"Good Friday" The Holy Grail of Trading

Today was a historic day for two reasons.

1. We broke the bear low from Nov. 21, 2008 of 739 on the S&P. (bad news for our 401k's)

2. Probably due to that fact, my system generated a new record of 106 signals during normal market hours. That is just incredible.

The real news is that the raw system performed close to 90%.

This is unheard of in systems as far as I know.

Feel free to let me know if you have information otherwise.

94 Winners 12 Losers 106 Trades for a winning percentage of 88.6%.

The bad news is I did not have much time for simutrading today.

The good news is in the 15 minutes I spent trading, I booked 3 trades and 3 winners and walked away ahead of my daily goal. I walked in around 1:30, logged in, saw three signals and took them all like clockwork.

Trade of the Day was the premarket breakdown from 742 through the 739 level. It appears to have kicked off automated program trading. I had sent out emails 1 hour before this trade warning about the 739 level. I had set a short in my trading platform and grabbed 5 points...while I was driving to work. Obviously I would never do that in real life.

This next week will be interesting to see if we can hold this level. I expect record volatility again. We might be near the bottom or we might be ready for a round of new lows.

As always click the chart to see a larger version.

Thursday 75.6% 59W 19L 78T

I had quite a bit of time today to simutrade. Initially I was trying to trail stops and get the "big moves". I was getting beat down badly. I was down over 6 points early. I stayed calm and focused on the signals and started looking for my usual 1 pointers. In the end I did 22.5 points NET. Also today my fees were lower, which is a good sign of control. I still had a lot of even or near break even trades. If I made a mistake I did not wait around to "see what happens".

$5 is cheap insurance to close a trade that was not valid!

Instead of trailing a stop I was able to double dip on some of the moves. I will admit 4-6 of the points were hail mary's at resistance and support levels. I also had a nice trade which I took for no reason but a breakdown of support back to a pivot which was 3-4 points. S&R to me is what the market really is about. It just so happens my system often also gives signals at those levels.

Trade of the Day today is the trade which was NOT THE SYSTEM, but S&R breakdown.

Wednesday 78.6% winners 70W 19L 89T

Another very volatile day. Look at the mess between 13:05 and 13:30 - Obama must have made some news. Plenty of trades to choose from. I was able to simutrade quite a bit today. I ended up NET 12.5 points. Some of that was the system and a few were from a new dynamic support and resistance system I created. All said, even without those trades the raw system won enough to more than make the daily point goal. Again - a weekly goal of 10 points net is the goal and I made that in one day again.

Trading was tough. I need to be very focused and I moved stops a few times - a total no no. I am disappointed in my performance. At one point I was up quite a bit more and my fees were less than 50% of my profits...but I got sloppy.

Still using one contract to simutrade.

Trade of the day was a short coming out of the lunchtime move up.

Tuesdays Gone in the Wind...80% Tough day

The trades of the day were spectacular ones today. I am tracking signals without news, support and resistance or anything but raw signals. Moves like the ones I captured here make me think something else was there besides my signals.

I had only a few moments this morning to watch the market, my simulated trades were most like 1 point net before things came up.

I see a lot of against the trend signals failed on the run up in the afternoon. Since the system can signal reversals so well - it often times gets fooled during trends. Just when you give up on reversals - you get a nice 3 point reversal. I have been tracking signals as is with no thinking on the part of the trader. I am ok with tracking this way and making the system more mechanical than subjective. I will attempt to work on a trend filter though.

55 trades with 44 winners and 11 losers for an 80% win ratio. I call that a tough day. It's still way more than enough to eventually get the NET points needed. Remember a 50/50 trader can make millions with proper trading and I am averaging 75% or better.

The Records continue...99 signals! 78% 13 points

Although I don't have the specifics, I think we broke a support area Friday or today. The market has tanked as predicted.

An amazing number of tradable signals today 99 signals, 77 Winners 22 Losers for a 78% winning average. Also amazing is the fact that I took many more LONG trades today than short on a day when the market plummeted down!

I did have some time to trade simulated and ended with a net profit (after fees and losses) of just over 13 points. I feel I could have done so much better though. Too many trades and too many fees. On the bright side - that would make my weekly goal in one day.

My trade of the day stopped the oppressive downmove for awhile with a textbook long.

Freaky Friday runs in at 76.5%

85 signals with 65 potential winners and 20 potential losers. Trade of the day was a bear reversal which stopped the markets runup.

I am working on filtering the losing trades to see if I can better the odds even more. I am not looking for perfection, I am looking to see if there is a simple way to improve things.

Some of the 65 winners were back to back signals. I try and be more than fair and leave some back to backs off to help leave some breathing room in my numbers. I am trying to not be too overly optimistic therefore I end up cutting back some winners.

Thursday Rolls along at 76%

Just watched NOVA last night about the Financial Meltdown. I am completely disgusted with Bear Stearns and the whole bunch of large banks and Americans in general. Sub prime loans!

Yea, sure here you can buy this $350,000 house and pay interest only with an ARM.

Wow, this looks great lets invest our whole firm into buying these worthless loans. What a plan.

What a bunch of ***holes.

I had zero time to click in and simutrade today, but was able to check back every few minutes during the morning session and saw some great setups happen live.

33 potential winners and 10 potential losers. A "rough" day compared to normal. 76.7% effective. That's nowhere near as rough as my day was today at work. I should be so lucky to trade at 76% probabilty. Here are some late day back to back signals to cap the day.

Wednesday like any other day @ 81.6%

Things are going well with another great day today. I did not have time to simulate and what little bit I did I was experimenting and watching the YM and got beat up quickly. Todays totals are as follows.

60 trades consisting of 49 potential winners and 11 potential losers. Percentages = 81.6% win ratio. My trade of the day was a perfect against the trend trade and reversed the whole market. I had a short going into this down move as well, but this reversal is a more impressive result.

Record Setting Day... 66 signals! 80%

What a day. I had 66 tradeable signals in the regular market hours! I had limited time to watch live today, but was able to book 6 points net profit simulating. Checking the overall performance I have 53 winning trades delivering one point or more and 13 losing trades utilizing a 1.25 point stop. An amazing day for the sheer number of trades. That is roughly an 80% win ratio (which is common). Here is the "trade of the day" at 8:45 a.m. CST.

Holiday Monday El Presidente

Slow boring action here this morning with things wrapping up around 10:30 am.
I did have a nice short from a failure of my S&R level at 815.50 confirm around 8:41 followed up by two longs. The first long failed to deliver 1 point due to entry issues but the second long did deliver 1 point.

2 Winners / 1 Loser on the day, simulation only.