Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The RO Report

I tell you one thing... I'm gonna get more sleep tonight. I woke up late and didn't have a clear plan in my head for the day.

So I had to watch the RO rake in money, while I dabbled around "unched." Very frustrating. Out of 26 traders today, 19 were gross positive, or 73%. I was number 19 of 26. So I was gross positive, net negative... which means, shitty music.

Volume dropped off today, and it can't be long before the volume just completely dries up for the end of August.

Still, as you'll see below, sometimes volume doesn't matter if you're in the right spots.

Since there were 26 traders today... I've decided to just letter them, A through Z, top to bottom, so that a bit of a story develops here in the RO. So today, A,B,C will be the top 3 and Z,Y,X will be the bottom. However, from here on out, these labels are static, and so one day, Trader Z could be the #1 trader on the day... I hope this makes sense. I think it will by the end of the week.

For the record, I'm "Trader S." Given the huge numbers at the top and bottom of the range, I doubt you'll see me anytime too soon.

The top 3:

1. Trader A, $18,586 on 446k shares traded.
2. Trader B, $18,443 on 896k shares traded.
3. Trader C, $9,493 on 168k shares traded.


And the bottom:

1. Trader Z, -$835 on 187k shares traded.
2. Trader Y, -$635 on 2k shares traded.
3. Trader X, -$459 on 29k shares traded.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever considered trading just one stock, ETF or futures contract?

I wake up each morning knowing exactly what I'll be trading (NQ) and how I'll be trading it (gap fades and fading moves to pivot points).

This doesn't mean I make money every day, but not having to spend time at night or in the early morning looking for something to trade takes some of the pressure off and allows me to focus exclusively on executing my trades properly.

Granted, it can be excruciatingly boring waiting for a trade to set up in a really slow market, but if it is that slow, then I shouldn't be trading anyway.

Just wondering if you have ever considered specializing in one trading instrument for the sake of simplicty.

wincity said...

DT, it's great to have names to the numbers. Thanks.

Was 896K a typo?

Dinosaur Trader said...

Dog,

I've thought about it, but not too seriously, just because I've seen hot sectors come and go over the years... there's always a few moving at a time. If I limited myself to just one instrument, I think I'd get bored and feel I was missing other moves.

However, in a way, I trade similarly to this method... like, for the last few months, I pretty much just trade coal, ferts, oils and banks... there's a lot of stocks to choose from there, and they're all moving well.

Of course, when I'm trading the HCPG way, I'm limiting myself to just watching a few stocks a day... but I don't like the way it doesn't let me "feel" the market.

-DT

Dinosaur Trader said...

Win,

No typo... just an egregious amount of shares traded.

-DT

Anonymous said...

How many different stocks would that trader be in and out of to rack up 896,000 shares traded?

The numbers just blow me away.

Dinosaur Trader said...

I'm guessing between 75 and 125.

-DT

TL said...

You mean he traded some 100 different stocks (close to 10k shares every time) in a day? Sounds really crazy... Is he scalping?

Dinosaur Trader said...

TL,

No, what I mean is that he traded probably 75 or more stocks on the day... each trade was with a different share size, etc... not just that he traded 100 stocks, 10,000 shares each. I mean, I'm sure there are some stocks that he traded 80,000 shares in them alone, and then others that he traded only 1000 shares in...

And again, I don't see his blotter at the end of the day, so I'm just guessing based on what I know of his style.

-DT

Jd said...

Dog,

One thing to keep in mind, though the trader in the above discussion did probably trade the number of stocks that DT suggests, he is doing so using a relative strength strategy most of the time. He might see, for example, the bank index move above a resistance level intra-day or daily, determine that he is bullish for other reasons (market, internals, oil, dollar etc etc), and buy a lot of as many laggards as he can find. In this fashion he is not really watching that many stocks but about 10 key sectors, and market internals. As DT writes he does position size each trade, i.e. 10,000 - 20,000 WM, but say 500 GS. Not exactly the same $ amount but a measure of risk management regarding the relative volatility of the two stocks..

Trading just one stock/etf/commodity does sound kind of relaxing, however.

Jd