MY PICK IS ELN

[spikefader]

Well at this point in time King, the behavior of price on the daily and intraday basis is very very very (did I say very) bullish. Anyone that says otherwise is in denial
Longs holding with good profit in hand should feel as snug as a bug in a rug.

[B.J]

nevermind....

[spikefader]

oh boy........ELN gets me again Ambush mode again after that 7 penny stop out.

[B.J]

oh boy........ELN gets me again Ambush mode again after that 7 penny stop out.

This is what I did: seeing myself as late, I bought the 6.89 with about 1/3 of what I plan to invest. I then put a limit in at 6.40 for the rest. Support, or former resistance appears to be 6.32 or 6.33. What are your thoughts, Spike?

[Runner]

I got to the party late and scratched on ELN. Nothing gained and nothing lost. Will look for another set up!

[New-born baby]

King's spending you money tonight

oh boy........ELN gets me again Ambush mode again after that 7 penny stop out.

Spike,

It happened to you like it has happened to me before: Ole King has some of my money in his account right now. Anymore, I leave ELN alone.

I was watching it earlier, and I saw where you had a nice .15 profit. Should have taken it. Hindsight . . . .

What's your read on the markets now? Forget that neutral stuff. I figure it is headed down to the bottom of its current range, around 10,100. What do you say?

[B.J]

I got to the party late and scratched on ELN. Nothing gained and nothing lost. Will look for another set up!

Like this?

[spikefader]

..What are your thoughts, Spike?

Channel turn up at the close . So we've got the neckline break with some healthy targets, and a green light to chase the closing price and/or the pivot tomorrow. This is what I'll be doing for it. I'll buy the pivot tomorrow at 6.79. Stop will be the tricky part. I'll probably give it 3 or 4% risk.

[Runner]

Like this?

BJ, great chart. I was looking for a scalping play into the close. I had a target of 7.00. Did not happen and so I decided to exit at break-even. I entered this trade late in the day, but I thought it had a chance.

Interesting to see what tomorrow brings.

[spikefader]

Spike,
...you had a nice .15 profit. Should have taken it. Hindsight . . . .

Not at all bro! And this brings up an excellent topic of discussion: win/loss ratios and trading equity curves. I'll post a few equity curve charts to show why I wasn't interested in taking just 2% today. (oh, and King, if all this stuff is messing up your thread tell me and I'll edit this post and move it to my thread).

So back to my ELN trade today. Why take only 2% profit when I'm risking a 1% stop out on the trade? If I did that, I'd need at least 4/10 winners just to be marginally profitable with a long-term equity curve. Check out this equity curve (note the 9 sample lines generated for a better picture of the average).

(chart generated over at http://hquotes.com/tradehard/simulator.html)

But if I aim for 20% gain with a 1% stop, and get just 1/10 winners (surely I can do THAT! ), my profitability (and more importantly my positive math expectancy over a long time frame) is over 4 times greater!



And it gets better! (see chart below) Let's just say I can hit 2/10 winners with that r/r ratio, my profit (and again, more importantly my system equity curve) is going to beapproaching 10 times greater than 'settling' for mediocre 2% intraday price fluctuations.


So to sum up, there's a couple reasons I'm only interested in swing trading stocks these days, and the long-term equity curve numbers is one of them. The other is I can system scalp emini futures much more profitably than stocks - and with a whole lot less financial risk. For example, one of my YM scalping systems (see below equity curve) has a win loss ratio of 1 and a 73% success rate, which gives me a math expectancy of 0.459, which is 2.3 times more efficient than if I aim to daytrade stocks (which you'll notice has a math exp. of a woeful 0.2). You'll also notice that the equity curve is a whole lot more straighter than the first one and the average of 9 curves is tighter!!



Anyone interested in doing your own equity curve calculation to work out if your own methodology/system/targeting/stop theory is actually worth doing head over to http://hquotes.com/tradehard/simulator.html

Remember: Trading success is a whole lot more than just straight winners or percentage winners. While straight winners can make you HUGE , ultimate profitability is is much more about risk reward and how you make it fit into your trading style. The numbers have to work otherwise you're wasting your time and your money.

[B.J]

Holy cow, Spike! All those wavy colored lined are making me dizzy

[spikefader]

Spike,
What's your read on the markets now? Forget that neutral stuff. I figure it is headed down to the bottom of its current range, around 10,100. What do you say?

Well, let's put it this way: I'm holding EFA long (annoyed that Qs have been stronger this time :/) despite Vector weakening to neutral at today's close.

The Qs recent low of 34.35 is a clear C long entry. $SPX and $COMPX are both reacting bullishly to expanding weekly channel longs. $INDU worries me with that recent channel turn down, but that's just one thing, and the fact that 10K held so well (after hours futures tick to 9,999 and a strong bounce) that is a really good thing for bulls.

So right now, bulls can breath easy (although there may be a day or two of retrace) but ONLY as long as Qs 34.35 holds and Dow 10K holds.

[spikefader]

Holy shit, Spike! All those wavy colored lined are making me dizzy

lol ~forgive him Father~
Ya, sorry about all those lines! But that generator thingy was pretty impressive and I thought I'd mesmerize all you Hugeites.

[B.J]

I changed it to "Holy cow"

[Websman]

I changed it to "Holy cow"

Dang!!! Too late. it's documented permamently in Spikes post. Hahaha!!!