# Bulls and Bears - The Market



## compforce (Nov 15, 2016)

So, in a few threads, @lindy and I have been talking about the market.  Since then, I've had a few people hit me up about various trading strategies in PMs.  So, in the same vein as the Food Thread, I thought I'd start a thread about trading the stock market.

To start with, who here trades?  What type of trading, Buy and Hold, Swing trader/day trader or pattern day trader?  What do you trade, Options, Equities, ETF/ETNs or Futures?  Are you in a particular sector or just whatever feels good at the time?  Do you have any particular mechanical trading strategies (don't give away the farm, just the general gist so we know how you trade).  Are you a technical trader or fundamentals trader? How long have you been trading?  Do you have any good resources that you use to help pick stocks or strategies?  What's your biggest challenge?

For me, I started day trading a small account in July (not counting paper trading).  At one time in the past, I developed the algorithmic trading for a large bank.  I'm trying to leverage what I learned back then to make some money for myself now.  I trade monthly Options and ETFs.  I've dropped off options for the most part.  They can provide small steady income but I'm too impatient to sit around for a month to make a couple of dollars.  Now I'm almost exclusively trading a higher risk, higher reward mechanical ETF day trade strategy that I developed around gold ETFs.  So far so good. 

I'm absolutely a technical trader.  I don't care about any of the fundamentals or even the price. I'm just looking for a good trend reversal and diving in to make a few bucks.  I use Heiken Ashi charts and candlestick patterns as my primary tools. 

The biggest challenge I face right now is the small size of my account.  Between having to beat the commissions and fees and having restrictions around the number of day trades I can do, it's tough to make a good profit.

Some of the better resources I've found are:
Bloomberg - News and black swan events
Zack's - Stock screening and trading ideas
Tasty Trade You Tube Channel - Options trading strategies for small accounts (look for tasty bites videos)
Trade King - Basic option strategies

@lindy I finally got out of that gold trade I said went bad at a .48/share profit


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 16, 2016)

I trade for our company and am in control of trading roughly $4.5bn all in equities, primarily small cap.

Trade: Pretty much the suit of products out there.  Equities, derivatives, FI, foreign, L/S, etc.

Type:  Not day trading, primarily buy and hold although different scenarios allow for different circumstances.

In my personal accounts I buy and hold with a quarterly re-bal on the alpha drivers while holding anchors in the portfolio to mute volatility.  It is a quantamental approach.  I worked on tweaking a model in grad school and my first employer happened to be the creator of it along with my professor.  I am heavily allocated into health care (biotech/biopharma).  My skills lend me to more quantitative approaches although I would say there is a lot of merit to looking at technical data and do.  I trade those sectors personally because the people I work with are very good in the sectors I am in, and so I leverage their knowledge.  

Biggest challenge in the personal account is that since I currently do this for a living I am unable to trade in my personal account freely.  Hence how I trade in my PA.

In the workplace, due to our size in the space we are in we have a few ways we add value.  In the algo world, it would be working with devs to modify the standard algos.


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## Devildoc (Nov 16, 2016)

Following to learn.....


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

Health care is a good sector for buy and hold right now.  Shorting tech is also a pretty solid play for the shorter term (30-60 days).

If Trump follows through on his promise to wipe out state lines for insurance, the health care industry should be the big winner.  He's also promised to expedite the FDA approval process which will be a HUGE deal for pharma.

My mechanical trading system for gold is a new one.  Historical data showed it at 100% increase in account value over a 4 month period with a 68% hit rate.  If it works out the way I expect, I'll probably share it.  Right now it's been up and down with what's going on in the market.


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

sigh...really annoyed right now...  see the big spike down (probably one of the institutional traders) that stopped me out...   I had this one nailed.  Oh well, only a small loss.  I know better than to set stops that close on something that has this much volatility.  I think I'm going to quit using stop losses and just manage the trades myself.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 16, 2016)

In that HC space I have two names which I am holding due to their drug pipeline.  They each have multiple products which will fit in a larger companies portfolio of drugs and should be taken out in the next 2-4 years.  Otherwise, I normally rotate a couple of macro themed small caps into my PA trying to capitalize on what I think will be a significant event in that next quarter. 

Playing the election last quarter I went heavy into smaller banks, and industrial companies while holding only two health care names.  In my PA I try to keep the positions to 10-15 names for reasons you mentioned above @compforce in your first post.  My commissions are .01 per share, or 8.95 if it is a large amount of shares as I am on Fidelity's platform.  In that account I go for the higher risk higher return profile since my time horizon is far so any losses in one year are realistically not material unless I lose everything, but I make sure I have my downside protected with hedges.  In reality, I don't think that a Clinton election would have really hurt HC in the long run (see UNH in '93).  I think the ACA would have failed within the next 2-3 years which the Republicans were counting on and not bringing to light for a few reasons.

I have been debating running a covered call overlay in my PA to try and take advantage of short term volatility.  The cons are that I don't have enough time to really spend on researching for my PA so I realistically will not do it.  I also don't want to have to create a lot of trade authorization forms to get approval to do it.

When it comes to Gold l I don't think I have ever actually traded it more than once back in 2009, looking forward to learning a lot about it and what you look at.  That chart reminds me of the Oil guys, when a big group comes in to hedge or position, limits get swept up quickly.


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

The system I'm using is a trend reversal system with NUGT and DUST, 3X Bull and Bear ETFs.  They're strongly correlated with gold, but are actually gold miner ETFs so it's imperfect.  The system I developed works if you can day trade with impunity, but I don't have 25-30k that I want to commit to the market right now.  If I did, I'd be up about 3k right now over the last two weeks, even with the losers.

The gold futures are a bit too much Buying Power (BP) for my current account.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 16, 2016)

For the long and short aspect of it, are the weights of the underlying miners the same or is there a little bit of exposure on either end of the trade?  Would it be easier to go out and use puts/calls on a group of the miners themselves to decrease cost and increase exposure or is there not a lot of slippage?  

Do you have a certain range where you feel really comfortable trading in the channel or do you have signals you look at that key off to go one way or the other?  Don't give the sauce, but just wondering how much "feel" (which I think there is definitely) there is when in range and how much are indicators signalling to go or lay off.  I get some of it is after watching it daily you become in tune with what different economic indicators or news items will move the names and how much. 

I usually stay away from the futures as well, I don't find the return for capital outlay to make sense given the amount I have to play with.

That is an incredible return % regardless of of capital, awesome work!  Sorry for all the questions, since I don't trade that space I am always interested in understanding what people who do look at and why.  Especially in times of increased future uncertainty.


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> For the long and short aspect of it, are the weights of the underlying miners the same or is there a little bit of exposure on either end of the trade?  Would it be easier to go out and use puts/calls on a group of the miners themselves to decrease cost and increase exposure or is there not a lot of slippage?



DUST and NUGT are non-marginable so you are long either NUGT (Bull) or DUST (Bear).  They are both heavily traded so there is very little slippage .01-.02 b/a spread on NUGT, about .05 on DUST.  They are both deliberately built for day trading.  It even says in the prospectus that they are not meant to be held overnight (although I do if I'm losing badly and need to average down).  Options would always lose on those because the market prices in the range.  You might consider a condor on them, but it would be risky because the up and down would tend to drive your profits out.



> Do you have a certain range where you feel really comfortable trading in the channel or do you have signals you look at that key off to go one way or the other?  Don't give the sauce, but just wondering how much "feel" (which I think there is definitely) there is when in range and how much are indicators signalling to go or lay off.  I get some of it is after watching it daily you become in tune with what different economic indicators or news items will move the names and how much.



This is meant to be an algo trade so there's no feel involved.  One day when I decide to commit real money to it, I plan to totally automate the trade.  I don't play the news or other binary events for this.  It's strictly a momentum play...which is strange since I don't use any momentum indicators, just price action.  There's a recurring pattern to the price action that sets up the entry.

In the future, if you look at gold, there's a BIG trend to the trading action.  It goes..   up trend, retrace, up trend, retrace, etc..  then consolidate and drop back to support.  If I was going to play the future, I'd wait for clear consolidation then short the heck out of it.




> I usually stay away from the futures as well, I don't find the return for capital outlay to make sense given the amount I have to play with.
> 
> That is an incredible return % regardless of of capital, awesome work!  Sorry for all the questions, since I don't trade that space I am always interested in understanding what people who do look at and why.  Especially in times of increased future uncertainty.



Like I said, I'm still a bit new at this game using my own cash.  It's been an interesting run so far, I've got a ways to go before I am confident in the system.


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## ThunderHorse (Nov 16, 2016)

I'm sort of messing around.  I got into this as Fundamentals trader and too a hit in the shorts on an oil ETN, fundamentals styed the same but Saudi just kept opening it's yap.

Right now I'm trading with Chesapeake Oil and Twitter and a gold ETN.  I took some change and decided to go long on oil since there was a refinery fire in Torrance yesterday.


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

ThunderHorse said:


> I'm sort of messing around.  I got into this as Fundamentals trader and too a hit in the shorts on an oil ETN, fundamentals styed the same but Saudi just kept opening it's yap.
> 
> Right now I'm trading with Chesapeake Oil and Twitter and a gold ETN.  I took some change and decided to short oil since there was a refinery fire in Torrance yesterday.



I think you're backwards on that oil play.  A refinery fire lowers supply, raising prices.  That should be a long (although I don't think that the fire is actually material)


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## ThunderHorse (Nov 16, 2016)

compforce said:


> I think you're backwards on that oil play.  A refinery fire lowers supply, raising prices.  That should be a long (although I don't think that the fire is actually material)



I should probably read my own messages.  I went long, on a 3x ETN.


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## The Hate Ape (Nov 16, 2016)

@compforce 

where is the problem (your personal accounts) in doing options trading? If you're confident in your ability to chart/perform technical analysis you stand to make an amazing percentage gain with minimal loss compared to margins, volatile stocks, etc...

I'm mostly a paper trader learning the concepts and studying. I'm working on an Econ & Finance Degree with Penn State World Campus to, hopefully, shoot for an MBA or Esquire title down the road. My current background is Poli Sci / Civics from another School (education wise).

I as well, shoot for the swings, I perform technical analysis with a sprinkle of speculation on fundamentals. I was confident in the potential gains leading up to the election, then the drop, then the new entry point for what will return far above current resistance levels. Keep in mind, I am absolutely no expert, but I've been educating myself for almost a year now and am pretty enthusiastic about it.

Candlestick Charts (usually phone apps or google finance), E-Trade (will switch down the road), and that's about it. I enjoy volatile choices but have since moved out of those to eventually move for Options trading contracts on big names like AMZN, AAPL, MSFT, FB, etc..


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## compforce (Nov 16, 2016)

The Hate Ape said:


> @compforce
> 
> where is the problem (your personal accounts) in doing options trading? If you're confident in your ability to chart/perform technical analysis you stand to make an amazing percentage gain with minimal loss compared to margins, volatile stocks, etc...
> 
> Candlestick Charts (usually phone apps or google finance), E-Trade (will switch down the road), and that's about it. I enjoy volatile choices but have since moved out of those to eventually move for Options trading contracts on big names like AMZN, AAPL, MSFT, FB, etc..



To make money with options, you certainly get leverage and such, but if you're wrong, you lose and if you're directionally right, you lose about half the time.  Don't get me wrong, you can make money by selling credit spreads in high volatility underlyings.  With a tiny account, you can only do a small number of spreads, then you have to wait for them to get right before you can take profits and move to the next trade.  The reason is that you have buying power reduction of the max loss on the spread.  So you sell a spread that has a max profit of say $100/contract and a mass loss of $200/contract.  You get a credit of $100/contract (minus fees and commissions) applied to your account, but you also get a buying power reduction of $200.  So if you sell 5 contracts, your net account is -$500 (less fees and commissions).  On a $5k account that is 10% of your account tied up in that trade for the next 30-60 days before you can buy it back at a reasonable profit after fees and commissions.  That's fine if you're looking for a couple of hundred dollars every month or so.  Day trading equities I can make (or lose) a hundred a day.  If my system is right, and it has been so far, then I am going to make money 3.5 days out of 5.  That's 150 or so a week positive on this small account.  Meanwhile, with options I am stuck with things which tie up my capital and my buying power waiting for them to expire so I can try again...   Not to mention you always run the risk of assignment if you are selling them.

I just don't have the patience to wait a few weeks for an options trade to get right.  If I was fully confident in the system I am trading, I'd be all in and trading in and out of positions 4-6 times a day.  Since I'm not ready to meet the margin for pattern day trading (minimum 25000 equity at all times) I'm being more selective picking and choosing what I am trading, but doing it on a daily basis.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 16, 2016)

Options are a great tool, but I would caution people on using them too much in personal accounts. If you want to use long dated options you run into the capital commitment issue named above. 

If you are in the blade of the option cycle (close to expiration) you might be paying up for something not worth it or paying for a low probability event to happen.

The other issue is you want to be nimble or able to change if you need to, getting out of options can be incredibly costly if you are wrong even if you didn't spend a lot putting the trade on.


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## compforce (Nov 17, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Options are a great tool, but I would caution people on using them too much in personal accounts. If you want to use long dated options you run into the capital commitment issue named above.
> 
> The other issue is you want to be nimble or able to change if you need to, getting out of options can be incredibly costly if you are wrong even if you didn't spend a lot putting the trade on.



Let me make this real for some people that have been asking about options trading.  I've closed most of my options positions now.  What's left are the ones that I couldn't get out of before they swung the wrong way too fast for me to roll them.



yes, that's -619.00   It's OK because I am net ahead and not all of that is real loss (it totals the current value, but some of them are below the max loss until they expire)  BUT, you see that 1901.50?  That's my buying power reduction.  That's 2000 dollars that I have in cash that I can't touch or use until these options expire on Friday.  That money has been tied up for almost 60 days now. (the 251 is the Delta) .  For a small account, that is a huge amount to have tied up and unusable for that long.  BTW, that represents positions (3-5 contracts/spreads each) on 5 symbols.

Options aren't for the faint of heart.  I've had one down $700 and go back up to a $400 profit in one day (8 contracts).  I've also had quite a few that were just short of my profit target and then plunged, seemingly without reason, never to get back to even.  One of the ones above is Intel (INTC).  It was up $150 at close on 11/9 and was deep in the money.  That was several long 12 calls (not spreads) that I paid $200 for and which would have been worth about $800 at expiration at the current price.   The price dropped $2 on 11/10 dropping the option out of the money and down to $25 profit.  On 11/11 the price dropped another $5 and I lost all of it.  There's no chance of recovery and rolling it would just be throwing good money after bad.  All I can do is hope some miracle brings the price back up to over 12 so I can exercise it.  At this point, I won't be able to sell the contracts for anything even if the price rose to 11.99. 

I still don't know why that price fell.  There was no news items at all and the fundamentals are strong.  The only thing I can think of is that it got pulled down by the rest of the tech sector when Trump was elected and said he was going to kill TPP and put tariffs on China where the chips are manufactured.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 17, 2016)

Great example @compforce and stinks it comes from real money but that is how it goes.  I usually view large cap stocks as trend trading when I am trading them.  When a stock trades 25-30 million shares a day even if you have a few million shares to do you are but a drop of water over the waterfall in reality.  Some days the names just swing like that because of garbage news in the sector that has nothing to do with them.  We own a position in INTC for the record.

If someone was going to use options in the PA, the best thing I can think of is a covered call strategy.  The problem is that you need some $$ in the underlying positions to do it.  

For those unfamiliar:  Say you have 10 positions in your personal account all owning more than 100 shares in them (options contracts are for 100 shares of stock, oil contracts are 1000 barrels or 42,000 gallons).  You look at your portfolio and you have positions which are easily replaced, but are stable fundamentally.  A great example would be KO (Coca Cola).  Coke and Pepsi stock are interchangeable really, own one, own the other, you aren't going to change the world with them or drive major returns from them.  KO is trading at $41.25 today and I don't care if I own it because I have a replacement in PEP, so I look at the options ladder.  I want to look out MAX 60 days and MINIMUM 10% above where it is trading for the strike (the price you will be forced to sell at if exercised).  I notice the 11/18/16 C47 trading at .03 per contract right now.  So I sell 1 contract at .03 (100*.03=$3) which I receive today.  If KO is trading above $47 tomorrow which is a 13% move, someone can exercise the option I sold them and take my stock at $47.  If it is below, they can still exercise the option at $47 (rarely happens unless KO is 46.97 but it does) or most likely it expires worthless and I keep the $3 I made from selling the contract.  If KO called away from me, then I just buy PEP in the portfolio or maybe I look for KO to retreat off a 13% move up and buy it back less than I sold it and write more calls on it.  That is just an example of what I personally would think would make sense.  

Options are not for the faint of heart when doing speculative trades.  I use them often, I create them sometimes and I personally think that the average investor should stay away from them completely.

Also - never write calls on your alpha drivers, they are there to make you $ by just holding.


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## The Hate Ape (Nov 17, 2016)

I wish I bought a shit ton of AAPL when it was at 90 earlier this year. Same with FB and AMZN (last year).


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 17, 2016)

The Hate Ape said:


> I wish I bought a shit ton of AAPL when it was at 90 earlier this year. Same with FB and AMZN (last year).



Do you view AAPL as over or under valued currently and what do you think about it over the next 18 months given they might have the ability to re-patriot the overseas cash ($215.6bn)?


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## compforce (Nov 17, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Do you view AAPL as over or under valued currently and what do you think about it over the next 18 months given they might have the ability to re-patriot the overseas cash ($215.6bn)?



I'd call it over valued because Trump is threatening their supply chain. (and their US labor force)


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 17, 2016)

compforce said:


> I'd call it over valued because Trump is threatening their supply chain. (and their US labor force)



I agree.

My question was more because if he looks at what he liked about those companies back in the time he looked at them, he might find some companies today, or play those very same companies and see solid returns based on today's outlook.  I thought AAPL was terrible in 2008 when I was in grad school and even wrote a paper on it.  The split adjusted price was like $20 (ugh), but after re-looking on it, made a solid amount of coin in later years on it, albeit not what it could have been if I had been correct initially.


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## compforce (Nov 17, 2016)

Hindsight is always 20/20...   Here's what happened with one of my trades today...  I won, but because I couldn't day trade again today I missed something my self-built indicator turned up (yes, that is my own indicator that I programmed).  If I knew what was coming, I wouldn't have closed my trade.  Or I wouldn't have traded earlier and saved a day trade for it.  I made a total of about $270 today, but missed on the big $600 winner.  C'est la guerre


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 17, 2016)

Nice, tough to go poor by taking profits!  I think it becomes tough on people to do it daily because there is a lot of that.  It also becomes tough because if your strategy works, and it grows then the numbers get bigger and that can either change the landscape of the trade, or the mentality of the trader.  Just add some zeros to it and the stress can increase exponentially.  Your system seems really solid, I initially was thinking it was using an exponentially weighted price method to derive an intrinsic price but that wouldn't make sense in the example.  Whatever it is, I hope it keeps rocking on for you.  

Have you tested it in other securities or does it really only lend itself to gold?

I am currently trading a small cap consumer name which I have 8 times the adv to do.  So going quietly and trying to grab hold of the name is important.  A lot of it is taking advantage of those using the standard algos they would use in large cap names.  This trade could take a few weeks to finish but a lot of it is trusting the method to achieve the goal.  Over the long run is what is important.  A lot of our trades in SC are like this, our assets are consolidated across maybe 120 names so pretty concentrated.


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## compforce (Nov 17, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> It also becomes tough because if your strategy works, and it grows then the numbers get bigger and that can either change the landscape of the trade, or the mentality of the trader.  Just add some zeros to it and the stress can increase exponentially.



That's why I am trying to trade it mechanically and plan to automate the system once it's proven and I make the big jump to PDT margins.  I just want to look at the end of the day and see the profits  :)  I think I'd be a basket case in a week if you added two zeroes on my trades and I was still manually trading.



> Have you tested it in other securities or does it really only lend itself to gold?



The system is actually pretty complicated, using the current trends from 5 other names and the future to determine my entries.  Fortunately, they line up about 2-4 times a day.  If I were to try to manually calculate my entry on a one minute chart, I'd never enter because it would take too long.  Hence the indicator you see there doing the calculations for me.  Currently I've back tested about 8 other ETF pairs and have not found a similar correlation that trades nearly as well.  UWTI/DWTI does it too, but the b/a spread is usually .25 or more, the profits are only about .05% higher over time and the BP requirement is double.  I'd be better off doubling trade size on gold rather than doing that pair, at least until the time when my trades are big enough to start requiring sweep orders.


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## compforce (Nov 17, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> A lot of it is taking advantage of those using the standard algos they would use in large cap names.



You just hit on something really important.  For most small time investors (like me) the efficiency of the market is going to crush them.  They think "oh, I saw an article today that apple is going to move their manufacturer to the US" and so they quickly buy or sell apple based on the news.  The problem with that is that unless you can predict the news before it goes public, without insider trading, the market has already priced it in.  In the case of options all of the probablilities of either Trump or Hillary winning were priced in months in advance.  Then, within minutes of the concession call, the prices all corrected to match the outcome, during extended hours trading, which most individuals don't have ready access to.  Trying to buy something after an event, based on the event is foolhardy.  The way to make money is to find the momentary inefficiencies and get in before the algos do.  Or learn the algo patterns (nearly impossible) and look for that brief moment before their trigger gets hit.  Or you can chase after the "dumb money", occasionally get a loss because the algos got into your trade and forget about the big hits, which is what I'm doing.

AIRR is looking pretty good right now.  Midcap Industrial ETF up to an all time high of 22.50 from 18 since the election and still moving pretty sharply although today was a bore.


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## Dienekes (Nov 18, 2016)

Any recommendations on charting/algorithm software, preferably free? I'm learning as much as I can right now about the technical indicators and then, tackling fundamentals before I start trading with a super small account, and I would like to develop a strategy using some sort of tool to help.


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## compforce (Nov 18, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> Any recommendations on charting/algorithm software, preferably free? I'm learning as much as I can right now about the technical indicators and then, tackling fundamentals before I start trading with a super small account, and I would like to develop a strategy using some sort of tool to help.



Set up a free account with TD Ameritrade.  They give you their charting software for free if you aren't a professional.  They also have built in paper trading (15 minute delay).  If you don't want to do that, google finance or yahoo finance work just fine


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 18, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> Any recommendations on charting/algorithm software, preferably free? I'm learning as much as I can right now about the technical indicators and then, tackling fundamentals before I start trading with a super small account, and I would like to develop a strategy using some sort of tool to help.



There are some solid charting websites for free out there.  I don't use them a lot due to BBERG having stuff I can draw on, but I think BigCharts is still around and that has a lot of technical data on it.  Outside of that site I would defer to those who use them a lot.

I am of no help on the free algo stuff, I have never used any of the free ones.  The ones that we use are sell side ones which we are given the sauce to and modify.


@compforce I recently went to 35% cash in my PA, I think I want to have some dry powder because I don't see a lot of fairly valued or undervalued plays right now in the market in general.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of a pullback here and hopefully some of these full valuations come down a hair across the board.  I am keeping my eye on smaller banks and industrial companies.  I might play a few consumer names going into holiday season for a 30 day trade but I don't really have a good feel for that space.


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## compforce (Nov 18, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> @compforce I recently went to 35% cash in my PA, I think I want to have some dry powder because I don't see a lot of fairly valued or undervalued plays right now in the market in general.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of a pullback here and hopefully some of these full valuations come down a hair across the board.  I am keeping my eye on smaller banks and industrial companies.  I might play a few consumer names going into holiday season for a 30 day trade but I don't really have a good feel for that space.



I'm at 40% + day trade capital.

I bought puts on both Facebook (FB JAN17 115/110 put vertical) and Twitter (TWTR JAN 17 18 put) today.  Facebook has credibility issues in its core revenue producer, advertising.  Twitter has been deliberately banning conservative voices so they are leaving for elsewhere.

Hoping for a last minute rally in gold this afternoon or I'll have to take the weekend risk and average down on Monday.

L Brands (LB) and Ross (RDC) are pretty strong.  I've been seeing institutional money getting behind RDC in the last couple of days and their earnings call was very strong.


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## The Hate Ape (Nov 21, 2016)

I feel AAPL is valued correctly.

What the future holds in terms of moving manufacturing out of China, I have no idea. I am certain however that there will be a very speculative market if this comes to reality. That said, I believe AAPL will be seriously under-valued at that point.


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## compforce (Nov 21, 2016)

The Hate Ape said:


> I feel AAPL is valued correctly.
> 
> What the future holds in terms of moving manufacturing out of China, I have no idea. I am certain however that there will be a very speculative market if this comes to reality. That said, I believe AAPL will be seriously under-valued at that point.



Moving out of China means a huge rise in manufacturing costs for products that are already at a price that people can just barely swing.  If it weren't for telcoms subsidizing the phones, people wouldn't be buying those $700 bricks.   Add into that, market saturation and I think you have a recipe for an earnings call that starts a selloff.  Apple is trading at something like 7X earnings.  Even if it was as low as 3X, how could they ever possibly grow their revenue to meet the expectation. 

Now add in there Trump's position on H1-B visas and immigration and you have another MAJOR hit to Apple's bottom line.  You do know that Apple is one of those companies that uses almost exclusively foreign labor for its operations here in the states, right?  What happens if that labor pool goes away or gets significantly reduced forcing them to hire Americans at a higher cost per employee?  What does that do to their earnings?

As far as repatriating their funds, those are already factored into the stock price.  Moving money that they already have without having to pay taxes on it does NOT change the stock price or valuation.  Market efficiency is not going to allow them to get credit for the move unless there is some way to GROW their capital by moving it.

I stand by my overvalued position.


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## ThunderHorse (Nov 21, 2016)

Here's the thing though, when Motorola made a phone here in the states, overall margin on the phone wasn't hit that much.  What was poor was the marketing and the appeal of the brand.  It declined like Nokia declined because they weren't able to keep pace with apple even though Motorola was still pushing a great product.  All of that is marketing.  Remember when everyone had a razr?


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## The Hate Ape (Nov 21, 2016)

AAPL is an incredibly innovative and forward thinking company. It has eyes and ears in a lot more sectors than phone manufacturing and will absolutely be part of the next Century and so forth. The ticker will get slammed by speculation and possibly lower earnings calls but overall, the company will grow far above the expectations of the future. Far above it.

It will be undervalued.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 22, 2016)

I think a stock like AAPL is a time horizon name.  Is it over valued currently, maybe, more likely than not.  On a longer timeline, probably not.  



The Hate Ape said:


> AAPL is an incredibly innovative and forward thinking company.



This is why it makes them so hard to bet against over the long run.  Their brand recognition is also out of this world.   When I was in China a few months ago for a clip I could not believe how highly regarded a phone would be.  Although, coming from a place where baby formula from Nestle is gold, it should not have been so surprising.


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## compforce (Nov 22, 2016)

OK, so time for a quick test on everyone's technical trading/chart reading abilities.  I had an interesting day today.  I was trading NUGT, one of the gold ETF's I've been mentioning.  One thing that is important to know about NUGT is that you can't sell short, you can only buy it, which means that all sales are real shares being sold (you have to actually own it to sell it).  If you are bearish on gold, you go long in the sister ETF DUST.  Here's what NUGT looks like over the last year (1 year, 1 Day chart):


So here's the setup...  You (I) own 200 shares that you had to hold overnight because the profit wasn't enough to cover the commissions.  You bought those shares at 8.77.  Today, the market opens and the shares immediately plunge putting you about $100 in the red:



What do you do?  Why? - To avoid cheating, I'm going to give this to you in pieces.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 22, 2016)

compforce said:


> Gold trade



I assume we are at the point on the far right is where we are.  If it were me, I would double the position, put a stop down 20% from there and my automatic exit point would look to be back at the opening price on the day which I would guess is somewhere around where the red starts on the left. 

Having only looked at that name last week and seeing the volatility in price that would be my initial thought.  I would not hold the trade overnight if it got to my exit point.  I say that because I would be playing the vol in the name and the intrinsic price I would use calculating last nights close.  

Ultimately, I would probably want to be long this name more times than I am short it I think in the next 30 days unless it poison pills which it doesn't look like


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## Dienekes (Nov 22, 2016)

Assuming options are available:

1. Buy a protective put to minimize losses, but allow a large upside on a stock you are still bullish on because you bought the shares.

2. Buy a call option on the DUST ETF since it will rise as NUGT drops

3. Sell immediately at a loss, and buy the DUST ETF

The chosen strategy above depends on the fees, commissions and options pricing, but that's about the best I could come up with. Thanks for the learning opportunity.


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## compforce (Nov 22, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> Assuming options are available:
> 
> 1. Buy a protective put to minimize losses, but allow a large upside on a stock you are still bullish on because you bought the shares.
> 
> ...



#s 1 &2 - if you are going the options route, what strike prices would you select?  How long until expiration?

For now let's ignore commissions and fees and just talk about the price action.


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## compforce (Nov 22, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> Assuming options are available:
> 3. Sell immediately at a loss, and buy the DUST ETF



Here's the chart for DUST for the same time period...  The range is 50.00 - 54.50 during that period.  Is it really an option to sell NUGT and buy DUST?


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## Dienekes (Nov 22, 2016)

compforce said:


> #s 1 &2 - if you are going the options route, what strike prices would you select?  How long until expiration?
> 
> For now let's ignore commissions and fees and just talk about the price action.


I'm thinking the price plunged to $8.27 since you owned 200 shares and you said that put you in the red about $100. I would try to buy a weekly option at the highest strike price I could get for a premium less than $50 a contract. At 2 contracts that would cost $100, so then the strike price would need to reach $9.27 to ensure recouped losses so that would be the minimum strike price to put you at breakeven minus commissions and fees. A higher strike price for a put option would be ideal because then you can sell at higher regardless of the lower stock price, but if it goes up higher then you're doing fine minus the premium paid.

ETA: I chose weekly because I assume the premiums are cheaper for a shorter timeframe.



compforce said:


> Here's the chart for DUST for the same time period...  The range is 50.00 - 54.50 during that period.  Is it really an option to sell NUGT and buy DUST?
> 
> View attachment 17287


Ha, well I guess not.

I figure Isaiah6:8 is probably on a way better  track than since that would be cost averaging down making a higher potential upside with less average paid per share. That never crossed my mind.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 22, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> I figure Isaiah6:8 is probably on a way better  track than since that would be cost averaging down making a higher potential upside with less average paid per share. That never crossed my mind.



Keep the trade simple at first.  I personally have never looked at this name before this thread, so I want to keep it simple.  From a volatility perspective I could play the name in the options market, however, I don't need a home run. I need another runner on base.

Given volatility in the name, I want to capture my upside exposure while I think the opportunity for greater price volatility is there. The downside stop allows me to limp away, re-evaluate the current environment, adjust my perception & model, and then attempt another go around with hopefully a more accurate view.


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## compforce (Nov 22, 2016)

Dienekes said:


> I'm thinking the price plunged to $8.27 since you owned 200 shares and you said that put you in the red about $100. I would try to buy a weekly option at the highest strike price I could get for a premium less than $50 a contract. At 2 contracts that would cost $100, so then the strike price would need to reach $9.27 to ensure recouped losses so that would be the minimum strike price to put you at breakeven minus commissions and fees. A higher strike price for a put option would be ideal because then you can sell at higher regardless of the lower stock price, but if it goes up higher then you're doing fine minus the premium paid.
> 
> ETA: I chose weekly because I assume the premiums are cheaper for a shorter timeframe.



Options really aren't an option (pun intended) when you are talking about day trades or short term holds of 1-2 days.  The premium you pay for the option is going to be more than the expected value of the equity.  You'd be better off selling and taking your loss than to go with an option to save something this short term.  Also, if you buy a put, then if the stock rises and you want to take profits, you need enough profit to not only cover the commissions, but also cover the loss in value on the option....which is leveraged, meaning the more you make on the stock, the more you lose on the option...multiplied by the leverage.  It's a no-win unless your profit on the stock is more than the entire cost of the put.



> Ha, well I guess not.
> 
> I figure Isaiah6:8 is probably on a way better  track than since that would be cost averaging down making a higher potential upside with less average paid per share. That never crossed my mind.



The reason you don't trade the NUGT shares in to buy DUST at that point is because NUGT is at a low and DUST is at a high.  Sell low and buy high will send you to the poorhouse.

So doubling is actually the right answer.  I actually bought 300 shares of NUGT at 8.34...(filled @ 8.31)   why did I buy 300 rather than simply doubling by buying 200?  Why at 8.34?  Notice I don't place a stop.  I mentioned that earlier in this thread (I think).



The first reason for 300 shares is the cost.  My total buying power is about 10k, enough to buy 1000 shares.  By doubling to 500, I set myself up to be able to double one more time if I need to.  What is the second reason?  All of the information is there to answer this question.


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## The Hate Ape (Nov 23, 2016)

Towards the end, the Bulls are fighting for control and keeping the sell volume in check

S1 @ 8.3
S2 @ 8.25
R1 @ 8.4 w/ a gap up to 8.6

By averaging down you decrease your losses should you exit, while equally putting yourself in a stronger position on a trend.

Without an RSI, my eyeballs say the path of least resistance is ^ not down on this security. (per the chart)

My layman's guess is that the stock action is oversold and will return to test the first resistance level. Should the R1 be broken you're looking at a great gap fill behind a decent volume surge.

Verdict: Average down as much as possible and watch carefully. Be prepared to throw more in if necessary but exit if S2 is broken.


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## compforce (Nov 23, 2016)

The Hate Ape said:


> Towards the end, the Bulls are fighting for control and keeping the sell volume in check
> 
> S1 @ 8.3
> S2 @ 8.25
> ...



You're thinking like a trader...  That's where most people get themselves in trouble.  It's much easier than that. I can give you any study you want to look at for the time period.  I don't use any of them.  What you see above is what I have up when I'm trading.  On rare occasions I have TTM Squeeze up, but that's just because I think it looks cool.  I don't use them because they are all lagging indicators.  I want to be ahead of everyone else.  I'm thinking what algos are thinking about so that I can get in front of them and anticipate them.  Here's your RSI.  It was at almost exactly 50 at the time.


Where are the _natural_ points of support and resistance in every equity (or future/forex pair)?


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## compforce (Nov 23, 2016)

I'd like to add something about indicators.  There's nothing wrong with using indicators.  Almost all of them are built based on nothing more than price action and volume over a period of time and typically some kind of comparison.  At various times I tried using EMA, MACD, RSI, Bollinger Bands, Stochastics and many more.  Here's where I had a problem with them.  They are all showing you what just happened and reaching back in time.  Non-institutional traders are all using various combinations of them.  And 90% of those traders lose their money (that's an oft quoted statistic that I haven't researched personally).  If everyone is doing it and only a few are succeeding, why would I copy them?  I focus on systemic patterns created within the chart and volume graphs, almost exclusively.  By doing that, I sat on the phone with a friend of mine and literally predicted every single direction change, including volume fluctuations for more than two hours on a 1 minute chart live as it ticked and he watched it. (I'm trying to get him on here, he's a Cav vet and my trading partner).  As an aside, he uses RSI as his primary indicator with volume as confirmation.  Of the indicators I tried, MACD "two line" was the one I favored.

Technically, @The Hate Ape is completely correct. although the other way of looking at it has support at 8.25 (the line created by the lows) and resistance at 8.35 (the tops of the four peaks)  I don't think there is enough info on the chart shown to develop s1,s2,r1,r2.  You'd need to know that the ATR is 1.60 (real number) and work from there.  The problem with doing that is that it's a 1 minute chart.  Those types of channels work better the longer the period so they are very inaccurate when you are day trading on a minute chart.  EMA is probably a better way to find resistance and support on this short a period.  Bear in mind my average hold is less than 30 minutes.  Very fast, very volatile trading.


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## compforce (Nov 24, 2016)

OK, so in the interest of not dragging this out unnecessarily, here was my entire thought process through the trade.  First, here's the chart I used with all my drawings on it.  This one is actually tame compared to most of them.  They tend to look like spiderwebs by the end of the day.:


The answer to the questions I asked in the previous post:
Why did I buy 300 rather than a straight double by buying 200? - Because the natural support/resistance levels in any equity are the round numbers.  So in order of strongest to weakest they are
100
50
25/75
10
5
1
.50
.25/.75
.10

By buying 300 shares I ended up at just under 8.50, meaning that I would plan to take profits just under 9.00 and make a .50 profit without having to cross the natural resistance.

Why did I buy when I did? - Look at the volume chart.  Leading up to my trade there was steadily decreasing downward volume (bears).  At the time of my trade, the upward pressure had just taken over (bulls).  There is a natural rythm to momentum, it tends to swing one way and then back the other.  The combination of price and volume tells you which part of the cycle you are in...or you can use TTM Squeeze/RSI to tell you.

I was very comfortable with this trade, especially when it developed a rising wedge pattern (green line and red resistance line).  So we rode up and I got my indicator to get out at 8.73.  But because that came on very low volume during lunch hour, I decided to hold.  That was reinforced when I got my indicator to get in at 8.72.  During lunch there was a slight upward trend.  When it dropped after lunch I really wasn't all that worried because there were several support lines between the price and catastrophe.  As expected it bounced off the 8.50 line and started climbing.  I got out on the first red tick after 15:50 because I didn't think there was enough time left for it to retrace and come back up and I don't like holding this overnight when I have significant profit.  Here's the actual trade log (the trade was on optionshouse to get the lower commission/fees, but I do NOT endorse them, I HATE their platform with a passion):



As a side note, this is a very low risk trade because it's at the extreme bottom of the 52 week trading range for the symbol.  I'm actually back in right now for 800@7.50 to take advantage of today's plunging gold prices.  I'll hold this for as long as a week or two to try to hit an exit above 9 (that would be a $1200 profit).


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## Isiah6:8 (Dec 14, 2016)

Just rotated into energy names and some more biotech in the PA.  Rotated out of a few financial companies which had paid off holding since February.

I  think energy will be an interesting sector with some US producers coming back online leaner.  They become takeout candidates and with the Permian land values going for what they are I think there is some opportunity there.

Watching NUGT and the volatility is unreal.  I think the thread needs an update on some of the trades @compforce has done


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## compforce (Dec 14, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Just rotated into energy names and some more biotech in the PA.  Rotated out of a few financial companies which had paid off holding since February.
> 
> I  think energy will be an interesting sector with some US producers coming back online leaner.  They become takeout candidates and with the Permian land values going for what they are I think there is some opportunity there.
> 
> Watching NUGT and the volatility is unreal.  I think the thread needs an update on some of the trades @compforce has done



I'm not sure energy is a good bet right now for a short hold.  I think it's at the top and going to sell off a bit.  Natural gas (the commodity) will crash if Trump holds to his promise to remove the impediments to fracking allowing the supply to shoot up and depress prices.  On the other hand, some of the consumers of energy products should go through the roof if the prices come down.

As far as NUGT, it's definitely a day/swing trader symbol.  When the prospectus says "do not hold this longer than 1 day" it's a sure sign of volatility.  As far as my trades, they are based on a simple principle.  Figure out which way you think the symbol is going to go for the day, establish a small position when you think it is plateaud and then if it goes down, wait for it to hit a floor and cost average down, wait some more and if it goes down, cost average again and then give it time to work.  I made about 14% on my money in the last two weeks of last month.  Right now I have a position at 8.44 that I've been holding for a week waiting for the rate announcement today.  5 out of the last 8 rate increases gold has gone up.  If it goes up, I stand to make a bit of cash.  If it goes down, it has an absolute floor at about 6.50 so I'll wait and then cost average down and wait for it to come back up, even if it takes a month.


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## Isiah6:8 (Dec 14, 2016)

I'm holding refiners/producers/drillers of oil with lesser exposure if any to nat gas.  I don't really ever look at nat gas as a play.  In my PA are a few very small horizontal frackers who become profitable in the higher $40s per barrel.  I think that if we stay range bound oil will be $55-60/barrel and these guys will come back online leaner.  I have been building this position since $29/barrel and will probably give it one more go of an increase if it dips mid $40s/b.  Companies like Whiting fit the screen albeit a little more gas than preferred, but land value can offset.

I always thought the don't hold more than one day was also due to the daily re-hedge of the position more than the vol. So you technically don't hold the same position you did the day before and unless you are calc'ing out the re-hedge.

If that name dips low 7's I would probably dip my toes into it to give it a run in real time.  I just dont really have the time to day trade a PA so I normally due the quarterly rebal but find the day trading stuff fascinating.


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## compforce (Dec 14, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> I always thought the don't hold more than one day was also due to the daily re-hedge of the position more than the vol. So you technically don't hold the same position you did the day before and unless you are calc'ing out the re-hedge.
> 
> If that name dips low 7's I would probably dip my toes into it to give it a run in real time.  I just dont really have the time to day trade a PA so I normally due the quarterly rebal but find the day trading stuff fascinating.



Exactly right, the re-hedge does weird things, but it also creates an opportunity when the price goes the wrong way.  The reason for the long hold is I'm waiting for the rate increase.  Average holding time on NUGT is 4 days so I'm not the only one playing around holding while the price is low.

In the low 7's, I'd drop out of my other positions and put it all in NUGT


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## ThunderHorse (Dec 14, 2016)

I had bought UWTI and got out last week at 24 even, it was a small trade so I only made $60.  Today's rate hike wrecked the rest of my positions.  Even gold went red which was weird.


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## compforce (Dec 14, 2016)

ThunderHorse said:


> I had bought UWTI and got out last week at 24 even, it was a small trade so I only made $60.  Today's rate hike wrecked the rest of my positions.  Even gold went red which was weird.



UWTI delisted last week.  Be glad you got out with a profit.  I almost didn't.  So now I'm waiting for tomorrow to see what gold is going to do.  I think NUGT overreacted to the rate hike.  Gold actually didn't move much after the announcement.  It was -15+ already and closed the regular session at -19 (1.65%).  NUGT on the other hand was at 6.91, down 1.17 (14.48%).  I expect NUGT to rebound in regular trading tomorrow.  Right now I own 600 shares @ 7.67  Tomorrow I will either buy another 600 shares @6.50ish if it drops just to average myself below 7.50 or I'll just hold and wait to see what comes next.  At this price, I actually don't care if I have to hold it 6 months to get it back up to profitability (which I think will actually come within a week or so).


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## Isiah6:8 (Dec 15, 2016)

I might enter a position into NUGT down here although part of me just wants to stay away.  I mean it is very enticing given the range but I do not like the idea of holding this given the daily re-hedge


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## compforce (Dec 15, 2016)

Isiah6:8 said:


> I might enter a position into NUGT down here although part of me just wants to stay away.  I mean it is very enticing given the range but I do not like the idea of holding this given the daily re-hedge



I'd hold off until Monday if I were you.  Right now it's blown through support to 6-6.10.  It needs to stabilize and then start correcting to make any money.  Personally, I am down about 800 on it right now, but not worried because I'm going to average again when I'm sure it's hit bottom.  Fed kinda screwed me by saying they anticipate 3 increases next year.  The current one was already priced in along with an expectation of 2 increases.  The big drop is from that extra increase being priced.


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## ThunderHorse (Dec 15, 2016)

compforce said:


> UWTI delisted last week.  Be glad you got out with a profit.  I almost didn't.  So now I'm waiting for tomorrow to see what gold is going to do.  I think NUGT overreacted to the rate hike.  Gold actually didn't move much after the announcement.  It was -15+ already and closed the regular session at -19 (1.65%).  NUGT on the other hand was at 6.91, down 1.17 (14.48%).  I expect NUGT to rebound in regular trading tomorrow.  Right now I own 600 shares @ 7.67  Tomorrow I will either buy another 600 shares @6.50ish if it drops just to average myself below 7.50 or I'll just hold and wait to see what comes next.  At this price, I actually don't care if I have to hold it 6 months to get it back up to profitability (which I think will actually come within a week or so).



Yeah I've traded UWTI and DWTI over the past year.  I missed the announcement on the delisting and was wondering why it wasn't updating on google.  I was looking to get back in on the trade UWT and UWTIF are up, but I'm keeping my skin out of the game.  I've had a long trade with UGLD that I need to come back up a bit so I can feel comfortable with a cash position and reinvest with either my $TWTR or $CHK positions.


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## ThunderHorse (Jan 6, 2017)

So a couple days ago I sold my UGLD position which took me into the shorts following the election.

I took that cash and bought 50  more CHK at $7.11 and then 100 TWTR at 17.13.


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## Isiah6:8 (Jan 6, 2017)

ThunderHorse said:


> 100 TWTR at 17.13.



What are the thoughts on TWTR for purchasing?  I have never owned any and missed out on some profitable moves.


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## compforce (Jan 6, 2017)

Isiah6:8 said:


> What are the thoughts on TWTR for purchasing?  I have never owned any and missed out on some profitable moves.



Twitter is doomed.  Price targets are $10 and they are rated strong sell.  They don't have any profits, never have.  They were purely an acquisition play and that fell apart last year.  Right now they are dealing with a dead baby bounce as they claw to stay relevant.  It's ok for a short term play while they thrash, but don't expect any major gains over the mid to long term.

My gold play for today:
JDST - It's the bear gold play.  Works just like DUST, but is a couple of dollars cheaper per share.
+100@21.01
-100@23.47
$246 GP, $230 NP

If I had enough cash in the account to actually day trade, it just opened again @23.46


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## ThunderHorse (Jan 6, 2017)

I disagree on the gold trade.  That's why I got out of UGLD.  I held onto it too long and really don't have the cash to cost average with the share price it was at.  May be worth it in the middle of the year if this rally holds because there is bound to be a correction.

I disagree with your opinion on TWTR, in regards to their profitability and I think it will be seen this year.  Twitter is all about information, that's its currency and the amount of ads I see is insane.  But streaming live stuff such as the NFL will be a boon, although I think Alphabet (we used to say Google) messed up by not go after that rights deal without the amount of live content using youtube as a platform.  

I don't intent to hold either for a crazy amount of time as they are not long investments, but TWTR is a much shorter trade for me at this point.


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## compforce (Jan 6, 2017)

ThunderHorse said:


> I disagree on the gold trade.  That's why I got out of UGLD.  I held onto it too long and really don't have the cash to cost average with the share price it was at.  May be worth it in the middle of the year if this rally holds because there is bound to be a correction.



I'm not sure what you disagree with.  I was sharing the day trade I made today.  That was in the bear ETF so I was betting on gold going down, which it did.  No opinions there, just a trade.



> I disagree with your opinion on TWTR, in regards to their profitability and I think it will be seen this year.  Twitter is all about information, that's its currency and the amount of ads I see is insane.  But streaming live stuff such as the NFL will be a boon, although I think Alphabet (we used to say Google) messed up by not go after that rights deal without the amount of live content using youtube as a platform.
> 
> I don't intent to hold either for a crazy amount of time as they are not long investments, but TWTR is a much shorter trade for me at this point.



Feel free to disagree.  Ad revenue is getting cheaper because there is an oversupply and the market is saturated.  Meanwhile the NFL ratings have been tanking so that's no big win.  1/4-1/2 of twitter users are bots.  It's the same fallacy as the dot com era.  Users do not equal revenue, especially on platforms where a user can have multiple accounts that are being calculated as 2 people.  If they can monetize it and turn a profit, then fine.  Their fundamentals are horrible as well.  I wouldn't touch twitter with a 10 foot pole as a 3 month or longer hold.  JMO, I truly hope you make some money on it.  I'll be surprised if it ever hits $25 again.


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## ThunderHorse (Jan 6, 2017)

compforce said:


> I'm not sure what you disagree with.  I was sharing the day trade I made today.  That was in the bear ETF so I was betting on gold going down, which it did.  No opinions there, just a trade.


To be honest I have to re-read stuff every time someone says bear and bull, yeah you're right on that.



compforce said:


> Feel free to disagree.  Ad revenue is getting cheaper because there is an oversupply and the market is saturated.  Meanwhile the NFL ratings have been tanking so that's no big win.  1/4-1/2 of twitter users are bots.  It's the same fallacy as the dot com era.  Users do not equal revenue, especially on platforms where a user can have multiple accounts that are being calculated as 2 people.  If they can monetize it and turn a profit, then fine.  Their fundamentals are horrible as well.  I wouldn't touch twitter with a 10 foot pole as a 3 month or longer hold.  JMO, I truly hope you make some money on it.  I'll be surprised if it ever hits $25 again.



If it hits $25 I'm cashing as fast as possible.  But I will probably sell before then.  Other than the huge buy rumor I have to say it's pretty flat stock for the moment.  One of the things with the NFL ratings that the NFL has been unable to calculate the streams into its ratings, which I wholly do not understand, but Goodell is an idiot.


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## compforce (Jan 6, 2017)

ThunderHorse said:


> If it hits $25 I'm cashing as fast as possible.  But I will probably sell before then.  Other than the huge buy rumor I have to say it's pretty flat stock for the moment.  One of the things with the NFL ratings that the NFL has been unable to calculate the streams into its ratings, which I wholly do not understand, but Goodell is an idiot.



The only buy rumor currently out there is a supposed Disney buyout, but Disney flat said they were not interested in November.  The source of that rumor is intereconomia.com who has a HORRIBLE record with rumors.  Here's the original article: Disney hará una oferta por el 100% de Twitter

It also says something that the spike yesterday was on rumors of Jack Dorsey leaving (which were deliberately false).


----------



## ThunderHorse (Jan 6, 2017)

I wasn't referring to those per se.


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## Isiah6:8 (Jan 6, 2017)

ThunderHorse said:


> Other than the huge buy rumor I have to say it's pretty flat stock for the moment. .



I was with a company whose ownership was a PE firm that owned 25% of TWTR pre IPO.  They do news, they do news better than maybe anyone.  Problem I see with TWTR is they don't really think they can monetize that at this point and are trying to branch out, which isn't working (see price).  It is why I don't own TWTR and won't, because it appears they don't know how to monetize what they are truly best at and maybe they can't right now.

I highlighted your comment because a huge buy rumor is just a rumor.  If there was a lot of truth to it you would see it start to get priced in.  Great example is DEPO on those rumors and takeout price over the last 24 months.  Not sure if I am filtered out of your view, but I would seriously consider alternatives in that space given the out performance relative to peers.  Unless this is your first salvo in it on a value play.


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## compforce (Jan 11, 2017)

So I got hit with a bullshit margin call (there was enough cash to cover it in the account, but they insisted on an additional deposit) by one of my two accounts.  I closed that account after satisfying it.  That took away my ability to day trade every day without being pegged as a pattern day trader.  So now I am trading a combination of futures and the ETF's.  I'm still specializing in gold, just now I am trading the ETF 3 times a week and gold futures (/GC) every day.  The good side is that I can trade the futures as many times as I want without worrying about the PDT rules.  The bad side is that it means I am very heavily concentrated in the future and subject to heavy punishes if I get it wrong.  Yesterday was the first day I've traded the future and ended up with a $60 net profit.  I think as long as I don't get greedy, I should do OK. 
(as I was typing this, I lost $150   )

I definitely need to keep an eye on these trades, the futures move very fast...


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## Isiah6:8 (Jan 11, 2017)

compforce said:


> So I got hit with a bullshit margin call (there was enough cash to cover it in the account, but they insisted on an additional deposit) by one of my two accounts.  I closed that account after satisfying it.  That took away my ability to day trade every day without being pegged as a pattern day trader.  So now I am trading a combination of futures and the ETF's.  I'm still specializing in gold, just now I am trading the ETF 3 times a week and gold futures (/GC) every day.  The good side is that I can trade the futures as many times as I want without worrying about the PDT rules.  The bad side is that it means I am very heavily concentrated in the future and subject to heavy punishes if I get it wrong.  Yesterday was the first day I've traded the future and ended up with a $60 net profit.  I think as long as I don't get greedy, I should do OK.
> (as I was typing this, I lost $150   )



Did you get hit with a margin call because one of the platforms decided you were a PDT and needed to have the 25k in the account to satisfy?

Are you going to use your system and see how it works with futures or does it already have data to track?  I wonder because $10 a tick changes the game a wee bit!

I used to use futures to monetize cash in a few funds, but the issue was what you typed above and those swings on what could be up to 5% of a fund was not beneficial and could be considered speculative at times, so we went the ETF route.  Also, if you make a calculation error in a future, the punishment can be much greater.


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## compforce (Jan 11, 2017)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Did you get hit with a margin call because one of the platforms decided you were a PDT and needed to have the 25k in the account to satisfy?



No, the issue was that they used the account balance at the beginning of the day to determine the margin available for day trading during the day.  I had held a big position overnight, liquidated it in the morning and then established another smaller position.  The smaller position's initial margin requirement was higher than the day trade margin based on account balance at open.  So I got hit with a margin call and deposit requirement even though the cash in the account was 3X what was needed.



Isiah6:8 said:


> Are you going to use your system and see how it works with futures or does it already have data to track?  I wonder because $10 a tick changes the game a wee bit!



I've been paper trading the future for the last month and am going to be working it manually.  Parts of the system will work, but the basis for it doesn't because the ETF has an underlying assumption around how far it can fall.  The future has no such assumption.  Also the future moves much much faster than the ETF.  If I had 100k or so in there, I could weather the big moves and the system would likely work.  With the size of my account, a single miss could take me below the cash requirement and end my ability to trade the future.



Isiah6:8 said:


> I used to use futures to monetize cash in a few funds, but the issue was what you typed above and those swings on what could be up to 5% of a fund was not beneficial and could be considered speculative at times, so we went the ETF route.  Also, if you make a calculation error in a future, the punishment can be much greater.



The futures are definitely bigger risk, bigger reward.  I lost $150 in about 3 minutes, but gained 200 in the next 10 so I'm ahead (barely).  You definitely need to have some balls to trade this market...

One big bonus to me is that the fees on futures are about 1/20 of the fees on equities/etfs so I can also trade more often  and a single tick up is profitable.[/quote][/QUOTE]


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## Isiah6:8 (Jan 11, 2017)

compforce said:


> You definitely need to have some balls to trade this market...



Amen to that, the guys that trade that stuff for a living have some ice in them. 



compforce said:


> margin calc...



Gotcha, still a PITA I am sure.



compforce said:


> Futures Algo...



Makes a lot of sense, I am sure looking at the vol and having an algo decide initially is just way too risky until you get enough data and capital from it trading manually live before you start to explore that.  Just looking at the move today is enough to make the pucker factor increase.


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## compforce (Jan 11, 2017)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Just looking at the move today is enough to make the pucker factor increase.



I was long at 1187.80 and reversed my position at 1186.40 (the -$150).  I'm good now.  Closed at 1181.9.


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## compforce (Jan 11, 2017)

I think I've found a home  :)


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## Isiah6:8 (Jan 11, 2017)

Thats a great home


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## ThunderHorse (Feb 1, 2017)

Well now...since Under Armour's credit rating was just cut to shit, looks like a good time to throw a little monopoly money at it.


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## RackMaster (Feb 2, 2017)

Any of you have holdings on the TSX?  This would be the time to buy into the cannabis biz up here before it gets to pricey.  Canopy Growth Inc. has become one of the biggest out there.  Buy WEED!

As of today, you can now buy and sell WEED on the Toronto Stock Exchange


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## ThunderHorse (Feb 9, 2017)

I just got rid of my TWTR holdings...a day after they get upgraded they post shit earnings.


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## compforce (Feb 9, 2017)

ThunderHorse said:


> I just got rid of my TWTR holdings...a day after they get upgraded they post shit earnings.



It's going to get worse too.  I'd think about going short on them.  Advertisers have stopped putting hashtags in their ads.  That's a precursor to the advertisers pulling their cash out of advertising directly on the platform.

For me, I'm still playing gold.  Net after fees I am up 13.08% YTD  Gross I am up 23.96%  The disparity is going to start going down now though.  I changed the frequency of my trading and am making fewer, bigger bets to lower the impact of fees.


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## Isiah6:8 (Feb 17, 2017)

Going very long financials and health care. Looking at industrial allocations but not really my bread and butter.  Trying to trade what I think will be the most likely reforms coming.


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## ThunderHorse (Feb 17, 2017)

Well I got out of TWTR...should have sold when it hit 18, that management team is garbage.  I bought some more ETE, should cost average chk.


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## SpitfireV (Jun 5, 2017)

Right so four months later, how are you guys all going? I'm on a demo account on one of the major NZ traders (they're worldwide too). Learning FOREX at the moment, also doing well on some of the indices, mostly.


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## compforce (Jun 5, 2017)

SpitfireV said:


> Right so four months later, how are you guys all going? I'm on a demo account on one of the major NZ traders (they're worldwide too). Learning FOREX at the moment, also doing well on some of the indices, mostly.



net +40% for the year so far mostly trading gold futures (/GC)


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## Isiah6:8 (Jun 5, 2017)

Net +12% YTD.  Had a few really nice winners in AKRX, NVRO, ABMD, SF.  Had some dogs, DEPO, OXY, AKRX (early on).  

I would really love to see some volatility enter in.  Unfortunately, I think that would only come with a material down move in the market which would hurt the middle class a lot more than it should as it usually does.  I don't think that is good for the average, but there is a lot more to be made in a more volatile environment.


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## compforce (Jun 5, 2017)

Isiah6:8 said:


> Net +12% YTD.  Had a few really nice winners in AKRX, NVRO, ABMD, SF.  Had some dogs, DEPO, OXY, AKRX (early on).
> 
> I would really love to see some volatility enter in.  Unfortunately, I think that would only come with a material down move in the market which would hurt the middle class a lot more than it should as it usually does.  I don't think that is good for the average, but there is a lot more to be made in a more volatile environment.



I've got a december 220 put on the QQQ so if it does crash this year I'll do well.  If not, it was paid for out of profits so I don't mind losing.


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## Isiah6:8 (Jun 5, 2017)

compforce said:


> I've got a december 220 put on the QQQ so if it does crash this year I'll do well.  If not, it was paid for out of profits so I don't mind losing.



Very nice, I don't actually have any hedges on right now or opportunistic downside capture trades.  I would love to make a play for increased vol but the decay eats away profitable return.  My thought is at this point: When vol spikes and the market turns, I might lose (hopefully) 5% and then re-position for the next 5-15%. 

I have very real concerns about the financial health of the average American worker, and am currently trying to look at potential trades around that.


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## Marine0311 (Jun 10, 2018)

I just opened up a Schwab brokerage account.


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