Trade of the Day: +$719,00 June 3rd, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
At this point, we're seeing the market going mostly sideways for about 8 days. While at the same time, the indicator flips to full 100% bullish mode. Looking at pivot statistics and previous lows, it seemed like a favorable trade would be to enter into a long position around 4175,00. That's quite a significant intraday pullback, but statistics tell us that's not unreasonable to expect.
And indeed, our open buy limit was hit almost perfectly with only getting 0,25 lower as you can see on the chart. But then, a few candles later, the market went even lower. But not long after that, a nice recovery set in, only to give back some of it at the end of the session.
Trading update - May 2021
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- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
This month, the S&P 500 and ES are closing the month almost at the same level as where they started. All this time, the S&P500 moved sideways within a 200 points range, which at current levels equals 5%. The drop that took place from May 10th to May 12th looked like more downside was coming, but as we've seen so often, it was bought right back up. There is just no alternative for money to go it seems, other than the stock market, until..... it doesn't.
Trade of the Day: +$569,00 May 17th, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
Sometimes, when all indicators are 100% pointing in one direction, it may still be difficult to place a high probability trade. On the one hand, you want to get your order filled, on the other, you don't want to get your stop-loss to get hit and preferably a reasonable chance of reaching your target. As always, this is a game of chances, so you want to determine the probabilities for hitting those levels as well as you can. How did that work out in this trade?
Trade of the Day: +$1994,00 April 14th, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
This trade was a two-day trade, something we haven't seen in a while. But it's perfectly ok of course. If the indicator keeps pointing in the same direction, there's no need to close the position. Although, some scenario's come to mind where closing and reopening the position could add some extra profit.
Trade of the Day: -$306,00 March 31st, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
Today was a short trade, not very common in the model portfolio. Most of the time, down days, happen during volatile times which can make it hard to place a correct order (opening en stop loss).
This time, all five neural networks had a perfect bearish outcome, and market circumstances allowed to place a trade that made sense with regard to risk-reward. When that opportunity comes up, even if it 'feels' uncomfortable, it's the right thing to do.
Trade of the Day: $6,50 March 30th, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
It's not very often that you're going to see trades of the day with gains that small. But just looking at the result doesn't tell the whole story here. This is the third trade this month, and the resemblance with the previous two trades is remarkable.
Trade of the Day: -$206,00 March 18th, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
The market gods still have not given us a significant profitable trade ever since December last year(!) In February we decided to hold off, March now has only two trades. The first was a minor winner, the second a minor loser. And for me, there's a clear thing that stands out: stop loss!
Look again at the first trade this month, especially the chart that shows entry and exit. Then compare this with today's trading chart.
Trade of the Day: +$194,00 March 3rd, 2021
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Today
- Category: Market updates
Finally, we had a profitable trade for the model portfolio. It's still a very minor one, but having losing trade one after another is very decremental to the faith you have as a trader in a specific trading methodology.
Picking a good entry-level and stop loss level is always difficult. But as we can see from the chart, entry was near perfect. But as the trade took place, I could see there was a lot of nervousness going on, even multiple factors compared with an average trading day. Price behavior at the entry was erratic, but then the recovery from that low seemed to set in. The fixed stop loss was pulled up in steps of 5 points very quickly, and lastly, a 4 point profit was locked in. Luckily so, because the market decided to go lower again, even well below our entry. At one point the position was up 32 points, so there was good reason to pull up that stop loss.
Results 2021 Greed & Fear model portfolio
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- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Category: Results
In 2017, a start was made with verified actual trading results. Now we continue doing so for the year 2021.
The total net profit stands at $21469,- at the start of 2021 trading exactly one ES E-mini S&P 500 future contract. On average this equals $5367,50 net profit per year.
Before you invest in the model portfolio, make sure you understand the risks involved in trading futures.
Creating advanced orders step-by-step in Trader Workstation (TWS by Interactive Brokers)
Interactive Brokers (IB) is a popular broker, operating in several counties around the world, usually under local national names. Their trading platform is the same everywhere, it's the Trader Workstation or TWS. For novice users, it may be somewhat intimidating at first glance, but once you get a good understanding, you'll see it has a lot of powerful features to offer.
We have learned that disciplined trading is the only way to survive in this business. The best way to adhere to your own strict trading rules is to automate things. Let your orders take care of your trading, not your brain because the human brain usually fails in (short-term) trading. In order to achieve this, we need an extensive set of order types. TWS has just that, so let's get into it.
Mind the gap: on the daily chart
In our previous post about gaps, we looked at market behavior around opening-gaps and would generally happen during that same trading session. But nothing spectacular came out, an opening-gap basically meant nothing for further price action that day. Also, the average size of an opening-gap turned out to be a few factors smaller than average daily volatility, so those margins were easily absorbed regardless of whether there was an opening gap or not.
Now suppose the opening-gap does not get closed during the same trading day. How does affect the market in the next couple of days? Does price gravitate back towards such a gap, as if it wants to pull in price or doesn't it have any significant meaning as we saw in the opening-gaps analysis? Let's dive in.
Mind the gap: opening gap
There's a lot of talk about so-called gaps. General wisdom says they will be closed. But is that true? Is there a statistical edge about gaps that we can use in our trading? Let's find out.
Market gurus and their predictions - Part 4
- Details
- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Trading
- Category: Market psychology
After part 3, we move on to part 4 of this series of 'Market gurus and their predictions'. If you're new to this, you may want to start with the first part for some additional explanation.
The fallacy of becoming a successful short term trader
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- Written by Raoul Suurmeijer
- Parent Category: Trading
- Category: Market psychology
If you use any search engine and type in the phrase "How to become a successful short term trader" or anything similar, you will find roughly 70 million(!) websites that will help you in achieving that goal, or so it seems. While in reality, there's only one right and honest answer which is more like this: "There is an extremely low probability you will ever be successful in short term trading, and you will most likely lose all funds in your account".