Kars,
I copied off your remarks so it would be easier to follow. You won’t offend me by asking questions. I share with the hopes of all of you being able to take my info and applying it. But I can’t do it for you…or anyone. It takes study, study, study.
KARS: -I see you purchased slightly out-of-the-money or right at the money calls instead of ITM (which would have been 185). Why is that? Do you have a way of seeing what your trade would have yielded if you would have purchased 185C?
Actually 190 was in the money. The high NFLX reached on the first 55 candle was $191.43. My call was taken quickly at $1.85. The call offered was $1.80 but I wanted in PDQ. Why? Because of the 6 points I had of evidence that the trade would go my way I did not hesitate to enter off the 55. A basic rule of thumb is “trade in the direction of the gap”. As far as looking back to “would of could of” ….No. I do not bother with details that do not matter.
KARS: -I'm having a hard time seeing what you entered the trade off of. ….but I don't see an entry off the 8-min at 9:40 - I see one at 10:26 that may have even been better, though. I actually see the stock price dropped $1.50 from 9:40 until the price recovered and the indicators (kind of) showed a trade around 10:20, though not perfectly on the 8-minute.
I got in on that first candle on the 55. I did not wait for a candle close on the 21. This is the hard time and the action chart is the 21. If you look at the 21 chart there was no reason NOT to get into the trade since no candle went below the 5 moving average. This is one of the advantages of learning about moving averages.
Kars: - I think we probably have the same indicator set-up (those taught by GW)
No we do not have exactly the same set up IF you are using Gary’s instructions on his charts only.
My charts are: 55, 21 of Gary’s charts but I have a dark gray ADX line thickness 2 where Gary had it faded into the background and a 10 and 21 from the TAD book. I do have an 8, 5, and 1. The 8 is Gary’s charts and the 5 and 1 are from the TAD book. I also have a daily Gary chart and a daily TAD chart.
Those charts from the TAD book are a 5, 10, and 20 moving average ONLY and on the study… money flow. Why did I darken my ADX? I learned that the ADX line will tell me the strength of the trend. It will go up if the trend is strong… that means if the trend is UP or DOWN. I always look at the ADX. Darken your ADX on your 55 and look at it on the day I made my trade. As Gary says “See the steepyness?” Which way is the stock trending? UP…UP…UP and strong! The money flow on the TAD charts also supported UP.
KARS: -Lastly, it looks like you enter a good number of your trades during "Amateur Hour." I think Rookie also said that he has found success trading at that time of day.
I think the market has changed a little. I use to stay in trades for a few days. Now I get in and get out. I
HATE trading from Thanksgiving in Nov and Dec up until after Christmas. That has been the time of my biggest losses.
KARS: -Based on your recommendation I purchased TAFD and am reading over the pages and sections you recommended. I'll have to think a little harder about it (it certainly can't be too complicated) and work some practice trades using this process.
Please do not read just the pages I recommend. Skip over some of the information such as line charts or bar charts. Why learn those when you do not use them? Read about Bollinger Bands, Stoch RSI, MACD, Directional Movement and Moving Averages. I am the type of person who needs to know why something works and how…so I went and found out why and how. If you do not need to know why or how…why bother?
Kars - One of my biggest pet peeves about GW's classes is that they were taught so many years ago that some things in the market have certainly changed in the intervening years. Case in point, yesterday I was on the phone with the folks from Investment House talking to them about some of their products, and I asked them about their stock split newsletter. The (very kind and helpful) lady on the phone said that before 2008 Jon Johnson was very successful predicting when certain companies would split their stock, just like GW talks about in his classes. But, that hasn't been the case for roughly 5 years. So some of the things you hear you have to take with a grain of salt - but which ones? And with GW's style of "just follow the rules and you'll have success, don't and you will lose big" mentality, it's not easy to know what to set aside and what to hold firm to.
Believe me what Gary taught years ago still works. Yes Gary was a little sharp in his statements…or loud… but I have followed his teaching and added a few things that helped me and I have done well. In all the books he gave about trading, I never read them cover to cover. Why? …Too much info makes me look like one of those cartoon charters with the spinning eyes. I read ONLY the parts that applied to what Gary taught. For me the best book was “The Market Makers Edge”. And as I said I fell asleep listening to Pring which lead me to TAD.
I do not know what you are meaning about
"But, that hasn't been the case for roughly 5 years. So some of the things you hear you have to take with a grain of salt - but which ones?" so it is hard to me to reply to that. Are you meaning the things Gary taught...or what you hear on CNBC??? There comes a time when you are going to have to believe in what
YOU SAY.
I did a BING search for stock splits. There is information on splits from Yahoo. It isn’t as in depth as Briefing.com but it is there.
My suggestion to you and others is find the charts you trade off the best. Right now in this market I trade off the 55 best. Gary did teach that you can use the 55 year round. I do not rest well holding an option over night now.
KARS: -So I guess that is a big reason why I ask these questions.
For those of us that shelled out significant dollars to take GW's classes, it would be nice if there was some free updated material. I mean I paid the man. Things like, well these things don't work, these things do. Etc, etc, etc. I live very far from NC and am not willing to give him another 1500-2500 of my hard earned to get yelled at some more even if I did. (Time to step off the soap box.)
I wonder if anyone else out there has these same feelings. Like I've said before, this forum is my "Success E-mail" since I never received even one from GW - but the Christmas Card was a nice touch.
I understand your frustration but you are in the right place to learn all you need. To be honest from your writing you sound like you are looking too close for a reason NOT to trade. I could be wrong. If I am right you are exactly where I was. If I am wrong it won’t be the first time that has happened. Our failure comes from IMHO trying to cut corners and that simply will not work. There is not a magic bullet and Success Emails or not... believe me would make little difference in the outcome you or others or I would have. I received only 2 success emails and as I understood it Gary couldn’t mail any if none came in.
I prefer to thank Gary for teaching me the basics I needed
to get started. I understood when I took Gary’s classes that he was giving me “
Wallstreet Basic’s” and I was responsible to take it from there. I also know from listening to his CD’s that people would have used him up until there was nothing left and would not have done the work needed themselves.
You simply have to do the work yourself because nobody knows how you think or operate better than you.
I share what works for me.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2013 01:15PM by Darcy.