My Daily Trading Preparation. Establishing Risk Parameters and Positions

Transcription

1 My Daily Trading Preparation Establishing Risk Parameters and Positions

2 My Trading Goals My goals have to be consistent with my trading plan each day. For stocks, I am primarily a long-only trader (and that has nothing to do with fear of shorting. Much of it has to do with the vehicle with which I am trading). I aggressively trade my SEP-IRA account because of the tax-deferred nature of the account (there are no short-term tax consequences for trading it aggressively).

3 My Trading Goals Because I am primarily a long-trader, I look for the following: Cheap, reasonably liquid stocks with bullish patterns (cheap stocks that are growing and have a positive expectancy for moving higher). Bullish patterns with a high probability of producing successful trades 2 to 5% average return on stocks over 5 to 15 days of trading Stocks that, as best as I can determine through research, do not have negative news associated with them.

4 My Trading Goals My other goal is to preserve capital and grow account size: When I am successful, with a given level of profits, I will begin to increase the size of my trades. I will also decrease my trade size when there are periods of drawdowns to preserve capital for the next series of winning trades (which will occur in the future). I expect success because I have tested and traded a model with a positive expectancy for profitability.

5 My Trading Goals Because I expect success, I have an absolute responsibility to: Trade my plan consistently, without taking impulse trades. Accept the losing trades that WILL occur as part of the plan for achieving my goal. If I fear a wellplanned and executed trade, I will not have any possibility for profit, because I will not trade properly. I am a well-disciplined trading machine, efficiently taking wins AND losses with consistent execution, and positive expectancy.

6 Daily Preparation Preparation starts the night before with: Data collection Screening and Pattern Recognition Rank Scoring (on Value, Momentum, and Safety) Screening Stocks from the Rank Scoring (4,3,2,1) Now to demonstrate the screening and pattern recognition!!!

7 Screening For Value/Momentum

8 Screening for Patterns I look for four items: A reversal in my momentum indicator A price greater than or equal to $10 50-day simple moving average of volume greater than 100,000 Close Greater than open on that day I will also screen for relatively oversold conditions (7 period RSI < =40)

9 Screening for Patterns (May 21) Stock universe (and a few ETFs): 9977 Upward momentum crossover: 2158 remaining Volume Screen : 516 remaining Close Greater than Open : 414 remaining Price >=10: 366 remaining 7 Period RSI <=40: 54 remaining (0.54% of the universe)

10 When Screening for Patterns: I look for visual patterns I compare them to retracement patterns using software that saves my time in calculating the patterns. I notice groups of stocks in sectors, and I also notice when ETFs hit screens, because many times those ETFs are clues as to sector, industry, or ADR movement. The reason I look for sector movement is for clues that institutions and hedge funds are seeking out given stocks and given sectors. There is always safety in numbers when trading a sector with a lot of participation.

11 Pattern Review

12 The pattern the nets attempt to look for:

13 What the pattern is not! It is NOT a bullish Gartley pattern.

14 Why NOT?

15 Price can go anywhere... It is possible for the nets, without fixed segment lengths, to find other equally tradable retracement patterns, and often does using this simple model with which to find them. The simplest models are the best models to use.

16 Why I do not want to look for a perfect pattern... In the majority of cases, the neural nets analyze patterns that result from a shift of momentum in price and a major retracement value (0.618,0.786, 1.272,1.414, or other value). The nets are pretty simple (I only use 5 inputs into the nets to keep them that way). Too many inputs will lead to over-optimization (and that will create curve fitting, which one wants to avoid).

17 How does one determine where price turns? One has to define a pivot though a shift in momentum. That is where the momentum indicator kicks in. Also, because the neural net optimizes for most significant factors, it tends to look first at retracement and momentum as the key factors for trade set-ups. In that way, it will identify significant turns that are not perfect patterns. I screen for the shift in momentum and an up bar (a bar for which close is greater than the open). This reversal is part of the nets to determine the likelihood of turning points.

18 Momentum Trigger

19 On the Trading Day I get up at 4:00 AM to go to the gym. I check for news ( I also watch currency markets). I exercise, shower, get dressed. At 6:30 AM, ready to go! I don t want to be saying I m trying to think, but nothing happens!

20 On The Trading Day From the force-ranked stocks, I run the neural nets. The purpose of the nets is not to find a holy grail. The purpose of my nets is to verify the repeatability of patterns the model sees, and produces a statistical expectancy of the model on data it has NOT seen before. (The model is a walk-forward model).

21 FMX Net Set Up

22 Net Stats

23 HANS Hansen Natural Corp

24 HANS statistics

25 Net Statistics Because the real signal trigger is based on actual chart data (at measured reversal points), the statistics for the trades at significant reversal points actually improves the statistical probability of success in the model (as the marginal trades are not taken). As a result, the true performance is likely to be better than the raw statistics shown in the model.

26 Net Statistics Note that the chart above only makes individual predictions of a pattern completion (as opposed to creating a trading model with triggers). The predictions are for turning points a given number of days in the future (which is the output of the model, based on the pattern inputs).

27 Entries,Targets, and Exits and STOPS

28 Average True Range Developed by J. Welles Wilder and introduced in his book, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems (1978), the Average True Range (ATR) indicator measures a security's volatility. As such, the indicator does not provide an indication of price direction or duration, simply the degree of price movement or volatility. As with most of his indicators, Wilder designed ATR with commodities and daily prices in mind. In 1978, commodities were frequently more volatile than stocks. They were (and still are) often subject to gaps and limit moves. (A limit move occurs when a commodity opens up or down its maximum allowed move and does not trade again until the next session. The resulting bar or candlestick would simply be a small dash.) In order to accurately reflect the volatility associated with commodities, Wilder sought to account for gaps, limit moves, and small highlow ranges in his calculations. A volatility formula based on only the high-low range would fail to capture the actual volatility created by the gap or limit move. Wilder started with a concept called True Range (TR) which is defined as the greatest of the following: The current High less the current Low. The absolute value of the current High less the previous Close. The absolute value of the current Low less the previous Close. If the current high-low range is large, chances are it will be used as the True Range. If the current high-low range is small, it is likely that one of the other two methods would be used to calculate the True Range. The last two possibilities usually arise when the previous close is greater than the current high (signaling a potential gap down or limit move) or the previous close is lower than the current low (signaling a potential gap up or limit move). To ensure positive numbers, absolute values were applied to differences. From Stockcharts.com

29 Average True Range From Stockcharts.com

30 Average True Range From Stockcharts.com The example above shows three potential situations when the TR would not be based on the current high/low range. Notice that all three examples have small high/low ranges and two examples show a significant gap. A small high/low range formed after a gap up. The TR was found by calculating the absolute value of the difference between the current high and the previous close. A small high/low range formed after a gap down. The TR was found by calculating the absolute value of the difference between the current low and the previous close. Even though the current close is within the previous high/low range, the current high/low range is quite small. In fact, it is smaller than the absolute value of the difference between the current high and the previous close, which is used to value the TR. Note: Because the ATR shows volatility as an absolute level, low price stocks will have lower ATR levels than high price stocks. For example, a $10 security would have a much lower ATR reading than a $200 stock. Because of this, ATR readings can be difficult to compare across a range of securities. Even for a single security, large price movements, such as a decline from 70 to 20, can make long-term ATR comparisons difficult.

31 7-Day Average True Range Take the last seven average true range values, add them together, and divide by 7. Now, why do I use Prev. Close less 200% ATR stops?

32 The Answer...statistics. I have tested this with hundreds of stocks, and the answer is basically the same, looking back over 16 years.

33 Basic Trading Rules Unless there are news related issues involved, I buy at open using the stops. It is rare at best now if I decide to allow the trade price to drop intra-day. I will decide, based on earnings results, whether to trade on earnings announcement day or not. If stocks have sold off prior to good news, I will typically buy. If not, I will pass on the trade set-up. If momentum rolls over and my position is a losing one, I leave. If momentum rolls over and the position is profitable at target (I will decide based on how much unsettled cash I have, whether to close the position altogether, or sell half and hold half at break-even. If momentum rolls over and my position is profitable before target, I sell the position at a profit.

34 There are mediocre months

35 There are incredible months

36 But it all averages out! And DRAWDOWNS WILL OCCUR!

37 Money Management I tend to use Fixed Ratio Calculations for Position sizing. I established that the largest single loss per position that I sustained was typically $1000. From that basis, I would increase my total equity block size by $1000 on the first block.

38 Money Management Afterward, I would increase the position size by twice that $1000 (as I would be trading with that much more capital than on the first block). For that reason, the next increase in position size per equity block would be 2 * $1000 plus the original $ That would be $ The third level would be for 3 *$1000 plus the $10000, which would be $ The net effect would be to make the equity block size equal to original sum + N *$1000 in which N is the number of profit levels achieved.

39 Your Job as a Trader Understand the model you trade. Trade the model with consistency and without impulse trading Realize that trading is a marathon and not a sprint. Learn that drawdowns are a natural part of trading. As long as the overall statistics of the model are not trading drastically, learn how to trade through the drawdowns.