I got it wrong: Fed cuts 50 bps to 3.00%

What is a saver supposed to do now? I thought the Fed would only go 25bps after learning that the recent market meltdown (futures down limit) was brought on by SocGen unwinding positions. So distractions abound, and no trades taken. Home inspections this morning, so we are off from 7:45 to 8, and then from 8:20 until noon. I return to see the market has been higher but close to unchanged into the Fed decision. I decide to do some sim trrading since I have decided not to trade on Fed day. But the market isn't moving violently, and my stripped down desktop is not freezing up. Fed goes 50 and market moves unsteadily and unconvincingly higher, but I try to short it (sim) with no signal and get stopped out. I leave to get my haircut (oh, there was also a walk in there) and when I return the market has given up all its gains! I sit here and watch a key support level give way at 1817.50. My entry was supposed to be stop sell at 1817.25 and it was instant gratification down to 11.25 and then 1803. A good bounce with lots of volatility prints 1819.75 and another ideal chance to short against the downtrend line, but I am firmly on the sidelines at this point. Now we have opened AH and it is still falling... 1795.25

Weekend review of Friday trades

Annotated charts showing my poor trade selection on Friday. With a big gap to fill below and coming off a steep uptrend, the smart guys were short early. I waited to buy a trendline touch, which may or may not be excusable, but after the trendline break I kept trying to buy, then sat in a fuddle the rest of the day. Afternoon was not as simple as it looked - stability did fake out many people, but there were at least 2 clear short entries that I missed.

Morning trades/ comments taken from my notebook, ie how I viewed the market at the time.




Some missing midday price action, then the afternoon comments - no trades after the 3 losers in the morning.

One step forward, 2 steps backward :(

Have I used this title before? Market seems to be in a strong uptrend, gaps higher on the open, so I try 3 times to buy it as it trends downward, then cannot find a suitable entry for the rest of the day. NQ was 1873.50 right as the stock market opened at 9:30. At the 4pm bell NQ was around 1793 and at 4:15pm they closed it at the absolute low 1791, 82.5 points lower. Very discouraging to lose money on a day like this. I had a little help from others who read the market wrong, but some of them managed to reverse and find shorts. I only did 3 trades, 3 losers. I know I can do much better than this. 1. Identify the trend. 2. Find a low risk entry. 3. Execute

Hey Where's my post??

Could have sworn I made a post after the last one... something about things going better. Small profits. Oh well

The purpose of this post is to record some very important shit. Point is, must trade for larger profits. In doing so, small losses will occur.

Anek> +10 is not my target
0123110403: just scale out for stops
0123110423: but never got the 1st target
0123110458: I mean think about it
0123110501: I was playing the breakdown
0123110503: did it break ?
0123110504: no
0123110515: had it break what would be the targets?
0123110518: +20s, +30s
0123110525: so is +10 the target
0123110526: no
0123110529: end of story

: happens a lot
but if you dont get used to it, you will never get the +30s
0123110739: this fucker just went up there to stop me out heheh

A small win turns into a small loss

Early wins, but they were too small. This is something that needs work. I have to let good trades run and become 10 and 20 point winners. I move my stop to B/E very quickly, which may be ok, but then I trail my stops too tight and get stopped out for small gains. The first 2 shorts were decent shorts, but could have run for 20 points instead of .25 and .5.






Then the trend changed from down to up, which is ok to not notice - I sold the popup in a downmove and still kept a small profit. The next short I should have realized the trend was up or at least waited for the ME to short. There was a signal at 1877.75 and the following low was 1872.5 but it popped up after that and uptrend continued.



Ill-advised long. Signals were all wrong, bought a pullback too soon anyway. Final trade - missed some good entries and sort of chased this short. Too late in the day, got stopped immediately in choppy market.

Turning the corner

With all the house showing appointments (we are selling our house in Summit NJ) I have only been able to trade a little bit. Some small profits, which is better than no profits, but still need to hang on for some of those bigger profits. I seem to be able to use AHG with discretion in a manner that will produce profits. Here is the anchor chart, showing some up and down but net sideways activity, although going back - today and the last half of yesterday were up.

Start of a new bear market?

Big negative day. Weak employment report, higher unemployment rate, stocks down heavily, especially NASDAQ, dailies look horrible, end of week so weeklies look even worse. Is this the start of a new bear market? Everyone seems to want to declare that a recession is in force. No trades today as I was heavily distracted this morning before the open and never recovered enough to concentrate on trading.

A quiet pre-employment range day

Now that I have figured out how to include charts in my blog entries, let me try to put in a daily chart and use this blog as my TRADING JOURNAL. Today was a typical rangebound pre-employment trade, but the interesting thing to me is that even if you call it a choppy trendless day, note that my big yellow lines are 10 FULL NQ POINTS apart!!! So it goes down, up, down, and up giving the astute trader the opportunity to capture up to 50 or 60 NQ points. I was appropriately waiting for AHG guidance, ie the definition of a trend to emerge, and inappropriately got pulled away from the market for a trip to the dump and a doctor's appointment. AHG did save me from selling it when the trend was actually up. No trades today, but for the record note a rangebound but tradeable pre-employment Thursday.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

What a start to the new year. NQ trades down down down down, smallest pop, then down some more... smaller pop - yes, that's where I finally short it, and miraculously even tho I have missed 99% of the move and am selling near the LOD I make a small profit. Then I go out for a walk and miss a big retracement and when I return it is going down again! Miss that move too, and sell again near the LOD. But this time I realize I am wrong and cover for 1 point. So I have actually made small money on a day when most are raking in huge amounts. Better to make than to lose!