you should.  The markets have a way of dealing with people like that and I would call it an old fashioned humbling.

We need to stay thankful for what we can take out of the market each day and resist the temptation of GREED. That word I just mentioned has killed a lot of good traders. The other word that goes with the last one is FEAR. Those two go hand in hand with each other. Again, these are emotions and they need to be controlled or they will control you. You first need to be aware of them to try and control them and that is why I am bringing it up. It takes a lot to become a consistent trader who can take money out of the markets on a regular basis and you just need to ask yourself, do you want to become one of those people.

You can make a lot of money when you can come to terms with the points mentioned above. To control greed, you can come up with a modest profit target that you would like to make each day. That right there, in its basic form, can do wonders for you. An example from today would be taking a small profit of 1 point on the S&P when I could have had 3 or 4 easily. If I let my emotions take over, I will be kicking myself saying why did I take my profits so quickly while I could have had a lot more. Next time I see that, I will go for it. When you talk like that to yourself, you are setting yourself up for something that may not be there and you may be wishing for it. You place the trade it moves up over 1 point and then backs off quickly stopping you out. Then you say, “why didn’t I take my 1 point target.”

It never ends with the mental battles you face unless you come to grips with sticking to your plan and taking what you need for the day, 2 or 3 points.  I guess this story fits well for me today, because I knew I was not going to trade a lot today. I just needed to get my daily goal and be done with it.

I had 4 trades today, +3 ticks, -2 ticks, +3 ticks and the last was split into two sells for +7 ticks and +4 ticks. This got me my minimum daily goal for the day of 2 points after commission in just a few minutes. If you follow my trading plan of gradually increasing your contract size as your profit increases, you don’t have to trade all day to make more money, just increase your size gradually.

I will be increasing my size next week to account for this myself. Also if you learn to pay yourself a little each week, you will come to see that you will be rewarded for your discipline, focus and patience. Starting with only 1 contract and following my plan as outlined, trading for only 2 points on S&P per day can make you all the money you could need to live a very comfortable life. For someone to make that kind of money, you would have to be a top executive, doctor, or other highly educated profession. The one thing that they don’t have is the time and freedom to enjoy what trading can give. In 30 to 60 minutes per day, it is possible to get a modest goal of 2 points and keep doing it.

That is one more reason why I like the way I trade. There are so many opportunities to pick that up in just a short time. If you didn’t get it, you stay with it until you do. The trades are posted below. I’m still doing an introduction to my method tomorrow for those interested. There is no charge. I will be starting at 8 am West Coast time and going to about 9:30.  Email me at vinnie@sniperdaytrading.com . Read my post from yesterday if you missed it and it will explain what to do.

Bye for now. 

Vince

http://www.screencast.com/t/LMfgyPXvu              Some of  today’s Live trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/gv4Xif7zBo              Today’s equity curve

http://www.screencast.com/t/AZAJpcM1              S&P daily chart update

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