I have 22 consecutive profitable trades of 15% or better. How is this possible? Every day there are hundreds of stocks setting new highs, no matter what happens in the overall market. Many of these stocks are still at very reasonable valuations. Afraid of buying stocks at their highs? Think of it this way: a new high is really a future floor for companies with solid financial underpinnings. Quantitative momentum modeling makes it easy to identify stocks that can continue this upward momentum trend. Why does this happen? It's really very simple..ask me about what investors and cows have in common. I am $$$ MR. MARKET $$$. I AM HUGE!!! Bring me your finest meats and cheeses. You can join in on the fun. Register for free and you'll be able to post messages on this forum and also receive emails when $$$ MR. MARKET $$$ makes his own trades. ($$$MR. MARKET$$$ is a proprietary investor and does not provide individual financial advice. The stocks mentioned on this forum do not represent individual buy or sell recommendations and should not be viewed as such. Individual investors should consider speaking with a professional investment adviser before making any investment decisions.)
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Here is a brief layout of the ATR trailing stop. The ATR basically shows the amount of volatility that a stock has over a period of time. I like setting this indicator to 14 days so ATR(14). Lets say you have 50K of money in your account. Determine what you are willing to risk on this trade. I never go above 2%. Lets say your risk tolerance is 1% of your 50K. You know that the most you will risk is 500. Now the next step is to figure out the ATR(14) for this example of BBY you can see the ATR(14) is 1.48. This simply means this stock had been moving about 1.48 over the last 14 trading days. Now you would not want to set your stop at 1.48 or you may be stopped out. Now all you have to do is Use a 2xATR stop. Simply multiply the ATR X 2. Now you have a stop of 2.96 from your entry. Assuming today was your entry day.
Now here is how to figure how much to buy. You know your risk is 500.00 on this trade. You know your 2XATR is 2.96 you know have the data to figure out how many shares you’ll buy. The Math is even simple for me to figure out.
500/2.96=168 shares. If you entered BBY at close today you now know that if you get stopped out you will be with in your risk tolerance.
BBY- entry 49.23
Risk 2.96
Stop 46.27
Do this with all of your trades and you will be ahead of 90% of the traders out there.
Runner,
I forgot to ask. Say the stock settles down after your purchase and actually goes up. You now have a $500 gain , do you get out at a pre-determined dollar figure , raise the stop so you can't lose, or let it run as long as your set stops aren't triggered ? just curious as to what you'd do. Where do you go to find the 14 day ATR or volatility for any time period?
Runner,
I forgot to ask. Say the stock settles down after your purchase and actually goes up. You now have a $500 gain , do you get out at a pre-determined dollar figure , raise the stop so you can't lose, or let it run as long as your set stops aren't triggered ? just curious as to what you'd do. Where do you go to find the 14 day ATR or volatility for any time period?
billyjoe
Billyjoe, this depends on your style of investing. Here is a conservative approach. Lets say BBY goes up 2.96(initial risk) you could sell ½ your position and trail stop the rest and set it now at break even. Or you can simply keep adjusting your ATR. I like the conservative approach because you sell some shares at a profit and your still in the stock in case it makes a huge move.
Stockcharts has the ATR, I only use the daily ATR and have not looked into the intraday ATR range. Once on Stockcharts site simply select the ATR and then select 14 days or whatever days you want.
I was in front of my screen yesterday and jumped into HOLX. I planned the trade and what I mistake this trade was. I entered at 37.46 and the stock started to tank heavy. My stop was 34.76 and I was not liking this trade one bit. I panicked today and sold at 36.10. Just about time the stock took off. Now this entitles me for the bone head of the week award. The question now is where does this stock go from here? Sure I messed this all up but should I have stuck with my plan?
I was in front of my screen yesterday and jumped into HOLX. I planned the trade and what I mistake this trade was. I entered at 37.46 and the stock started to tank heavy. My stop was 34.76 and I was not liking this trade one bit. I panicked today and sold at 36.10. Just about time the stock took off. Now this entitles me for the bone head of the week award. The question now is where does this stock go from here? Sure I messed this all up but should I have stuck with my plan?
Runner,
I have to ask you this question in trying to understand your actions today and since you put this out there for everyone to see I guess you want some feedback. How does someone like yourself who has enough emotional control and backbone to parachute out of a plane in the black of night, putting it all on the line, risking his life, an yet maintain his composure under those circumstances to function at 110 %, lose the emotional control of honoring his preconceived plan and shelving it in midstream after watching the stock close down at $35.44 from his initial entry the previous day, yet stays in the position,then watches it go to a low of the day at $35.16 and when the stock begins moving back up towards his initial entry point, and was about halfway there at $36.10, decides to exit the position 1.34 points away from his preplanned stop loss while the stock is now reversing and tracking upward.
Not knocking you but just trying to understand and help you understand your actions. Anyway I see some differences between the weekly and the daily. The stock has been on a steady uptrend of late and looks to me to need some more consolidation. I would forget about yesterday and today and let it go. Don't chase the stock right now but wait for a pullback, or the next pullback when you get a good clear signal of a channel long, and when the setup it right go after it if you're still inclined.
Right now you may be to blurred to make a clear decision about what you want or should do. I would stand back, let it go, take the small loss, and clear your head about it. Next time don't place the stop if you're not prepared to go all the way with it. All in friendship Runner. Sorry I compacted it a bit more than I had realized. Love that InfanView though. Thank you Spike.
I was in front of my screen yesterday and jumped into HOLX. I planned the trade and what I mistake this trade was. I entered at 37.46 and the stock started to tank heavy. My stop was 34.76 and I was not liking this trade one bit. I panicked today and sold at 36.10. Just about time the stock took off. Now this entitles me for the bone head of the week award. The question now is where does this stock go from here? Sure I messed this all up but should I have stuck with my plan?
Runner,
Actually I have my own situation for bonehead move of the week. Last week I was holding SIRF and PDLI. Made a decent gain of 1+ point on each one but exited both on pullbacks that made me overly anxious about protecting my gains. Now they are both doing exactly what I thought they would do, see my previous posts about them in my thread, and moreso an I'm out of both but am holding 4000 shares of HOM @ $5.84, down -.17 after close today, and which has been exceedingly boringly rangebound between $5.78/.80 and $5.65 for the last two weeks. I know that the minute I get out it will take off but still hasn't dropped to my stop loss point. A test of patience and control while other things I loved are moving without hesitation upward. We must love the pain.
Ski, I did let my emotions take over and by letting doubt creep in led me to do something I regret doing. I was not getting a good feeling about the market and I thought we might have a nasty sell off. I tried to be cute and get in early on a set-up. BOOOOOMMM this sucker started heading down with out a parachute.
I think what kicked me in the face with a size 10 airborne boot was the drop right after entry. I did have a plan and did not trade this plan and for this I’m pissed, but things happen. Now the good thing I did right was take a 1% position size in HOLX and so the hit was not bad.
To answer your question about what I did today. I had a brain fart and might need a check up from the neck up!!!hahaha Really Ski my actions today was incorrect and just plain out wrong.
Lesson to be learned follow your plan and don’t doubt yourself.
Runner,
I have been watching the stock of late and feel that it is far from done. I think it needs to consolidate a bit more down to around where your first stop was placed for an entry. I'm like it alot an am going to be watching it closely for an entry in that range on the next pullback. I think there is still alot of gas left in the tank.
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