Friday, September 19, 2008

All Trading Stories Here

This is a truly historic day. I won't be posting until I get the RO up at around 5pm. Until then, I leave it to you. Tell us what's going on where you're at.



QUICK NOTE: Hank Paulson broke the stock market. After that open, I'm surprised they're still letting stocks trade.

9 comments:

Adrian said...

On Monday I decided to go live with my automated trading bot after running it against the simulator for a month. I was expecting 7-10 trades over the course of the day (12 trades was the max over the past month). Within 10 minutes of switching it on, it had taken 50 positions, was still taking more and I was losing money. I shut it down and almost puked - no way could I manage that many positions so I just stared at my screens, waiting for my targets or stops to take me out.

Ended up making money on the day but was a near thing. A really nasty feeling to be in the shit and not know how to get out.

Masterjaz Out said...

Tyro,
Any chance you will be updating your blog with an update into 'bot' trading. Just curious as I am testing a system now with plans to go live Jan 2nd. Curious to see how others are doing and by the sounds of it, you look to be having...fun???

Thanks,
Masterjaz

Masterjaz Out said...

DT,
Just so I don't steal the thread with my comment to Tyro--for me, nothing changed as I trade futures. No way for the govy to jack those up (knock on wood). Never a downtick/uptick debate, no single company risk, huge leverage, huge liquidity. Why trade anything else? On the other had, I did buy some stocks for my Roth, may consider a quick 10% gain on them, maybe not.

The government is absolutely insane, unproductive, and is killing the free market. It's like a bad football game where every play is a hail mary and the ball is never caught. Sure it's exciting, but it's not how the 'game' is to be played.

Masterjaz

Adrian said...

masterjaz,

Jan 2? That's awfully specific for a date so far in the future. Did you work in marketing by any chance? :)

I may start a blog with some details, but not for a while. Working hard on developing the bot and a couple other things and I don't need the distraction. When I get everything tidied up I'll be offering the bot to the public but it isn't that great of a deal - bots are easy, winning strategies are hard.

wincity said...

I shorted IWM at $79 just before open. Right when the market opened, bid/ask went to $143/145. Needless to say I was scared. I checked Yahoo and it showed the same quotes. At 9:33, it dropped back and I hurriedly covered at $78.60. A second later, I covered in my last account, at $76.11.

I think it's criminal for the FED to change the rules this suddenly. Some banks opened up 50% higher. Wonder if anyone got that price?

Jorge said...

DT,

I'm an options trader (how else do I inflate my numbers) and the spreads this morning SUCKED. Spreads on the DIAs and SPYs were a good 20-30 cents. They're normally penny spreads. Damn thing's broken.

Anonymous said...

Al Qeada did it!!!

Masterjaz Out said...

Tyro,
No marketing, just that is the first trading day of the new year. Bot will be fully programmed and testing starting mid Nov. until then. Trying to make my life easy with respect to taxes, book-keeping, etc. I have a timeline of setting up accounts (will be trading as a LLC, so I need to get business accounts established, etc.) Currently is gets real-time quotes and paper-trades stocks, and will do so until I get a futures account funded and real-time futures quotes. System trades just as well with stocks actually making me think I found a decent edge in all markets...knock on wood.

Good luck to you and maybe we can compare notes sometime (via email so DT does not have a conniption).

Masterjaz

Dinosaur Trader said...

No problem guys, I loved reading the conversation. Just know, I hate robots.

Good luck with that though.

-DT