Monday, December 21, 2009

Swing Trade...

X-Mas rally? What a funny thought. Amazing to me that this dominated the headlines - as if it has any merit. They say 12 of the last 15 years we rallied into the New Year. The logic is that "odds favor a rally". Funny as heck. In fact, I once flipped a coin 10 times to humor myself. It turned heads 7 times out of the 10. I guess that means that odds favor heads in that game.

Anyway, here is a very simple closing line chart for the last 30 days of the S&P. One rule comes to mind - trade a channel until it breaks.



I opened a short line on the ES - one (1) contract - just as a humorous test to see if we stay in the channel and extend back down the range. I am in at 1108.25. I have an OCO (order cancels order) trade in play with my stop loss at 1112 and my target at 1094. This is about a 4 point risk for about a 14 point gain. The risk-reward profile fits - let's see if the range from the last 30 days stays in tact.

Ho, Ho, Ho...

7 comments:

payline said...

Hi David ,

Solid and simple ,

If we do break the top line, to a new high, it should be short lived .

Waiting for the fall , I refuse to go long , in view of all the weakness and Gaps , Been using long nat gas and , TMV 3x long bond short as a hedge

Waiting for it to come our way .

Cheers

David O said...

Re-entered the position at 1112.50 - kinda of pissed that I got stopped out. But RSI on the 60 minute, 15 minute, and 5 minute chart suggests that this drift up will reverse. Will wait to add to position until after news of the day. Shanghi dropped 2.3% yet Europe is up second straight day. Who will we follow?

David O said...

Scalped to an even position. Now short 2 ES contracts at 1113.

Paulus said...

Guys,
My euro shorts are killing me big time. Losing so much powder after all my patience. Frustrating.
Soooooo strong, whatever TA, news, signs, €/$, whatever, UP is the game UP UP UP.
Not clearheaded enough to scalp, or daytrade so keeping out and looking at my stops popping like balloons in a shootingrange.

payline said...

Paulus , Hang in there , a step back a bit , it will come to you .

David O said...

Paulus,

It is hard to advise (or take advice) when a positions has gone wrong. All I can say is if your stops are popping, they are doing the job you thought was best at the time you entered the position. Don't slide them - let them pop - and try not to think of each pop as a loss - rather each tick past your pop is a gain.

This is a very, very risky week to trade.

Paulus said...

thanks guy's,
much appreciated.
So no thoughtfull brilliant comments from me for now ;-)
Will just step back a little and recoup.
have a great christmas!
Thanks for blogging & commenting!