days like today that make it all worthwile

[#1]

The easiest money you will make on the day trading market. Big gaps determine direction, so the short trade was on all the way. 280pts in 1.5 hours. lost 30 pts at the FTSE opening, because my strategy is always to treat a FTSE gap with caution. Decided to take my profits at 28150 and get on with my real job.

[kwagga]

Nice.

[Rams]

Very nice but down close to 1000 points today!

[earlyret]

And today??

[#5]

700, if you exclude the gap, which is not tradable unless you were short overnight. But your point is taken, I got less than half of it. I generally trade mornings only - today was a case in point. It took 1.5 hours to generate the first 300 points. It took another 4.5 hours to generate the next 150. That is a loooonngggg time to sit in front of a computer screen. And then wall street opening accounted for the remaining 250 points. I could chose to trade after 3pm again, but wall street opening changes the flavour of the day - which I find difficult to create systems for. By this I mean that market sentiment remains more or less constant until the dow opens, and then sentiment takes a new turn - which could be in any direction. Today would have been worth it - but I want to be out the office by then.

[koos2]

Nice trading. All those stops got slammed! more downside today, yesterday confirmed it.

[Flyguy]

But if the points go down don't you loose money? I dont do alsi. Just curious

[#8]

well, the point of day trading is not to have pre-conceived ideas. We will soon find out how optimistic / pessimistic everyone is feeling.

[Flyguy]

looks like shes starting to pick up skaap..

[Flyguy]

My bad, looks like Gil came tumbling after Jack... wonder how much more downside before she will pick up

[#11]

With the ALSI, you can make money both ways. Going LONG or SHORT.

[Flyguy]

Im still confused. can you please brief me?

[#13]

If you think that the market will go down, then you SHORT the market and LONG if you think that the market will go up. There are several platforms that can trade this on, but I don't trade the ALSI on STANDARD Bank's platform, so I hope that someone else could come in here. Hope it helps

[Rams]

Skaap, Simon suggested in the stoploss webinar that it is better to be stopped out rather than exit at targets.What do you think, because you could have placed a stop at your target and you win both ways?Anyway,gap today almost closed

[Flyguy]

Thanks VDWALTME, appreciate it. I dont think StandardBank platform has the option to short the market.. I cant see it on the trade page.

[#16]

I think they do. Hopefully Simon can add his 2 cents

[#17]

I take profits. I have spend years modelling systems in my spare time, and have never found a trailing stoploss system that consistently beats taking profits at a set percentage level. What I can say though,is that this only works with discretionary trading. You have to have a lot of entry signals, to enable you to get back into the trade again. Read Van Tharp for more on such a system

[GGG]

What platform do you guys trade the ALSI on?

[Ninja]

You can use DWT or IGmarkets.....I use IG as their platform is very very good with excellent charting and features

[Rams]

Standard Bank.Point taken Skaap,trade your own system....