Tuesday 4 October 2011

Styles of Trading

I find that I am trading bigger, but for smaller profit per contract in today's volatile markets. I'm scaling out less and am all in and all out more often than before. I think it's a product of the whippyness I see.


That doesn't mean that it's the best way to trade. Scaling out allows me to capture a larger move without a re-entry if I want. But I think that the current character of the markets has made me react in the way I have. I'm re-entering and making my profit on a full position but it's a little more work. Using Flo to enter makes it less arduous but my trade management needs to be sharp.


The balance between all out and scaling out is really a psychological one I think. We all like to take profits. But if you add reloading the scaled out contracts then I think that scaling out is the better option, just harder to do, at least for me, in the current context.


The transition continues as reality is slowly sinking in. I believe that there is still quite a lot to unfold as the current crisis is managed, for better or worse, by the various governments and agencies.


The ES RTH open was a bit confused as you can see from the left of the chart below. After about 10 minutes the sellers won and gave me my first RTH trade as the big CCI confirmed the other order flow indicators down. Once the EMAs widened, I was looking for more shorts. I got caught a little on the second last trade on the chart, which cost me just over 2 handles. The final short on the chart was a short based on the overbought and VB divergence. The rubber band had just gotten too tight. These are the trades I double down on as I can, at the worst, scratch the trade. My TP allows for this trade and I have back tested it extensively. Programming this trade into Flo means I can trade it hybrid or auto too. There are a couple of important techniques for this trade that I will show at the November Workshop. It does need to be shown in real time.



7 comments:

  1. I just thought I would bounce the idea of increasing the Range bar from 1.25 x 3 = 3.75 while the volatility continues?

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  2. Hersh, If it backtests as an improvement then I'd agree. Testing can provide a suite of values for different volatilities. I've run a 3 point range bar on a particular algo but not a 3.75

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  3. EL, if you use your indicators in pretty much the same way for your trading plan regardless of the periodicity, how far back do you to backtest to find which periodicity is the most profitable for your trading plan?

    For example, do you backtest your trading plan to find the most profitable periodicity for it for the past 5 trading days? 20 days? Or longer?

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  4. Hi, How do you add the moving avg for the cumulative Delta cci?
    I found how to do cci of cum Delta but can't add the moving average...
    Thx.
    YW

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  5. YW, same way as the CCI except pick the MA. Start with VB and add INDICATOR and pick MA. Guys in support at MD are great so ask them if you still have probs.

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  6. Kyle, backtesting is a whole process. Firstly validating over a longer period and then backtesting and walking forward in different markets. For instance, stops and targets may be different on a trend day than on a Normal day. Depends on your style too.

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