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Ok, I have now decided to give up my search for an appropriate screener. Instead i'm going to focus on just a few stocks that have the following characteristics.
1. S&P500 stock (i'm most familiar with these)
2. Averaging over 1 million shares per day (liquid stocks are easier to get in and out of)
3. High average ATR/Price ratio (these stocks move more in a given day as a ratio to the price)
4 Average spread of .01 (as a rule I don't enter a trade with greater than .01 spread)
I am going to look at those stocks in the top of those categories in the 10 minute time frame. Those that show favorable conditions according to my strategy will be traded both long and short. no more waiting for fleeting signals. No more disappointments that I missed opportunities because the screener is too slow. (although I will undoubtedly miss many, I just won't know it!) I can get to know a few stocks really well and respond to price movement without having to do triage analysis. I guess this must be how most other traders do it. I guess i was expecting too much of my screeners to just hand me great trades on a silver platter.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I had a decent second bounce trade on SPY (my new favorite instrument to trade) which had a decent 3:1 reward risk ratio.
It was not a perfect trade as I broke a couple of rules that ironically both limited my gains and limited my risk.
In this case the first rule I broke is that I did not wait for price to CLOSE above the previous bar on the 5 minute chart (I'm actually trading the 10 minute chart) in this case it allowed me to nudge a bit more profit out of the trade although at much greater risk. I was lucky in this case as the probabilities of success are less when price cannot close above the previous bar.
The second mistake is that I exited too soon. My long term chart is my determiner of exit. I should have exited when the 60 Minute MACD ticked down or 60 minute 5 period EMA closed down from the previous bar. On the last 60 minute bar of the day the MACD did indeed tick down and that would have been a great exit which would have given me at least a 6:1 reward risk. Grrrrr.
Lesson learned - keep to my rules - create an exit indicator on the 60 minute chart to go by. I didn't have an indicator to use as a guide and instead used my fear of losing my gains as my guide. Poor choice.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
You seem to be very knowledgeable with StrategyDesk. Would you mind me asking you some questions about how to do certain things with it? I am just a noob trying to learn new things from people like you.
Hi Wazd, I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you have. I just got back from a mini vacation with the family these last few days so i'm sorry to post so late. Feel free to post questions here in my journal or in a PM.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
I understand your frustration, but if you truly wish to extract money from the market, you must keep working at it until you find the system that matches your trading personality. If it were easy, everone would be doing it. It took me several years of trial and error to reach a point to where I feel that I can make a profit each and everyday. I trade two different accounts. One with 25,000.00 and make 1 to 2 hundred each day. The second with about 70,000.00 and make about 5 - 8 hundred per day. I only use Strategydesk on the 5 minute chart and will avg about 10 trades per day between the two accounts. I also work an 8 to 5 job but keep my laptop on all day for trading.
I have sacraficed alot to get where I am today but the confidence that I have would be worth 100 times what it has cost.
Thx for the encouragement! I'll send you a PM with some questions about your approach. Also I'll check out your journal if you have one and see if I can get an idea of your approach there. I am definitely committed to pursuing this as a long term career. I do have my moments of frustration but the appeal of making this work is just too great. My most recent frustrations center around the inability to find adequate screeners and alerts. I've since decided to stay focused on just one or two instruments to trade. I no longer rely on any screener. I follow the stock closely in real time and screen it directly using my own pattern matching abilities. Already I feel better about this new approach. Trading SPY exclusively allows me to get to know it really well and therefore I can pattern match a bit better. My rules are now being adapted to this new way of trading but essentially follow the same method I've outlined previously. I've simplified the main oscillator that I was working with and now utilize much more Support and Resistance areas on the chart when making decisions.
I'm also trying to factor in volume more however interpreting volume is still something I struggle with even though I know all the textbook essentials.
Here are a couple of sim trades I made today using NT (I've given up completely on StrategyDesk and Ameritrade since they claim they will not be supporting it in the future)
I never trade immediately at the open until I can see a direction. I was originally looking for a counter-trend entry (against my rules) but reversed the position just in time (losing only a few bucks) at 13:50. Caught the last thrust up just in time and immediately shorted near the top of the high of the day. Probably more due to luck but my Oscillator showed overbought conditions and it was later in the day so I expected that we might have a some profit taking into the afternoon. Fortunately I was right! I had a nice tight stop of only 5 cents and the price moved down as expected. Also as expected the price tested the high but couldn't push through which gave me even more confidence that price would fall. Nice movement down at the end on increasing volume. Unfortunately I was away from the computer and was not able to cover until after hours session. Lost all those gains on the last trade :-( In reality I would never do that. I would either not take that last trade or I would make for damn sure that I was around to get out at the end of the day.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
Today I made several SIM trades using NT on Ameritrade data. Instrument was SPY.
1. First trade was an outstanding short entry at 9:55 at the top of the bar. I failed to set my stop one penny (bid /ask spread) above the high of the bar and of course was stopped out as price touched the high of the previous bar. Grrrr!
I unfortunately missed a nice continuation down as a result.
2. Proceeded to buy on the second bounce. Note: need to be more cautious on gap openings to make sure I trade with fewer shares if trading against the immediate trend. Normally I wait for the second bounce but there was not a clear divergence to my oscillator that would have supported a trade. These better conditions came on the third bounce instead.
3. Bought on the third bounce and then bought more after oscillator reached its peak around 12:10. I've noticed that even though the oscillator begins to fall, price tends to continue upward forming a divergence most of the time. Unfortunately fear got the best of me and I sold prematurely
4. Attempted to short when I suspected that there would be a continuation of the days sell off. Price did not follow through and I covered at roughly breakeven.
5. Missed a nice rally in the last 1/2 hour. I don't buy after the last hour as a rule because of other work commitments. I usually need to leave my office by 3:30pm and cannot participate after about 3pm as a result.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
I left for vacation on Friday and am due back on Friday. I don't know if I'll actually be able to trade on Friday, we'll see. It was nice to take a little break from trading but I'm anxious to get back. Did not follow the markets much during my travels.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
Ok I'm back. took a bit longer to get back to trading than I thought.
Not a great start to my resumption of trading so far. these last couple of days I have been trading with way too much capital. I'm not sure why but I did take far too much risk these last couple of days. I have been trading SNDK after giving up SPY due to it's higher ATR. SNDK seems to been in a decent price range that allows me to keep my share amount low and the beta is high enough to exploit some good moves on most typical days. But maybe that is why I took on too much risk? I don't know. Impulse i guess...maybe the time off has got me impatient to make some money.
I had two days of overnight holds which is against my rules as a day trader. I was fortunate that yesterdays price movement began to move in my favor after a few minutes for 10am. I had placed a long trade near the close three days ago as price had moved steadily down that whole afternoon. I was down about $1,000 a few bars after the open yesterday and fortunately sucked it up and waited for that first bounce. SNDK reversed strongly just before 10am and put me in a winning position. I ended that trade with about a $2,000 gain. What a thrill but the risk was far too great. When I looked back on the trade I saw no good technical reason why I should have done that. It was a complete impulse trade and for that I have to say it was a bad trade even though it was a winner.
The next trade I took was again at the end of the day yesterday. Actually, it was a post session short play. What a huge mistake! I shorted 1,000 shares and thought I was a genius when I heard the news about the debt talks stalling yada yada and proceded to kick myself as SNDK took some cocaine and began to fly north instead. Again, thinking i was invincible after the lucky break I got yesterday I preceded to periodically sell short $1,000 share a pop ignoring all common sense and disregarding even the most basic of rules. I pretty much broke every rule EVER! I finally put my last short in near the high of the day at about 43.60. I think the Gods were watching over me because that was in fact the reversal and the stock preceded to move lower for the rest of the day in a fairly orderly manner. I was down several thousand dollars at around 11am when the reversal came. I hung on as the price dropped but almost covered when there was a retracement around 2:30 this afternoon. I held on and covered just as it hovered above my breakeven. My loss for the day was $294 - much of that was commissions. Ironically, had I waited till the end of the day and trusted the sell off I would have done very well. but in the final analysis, it was all just bad trading. I traded like an amateur these last three days and I'm very disappointed. Once again, it's time to get back to basics. Starting Monday, I'm going to stay with a flat $100 risk. I was doing that just great for the longest time...then after I got back from vacation I just became another person!
I need to find that discipline again ASAP.
Monday I'll post a trade and it will be great! I'll stay with the plan, and risk no more than $100. I won't make much...but it will be a great trade! That's what I need now more than every. I'm looking forward to it.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
