McInnis 03 said:

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$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I like to sell covered calls, I don't sell calls or puts if I don't own the underlying securities.

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I can't sell naked calls because I trade in an ira, but selling cash secured puts in this market has been my greatest play lately

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IrishTxAggie said:

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Depends. Was there PR? Was it done with little volume? Was there a bunch of dumping at the end? Too many unknowns to answer your question

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IrishTxAggie said:

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Ignore it

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McInnis 03 said:

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$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I like to sell covered calls, I don't sell calls or puts if I don't own the underlying securities.

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I can't sell naked calls because I trade in an ira, but selling cash secured puts in this market has been my greatest play lately

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OverSeas AG said:

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So some rules I have for stop losses.

On stocks that I am day trading/swing trading:

• If stock price is $50 or less, my max loss is 1% of stock price. So a $50 stock has a stop loss of 49.50 for the stop loss.
• If stock is $50.01 to $200, my max loss is $.50. So a $100 stock has a stop loss of $99.50. A $198 stock has a stop loss of $197.50
• If stock is a $200+ my max loss is $1.00. So a $250 stock has a stop loss of $249.50.

As soon as I buy the stock, I immediately put in an OCO order for my Limit and my Stop Loss. Then I leave it. If I stop out, I am generally done for the day on that stock to keep my from chasing. IT makes things very mechanical for me. I do pretty well on my stock trading and am up fairly decently on that.

Options are a different story. I tried a similar approach with options, but was getting stopped out almost all the time b/c they are so volatile. Then I tried a more 'laissez-faire' approach shall we say... hands off. And watched several things ride to zero while living on Hope they would miraculously recover. Well hope is not a good strategy as they say and as my account discovered.

So now I have been doing a more successful approach for me.
1) when I get a nice profit, I do not bemoan the fact I could have gotten more. I might learn from it, but I do not... play what if. I made a profit.
2) I have been trying to follow the flow a lot more. If I see it, I check my chart. If it seems I am on an uptrend I will buy. If the trend is already having a good run, I will wait until there is a reversal and the get in on the next uptrend once it confirms. Much better at getting my entries this way.
3) On my exits I need to work on this much better. But again I watch the trends. If I see a reversal, I start watching closely at volumes, RSI, etc. I start switching between the 1 min, 5 min and 10 min charts. If I see 5 to 10 min of red, and the stock seems oversold, I am going to sell. If I see 5 to 10 min of reversal but the stock is not oversold, and flow still seems good, I will hold.
4) for both entries and exits I have been trying to figure out my levels and looking at what others are saying to confirm my own. Getting better here. So for both 2 and 3, I am watching levels to help me determine if I think I need to buy or sell.

That is my process. It needs work and is rough, but has been working for the last three weeks. After today I am up nearly $12k over the last three weeks. $4k is options and the rest is stock.

I still struggle with emotion on when to sell if I see my options drop... Especially if they all drop at once. Some times I have diamond hands, and sometimes I have tissue hands. However the more I follow my process, the more confidence I am getting it works, the more comfortable I am if things go red for a while.

Hope the helps someone.

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TheBiggerEvent said:

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TSN...

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Bob Knights Liver said:

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TheBiggerEvent said:

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TSN...

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So TSN is still at the top of or above the box it broke out of, however with poltrygate getting kicked up I can imagine lots of continued negative news stories.

From a technical only perspective, all of the information is already baked in, but could this be a sell the news moment where it's time to abandon the calls earlier than we normally would have?

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IrishTxAggie said:

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gougler08 said:

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Carlo4 said:

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S&P futures at 3166 right now. That's at the entry point they are recommending based on the theory. Let's see how it holds up.

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I'm targeting gap fill at 313

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Touched it right away at 3AM. Let's see if she comes back up. Think this was needed. If we can't hold this, another gap fill could be on deck at 308.2

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EVA3 said:

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Question for the board:

I'm reading John Carter's book. In the first setup he discusses (trading the opening gap) he says he only trades when the gap is at least 10 YM points or 1 ES point. I know this is a reference to his trading of E-mini S&P futures and mini-sized Dow futures contracts but I don't know how this translates to other stocks and ETFs. For example, how big of a gap should I be looking for if I want to trade this setup on the SPY?

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59 South said:

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Thought I'd share my macro chart (SPY) that I keep up with almost daily. Hope you guys find it useful. I wish I was able to post more, but just have too much going on. Maybe some day...

When tempted for overreactions or emotional decisions, this usually keeps things in perspective. Doing this was a huge boost to my buy/sell/hold decision making along with mental health. When I saw so many green bars in a row, I actually wanted a pull back. 313 or 308 would be welcomed and if held, shows signs of a strong market moving forward. Get below and close below that, then there's new levels to watch and maybe decisions to be made. All part of the target of emotionless technical trading and decision making which is rarely achieved. I know I'm not there yet.

Edit to add another thought that can be applied to most all equities: It's all primarily about clearly defined channels and levels. It's not hard. All those technical analysis tools really just go back to channels and levels being broken one way or another. It all has a supply/demand backbone to it. Add volume profiles to defined channels and levels, and it becomes magic. I really like the TrendSpider stuff on Twitter. Brilliant.

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gougler08 said:

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HEXO up big after earnings this morning

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IrishTxAggie said:

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gougler08 said:

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Carlo4 said:

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S&P futures at 3166 right now. That's at the entry point they are recommending based on the theory. Let's see how it holds up.

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I'm targeting gap fill at 313

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Touched it right away at 3AM. Let's see if she comes back up. Think this was needed. If we can't hold this, another gap fill could be on deck at 308.2

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AgEng06 said:

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McInnis 03 said:

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AgEng06 said:

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So for us amateur traders... is there a good guideline we can use to determine when to get in/out of a trade? (I know this has been asked a lot, but there is never a complete answer.)

We have some posters saying there is still time on XXX, so wait it out. And some saying, if you're down over 50% cut your losses and get out. I know it's a personal decision, but a general guideline would be helpful until each of us can develop our own strategy.

Any thoughts?

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Exit strategies are what make the difference in winning traders and losing traders. Having targets and stops are what protect you to having small losses and letting winners run.

This isn't a pinpoint answer but your goal should be to develop rules that help you identify targets and protective stops

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Absolutely, I get that.

So what are yours?

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