Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Weekend Trader - Saturday Edition

A few thoughts before I head off to the wedding.

Blog "Index" - A few months ago, I posted an "index" of sorts with links to some of my favorite posts. Since there seems to be yet another new crop of onlookers joining us, new folks can find the index at this link. The only other favorite I'll add to it was the December 6 post that referenced the "One Thing" concept from the City Slickers movie.

The full archive index of course appears in the left margin.

2008 Is Past - Soon, I'll drop the 2008 personal challenge results summary from the left hand margin as the year needs to quickly become a distant memory as my focus turns to the present and future, and I return to the "trading from behind" mentality for those times I choose to trade. I mention this in case you wanted to print the final monthly "digging out of hole" and "chip count" tallies, which I've linked to the stats for now. You can also access the direct link here. Some have asked me to repost them so they can incorporate the concepts into their own trading, so I've put them back up for a short time. They're both Microsoft Excel graphs.

S&P vs. Other Markets - I was reading an article the other day about how trading the Russell was "so much easier" than the S&P due to fewer stop-triggering spikes. Someone also mentioned in a comment to last night's video that he was surprised I did well by focusing primarily on the S&P. All I can say is I'm just very comfortable with the S&P's rhythm and it works for me. I'm not a good currency or Russell trader, and have had marginal success at best with NQ and the DAX.

Perhaps like Internet poker players, it's the hundreds of thousands of "hands" that burn the rhythm into one's brain. For example, I traded 586,184 ES contracts in 2008, or 92% of all trades. The other 8% was pretty equally split between the DAX and my attempt at learning the FESX rhythm.

Yet like anything, what works for one might not work for others. Also, please keep in mind I lease a seat on the Merc and as a result have low member commission rates, which greatly helps the bottom line even when just providing liquidity and scalping Ticks.

Enjoy the weekend.

No comments: