quote of the day

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.

new long on EUR GBP

closed all longs and shorted S

watchlist for the week

POSSIBLE SHORTS:
1. ABX
2. BBBY
3. BBY
4. COST
5. CMCSA
6. HD
7. LBTYA
8. LOW
9. S
10. TGT
11. TJX
12. TYC
13. NKE
14. LRCX
15. LLTC

POSSIBLE LONGS:
1.NEM
2. PAYX
3. SGP

IB's commissions

I found a strange thing about IB's commissions :

Loot at the first buy of 10 BRCM


Then check the sell of 100 BRCM :

long daytradeUSDCAD

new strategy for this week

The new strategy for this week is :

1. daytrade only forex
2. study the commissions for stocks at IB.
   

closed USDCAD

added to USDCAD

short on USDCAD

closing & entering short on GBPAUD

Here's the entry.


And here's the close and reverse.

trader interviews

Here's a link with the interview of the impatient trader

short on NASDAQ:MHP

new entry on USDSEK

new entry on EURNZD

new entry on GBPAUD

Psychological status: I had better days
Physical status: Ok, maybe a little tired

long tails near support/resistance

The big picture:


A smaller one:

who put this d*ck on my back ?

This is how CNBC guys are treated at CBOT.

put call ratio on stockcharts.com

This is one important indicator offered by StockCharts.com.
As far as I know this indicator is very useful for daytraders but I think It should be integrated in any system no matter the timeframe.

The link to this chart is : $CPC.

a new market wizard was born

Recently, Andrew Lahde who shot to fame with an 870% gain last year, wrote a farewell letter to all its hedge fund clients. After reading the letter and some comments I just realized that everybody focused on the "Harvard Idiots" and the "Hemp" parts but nobody said anything about the key of his success.

Read carefully the section below:

I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life – where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management – with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not.

Well, did you get the idea ? The guy reiterates what other market wizards have always said :

1. invest only when you have a strong opinion about the market
2. waiting on the sidelines is sometimes (or most of the times) a good position
   

But there's a thing Andrew said nothing about: THE RISK . As long as the guy is retiering we can assume that he is smart enough to realize he will be unable to reproduce this 1000% return in the future and I guess he is aware of the huge risk he took.

Here's the comment of Cullen on the risk/reward matter :

Sounds like Andrew knew he had rolled the dice on an incredibly risky bet that just happened to go his way. A year earlier and he would have been writing a "Our timing was wrong..." letter. The smartest thing about a guy like this is that he knows he made a huge wager that likely couldn't ever be repeated and knew when to walk away from the table. Good for him. But I would die to know his risk adjusted return. Sounds like he was using the same leveraged high risk trades that got a lot of people in trouble....

Well, that's it, ...there is only one thing to say:

So long suckers !

Interactive Brokers

Since I'm trading using Interactive Brokers I will use this blog post to add useful links related to this broker.

[Edit 09-Mar-2009] Here is a post related to IB's symbols and how to use them.
For charting one can use :
1. sscharts .
2. atrader.org
3. tradeproject.de
4. ibcharts

pattern of the day

EUR/USD 1 hour chart

Short EUR/SEK

Shorted EUR/SEK

When should I close my FOREX trades ?

Long GBP/CAD, after several days of trending in my favour during the morning the candle looked like forming a reversal pattern plus the previous resistance. I feared that I will lose a big part of my profit therefore I decided to exit.

BAD IDEA ! .... just look at the next following days.

CONCLUSION : For all my FOREX trades I will close my trades during the NEW YORK session.

whipsaw song

Ed Seykota and his band

la isla bonita

During last days I observed a lot of islands in my charts :


or :



Normally the down trend should continue, but don't forget : THE PRICE IS ALWAYS RIGHT !

lessons learned

At the end of a very unsuccessful day ( almost all my new trades were stopped out ) here are the lessons of the day:

1. always trade in the direction of the market sentiment ( for this I will make a small research in a future post)
2. don't hold more than 5-6 positions at one time. Instead of adding a new position to your portfolio you'd better filter the ones you have and maybe then add others.
3. don't enter too many position in one day ( no more than two I would say per day)
4. don't enter too many positions per week ( no more than 4 per week)

stock du jour SEPR

I opened a new short position on SEPR:

Two long shadows

This is a pattern to watch: 

GBPCAD-daily - Two long shadows

How to trade it:  The two long oposing shadows represent MARKET INDECISION. The following days have to be crucial. Watch for a candle pattern and trade in the direction specified by that pattern.

Fake breakouts

In one of my previous posts I noticed the fact that the Gold broke up the resistance and there is a possible buyout comming. Well, the break out proved to be a fake one and some of us lost some money :).


Here's the way to play it next time ( hindsight rulez ! )

stock du jour

Long LBTYA

pattern to watch

I bet on SHORT. What's your bet ?



[Re-edit 7-Oct-2008] Here's an updated chart :


[Re-edit 12-Oct-2008] It went where it was supposed to !