How To Start A Successful Trading BusinessWhen you start trading, you need to go into it like you would if you were getting ready to start a business.
Too often, I see new ‘traders’ who open their account and before ever mapping out any goals, a strategy, a trading plan, or anything, they’re already putting money into the markets…
…and for me, this isn’t trading, this is gambling.
So in this article, I’m going to walk you through how you can start your own successful trading business.
So let’s dive in!
Starting A Trading Business: Step 1 – Charting Software
First, as a technical trader (like me) you MUST have good charting software.
Charting software is your window into the world of stocks.
As a technical trader, we rely on charts and indicators to find high-probability setups.
Charting software with good indicators is an essential first step in your path to being a successful trader.
I personally use (and highly recommend) TradingView.
It is a paid service and for what I do, I use the Pro Version which currently costs $14.95 per month but it is well worth it.
Remember, starting your own successful trading business requires a modest investment into the ‘infrastructure’ of your business.
Step 2 – Finding The Right Broker
Now on to step 2, finding the right broker for you!
Finding the right broker can be a tricky process, especially if you live outside of the United States.
If you’re trading stocks and options, I highly recommend tastyworks, or Interactive Brokers if you live outside the U.S.
Starting A Trading Business: Step 3 – Trading Strategy
Next, now that you have your charting software and broker, every trader needs a good trading strategy.
Similar to the broker, one size does not fit all. Why?
Well, there are a LOT of variables that can go into developing your trading strategy.
For example, are you trading for Income or Growth or the amount you have to trade with?
All of these things play a big factor in the type of strategy you want to, can, or should trade. Right now, I’m trading two strategies. My core strategies right now are, The PowerX Strategy and The Wheel.
Step 4 – Trading Computer
The next thing to consider when getting your trading business set up is you will need a computer.
Almost all brokers and trading software are cloud-based, so you don’t need a seriously advanced computer anymore.
Most computers that are less than 3 years old should be more than powerful enough to run even the most system-intensive trading platform.
Step 5 – Additional Monitors.
Now, for your home set up, I think at least one additional monitor is a must. The good news is that if you have a laptop, you already have one monitor! If you travel a lot (like me) I would highly recommend the ASUS MB169B+ 15.6″ Full HD 1920×1080 IPS USB Portable Monitor.
They’re lightweight and work great on the road or at home. It fits easily in my backpack (because I HATE checking bags) and doesn’t add much weight.
Step 6 – Trading Newsletters
Next, over my morning coffee, I like to read a few different trading newsletters.
I have three primary newsletters right now where I get most of my market-related news.
Most of the talking heads on TV are absolutely terrible for getting non-biased information anymore.
No matter what station, everything you hear is coming through some sort of filter.
For this reason, I stick with these three newsletters that I’ve found to provide good info:
- Morning Brew
- Seeking Alpha’s Wall Street Breakfast
- The Rockwell Trading Newsletter
Summary
Now that you have all of the pieces in place to start your trading business off on the right foot, in my next article I’m going to go through something that at first, I’m sure you will cringe: Trading Taxes.
But I assure you if you’re proactive and take the time to get set up and structured properly, taxes aren’t actually as bad as you’d think for full-time traders.
I hope this has helped and you’ve enjoyed it.
Good trading!
Strategy!
Strategy on how to trade Lockheed MartinHey guys! Hope this analysis finds you having an incredible week, and ready for an even better weekend!
Please kindly like this chart if you found this content helpful!
Ok let's dive in!
Lockheed Martin is still officially in a bear market. It is still 30% away from its all time high, with the technicals on the weekly indicating very tough days ahead for LMT holders.
Tale of two stories here when it comes to very good fundamentals but very poor technical indicators.
Ratio Time
• P/E 14.64 (Very attractive)
• Forward P/E 13.08 ( Boeing Forward P/E is 156.29 !!)
• P/ FCF 27.57
• Debt/Eq 2.56 (Normally I would say this is really high in a different sector, but money is cheap right now and these guys are in a field that requires massive capital output...this is why if I see a level this high in a utility provider I am ok, but if I see a level this high in a financial or tech I run!)
• EPS 23.4
• EPS this Y +25.8%
• Sales Q/Q +8.7%
• ROE +171% (again justifies that debt/equity level as they use debt very...prudently)
• ROI +47%
• Gross Margin 13.3%
• Net Margin 10.2% (Stunning) ..especially when we see the rise in price recently in Boeing . Boeing has a 2.9% GM and a -7% Net Margin guys. Yes BA are losing money with a forward P/E of 156??
Holder Metrics
• Insiders Own 0.08%
• Insider Transactions over past 3 M (0.00)
• Institutions Own 77.9%
• Institution 3 Month Transactions -0.42%
So what do we do when the technicals say run and the fundamentals say buy? We listen to both!
The strategy I like to take ahead a potential trade when I see two conflicting tales are either run. Or wait for the technical indicators to display signs of a potential bottoming pattern. Next Chart will display pivot points . Finding a position at a lower price heading into the mean with good underlying fundamentals is a much better approach, although it takes patience and time as I think the idea of playing a short off the TA or a long strictly off the FA would be... short sighted. Best tactic is to embrace both and wait.
Pivot points below!
Friend please share with me & the wonderful TradingView community how you think we should trade Lockheed Martin! If you have a LMT chart yourself please be especially sure to share it with me!
My Personal Plan For 2021I’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years.
I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails.
They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way.
The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades.
My Goals For 2021
In this article, I want to talk about my goals for 2021, and how exactly how I’m planning to achieve the goals, so I thought it would be fun to write them down and share them with you.
Now, as you know, goals need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Now, I will show you my financial goals both for trading, because after all, this is what I love to do, but also for wealth building.
After that, I will share with you the goals for my company, Rockwell Trading as well as my personal goals, and also my goals for this channel.
FINANCIAL GOALS
Trading For Income
For my financial goals, let’s kick things off and start with trading.
The plan here is to trade for income, and my target goal is to make $15,000 per month. This is meant to cover my living expenses.
Now, here’s the deal. This is a rough estimate of how much I have in living expenses. So this means that I am looking to make $180,000 per year.
For this trading plan, I opened a new account. I put in $250,000 into this new account, and it is a margin account.
Since having a margin account doubles your buying power, this turns that $250,000 into $500,000 of buying power that I will use for trading to achieve this goal.
To figure out how much buying power I needed, I needed to figure out my living expenses.
So as far as I know, my living expenses are around $9,000 per month.
You might be wondering,
“If your living expenses are only $9,000 a month, why would I try to make $15,000 per month?”
Well, very easy, there is this thing called taxes and I want to account for it. This cost is estimated.
Quick side note. By now you may be wondering why I seem to be unsure of exactly how much my living expenses are. I will cover this later in this article.
So, again, the goal here is to trade for income. My next goal is for wealth building.
Wealth-Building Goals
One of the avenues I like to use for building wealth and one I’ve very knowledgeable about is real estate.
So the plan here is that this year, I plan to buy a 10 million dollar apartment complex.
Now, I’ve already been investing in apartment complexes for the past few years, but the rough idea of the financials is:
- 7 million dollars will be used through financing. So I will find a bank that is basically financing 30% of this.
- I’m actually planning to raise 2 million dollars through investors.
- The last one million dollars will be my own money that I’m putting into this deal.
This is very typical for how investing in commercial real estate is done.
Now, here is the plan. The goal is to sell this for 15 million dollars in three to five years.
So we’re selling it for 15 million.
Then, of course, we have to give back 7 million dollars to the bank, right? Because we’re borrowing 7 million dollars.
2 million go back to the investors because everybody needs their money back right?
Then 1 million dollars will need to go back to me because I also want to make my money back.
Now, this is only ten million dollars. That leaves five million dollars in profits that can be divided among the investors and me.
So essentially, I’m planning on making two million dollars based on the one million dollars that I invested, which would be a very healthy return.
Throughout this whole process, I’ll show you exactly how this process unfolds as it happens, and what apartments I’m looking at with video updates on my YouTube channel as they happen.
My other plan for this wealth-building goal is possibly buying a resort in Mexico, and here’s why.
Those of you who already follow me know with my company, Rockwell Trading, we do have a Mastermind program, and we have Mastermind meetings at least three times a year.
Now, recently due to covid, we weren’t able to have these in-person meetings, but if buying a resort in Mexico is feasible, then not only could we host our Mastermind meetings here in the future, I can also rent these rooms out for Airbnb.
Now while I have experience with real estate, I’ve never been in the hotel business, so this might be a really stupid idea, but maybe it is a good idea.
Right now this is just a goal, and will look into the details deeper to figure out if this will be feasible.
Cryptocurrency
So we talked about trading for income and wealth-building with real estate.
My next financial goal has to do with something that I definitely have on my radar is that this year, and that is cryptocurrencies.
Some of you know that in the past, I’ve been very, very public about being completely against cryptocurrencies, but I can’t deny that Bitcoin had a fantastic run this year.
Bitcoin is now trading above $30,000. So guess what? Seems I was wrong.
Moving forward I will definitely be looking into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies more closely, and fortunately, I have access to some fantastic resources of experts on cryptocurrency that I will interview for myself.
I will also share these findings with you on my YouTube channel, and future blog posts throughout the year.
My Goals For Rockwell Trading
At my company, Rockwell Trading, we offer The PowerX Optimizer Software, and I am determined to make this the very best software in the world.
For this, I am planning to release PowerX Optimizer 2.0 in the first quarter of this year, and I’m also developing an awesome trading log that will be integrated with PowerX Optimizer.
So why do you need a trading log? Well, with this trading log it will be easy for you to analyze your trades.
We all need to analyze our trades, and so this is definitely something that I will tackle this year.
One other feature that I want to look into is possibly being able to execute trades through PowerX Optimizer by integration with actual brokerages.
As it stands right now, you use The PowerX Optimizer to find stock, and then you have to enter the trades into a broker platform separately.
I want to see if I can make this process easier, because, I have the same challenges.
I see it on PowerX Optimizer, and now I have to enter it into the broker platform, so not only making trading easier for myself, but for everyone who uses The PowerX Optimizer.
I’m constantly thinking of ways to improve The PowerX Optimizer, because not only do I believe in it, but I believe in Rockwell Trading as a whole.
I believe this company, Rockwell Trading, can be an Inc 500 company.
I am super passionate about trading, creating the best trading tools, and showing you the very best trading strategies that you can use to grow your account.
It’s because of this drive I have to provide awesome value for you, that makes me believe we can make their list of the fastest-growing companies.
Now I’d like to move on and share my personal goals for 2021 with you.
PERSONAL GOALS
Writing More Books
The first of my personal goals for this year is, I want to publish two more books.
So the first book, as some of you are already aware, will be on The Wheel strategy, which is a trading strategy for trading options.
Right now I’m in the process of giving the book one final proof-read before sending it to the printers, and I only have a few more chapters to go, but I will be rolling this one out shortly in the coming weeks.
The second book I’m thinking about writing will cover wealth-building strategies, which will cover what I’ve been doing over the past years to become a multimillionaire.
When I came to the United States in 2002 18 years ago, I had $30,000, and today I am a multimillionaire, so I know a thing or two about how to build wealth.
I think this would be another great book to share with you, that you can get a lot of value from.
Buying A Plane
Here is an absolute crazy personal goal that I have for this year, and you might actually say that this is a stupid idea, but for years I have been dreaming & fantasizing about owning a private plane.
I’ve decided that 2021 might be the year where I make this a reality.
Now again, this could be an absolutely stupid idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty smart about how I spend my money, and I’m not planning to buy a 10 million dollar jet because here’s the deal.
A private plane is an expense, not an investment, right? However, everybody is allowed to spend money however they want, and this might be one of the things that I decide to splurge on.
For other people, it might be exotic vacations, for me, the idea here is a private plane.
So it’s smaller like an executive plane, and this is the kind of plane that I’m looking into.
I’m definitely not planning to fly it myself, so no worries there. I’m planning to have a pilot fly it for me because I have no idea how to do this.
I will look deeper into this and see if buying a plane actually makes sense or not?
These are some of my personal goals. Now, in terms of habits, there are also a few habits that I want to start doing this year.
HABITS
Keeping Track Of My Finances
First of all, I want to track everything. What do I mean by this?
Well, when I say track everything, I want to get better at tracking my wealth, which would be my net worth.
Now I have a rough idea of what my net worth is, but I should be probably getting much better about this so that I know at any given time how many millions I have.
You see, the challenge is once you have money, it’s not that important anymore, but I want to do this and I also want to get a little bit better about tracking my expenses.
Remember earlier, when I was talking about how I wasn’t sure exactly what my monthly expenses were?
This is where being better at keeping track of finances, as a whole comes into play.
I said that I’m planning to trade for income on my YouTube channel and that I think I need $15,000 a month, but I actually don’t know exactly how much I need.
So I need to get better about keeping track of my finances.
Health & Fitness
I also want to get better at tracking my weight and calories. I’m 51, so I’m getting older, so it’s important to take care of this.
I want to track everything from my water intake, calorie intake, and what kinds of food I’m eating.
I also want to keep track of my workouts, and as of now, my workouts are very, very easy to track because it is actually zero, so I want to be better at getting exercise as well.
My YouTube Channel
Now how does all of this affect you? I mean, why would you even care about all this?
Well, this is the beautiful thing about my channel. If you’re interested in what I’m doing with these goals, I’m planning to post videos there throughout 2021.
Five times per week, I will post a daily stock market update.
I used to talk about what was going on in the markets during the “Coffee with Markus” live streams.
These are now separate, daily videos, 5 days a week, and this will be in four minutes or less.
Two to three times per week, I will continue the “Coffee with Markus” live streams, but without the market updates, as they will now be in the other videos.
I am planning actually keeping you updated on the wealth-building strategies I was talking about, with video updates.
I will post videos updating everyone on the progress of my goals, and, of course, I also will continue to post videos covering the very specific strategies that I will use for trading.
When it comes to trading, I will continue to show you exactly the two strategies that I’m currently using, which is The Wheel strategy, and the PowerX strategy.
If I decide to trade any other strategies this year, I will post videos about that as well.
I will share videos with my real estate adventures, which as of right now, is where I’m planning to invest in a 10 million dollar apartment, possibly buying a resort in Mexico.
I’ll be sharing everything with you, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I also want to cover topics I haven’t covered before, for example, credit cards.
I have a bunch of credit cards and I’m using them wisely, so for instance, topics about credit cards like, “The Apple Card, is it worth it?” I have 3 American Express cards so I’ll cover whether or not they’re worth it.
I also can tell you that right now I have 650,000 airline miles, so I will show you exactly what I’m doing to get all of these points because, with 650,000 airline miles, you can go around the world several times.
Another topic of interest is that interest rates are low right now.
So we will talk about, for example, LOC these lines of credit, or does it make sense to refinance your home?
I have been looking into refinancing my home and I will let you know what I found of whether it makes sense or not, and other strategies to employ when interest rates are low, and then when interest rates are high.
For example, when interest rates are high, I will cover high yield savings accounts as well as CDs.
YouTube also has these so-called “shorts” and these are videos below one minute or less.
These will be videos that I do as a quick reference guide. So for example, what is the bid/ask spread? What is Theta in options?
Recap
So let’s just briefly recap, I wanted to share my goals with you for 2021 and they are:
- Will publicly trade here for income with a new $500,000 margin account, with the goal of making $180,000 a year.
- For wealth building. I’m planning to buy a 10 million dollar apartment complex, and am looking into buying a resort in Mexico for the Mastermind meetings for Airbnb?
- I will look into cryptocurrencies and see which cryptocurrency. Does it make sense to invest in Bitcoin? Are there any other cryptocurrencies worth investing in? Is it better to maybe invest in gold or silver?
- I will look into publishing two books.
- Improving the PowerX Optimizer Strategy.
- I’m looking into if a private plane is a stupid idea or not.
- Keeping better track of my health and finances.
- Becoming an Inc. Fastest Growing Company.
- Providing more content on my Youtube channel.
So long story short, this will be an exciting year. I am super excited for 2021.
This is the first time ever that I’m doing anything like this, and I will really be pulling back the curtain throughout to show you everything that I personally do.
I hope that you find this not only interesting but that these are also strategies that you can employ in your life right away, but this really depends on what stage of life you’re at.
You might be at a stage where you are still trading for growth, trying to build an income, and I will show you very specific trading strategies for doing this.
It might be that you have a retirement account and you’re looking back right now.
You’re getting your initial statement and you say,
“You know what? This hasn’t been doing anything over the past year and I want to have better wealth-building strategies.”
If so, there will be videos on my channel as well.
Sometimes you might be wondering,
“Does it make sense for me to open an American Express account or to have an American Express credit card?”
Or something relating to this.
And I will share all of this with you. Hope that you’re enjoying this. And this is what you can expect from me in 2021.
Why one cannot be completely bullish or completely bearish? Why one cannot be completely bullish or completely bearish?
The stock market consists of two major players. Some people are long traders they bet the stock price will go higher. They buy low and sell at a high price to make a profit. Some long traders buy the stock at a high price and sell at an even higher price. Some long traders look for bargain stocks.
Some other people bet the stock price will go lower. They are short-sellers. They don't own the stock initially, but they borrow the stocks from the stockbrokers and sell the stocks from a high price, then when the price drop they repurchase the stocks back at the lower price, return what they initially borrowed with interest back to the stockbrokers, and then profit the price difference.
We can interpret the security market as a continuous tug of war game between the long traders and short traders. Sometimes one side will win the game, and in that situation, the price will advance higher or lower. Sometimes one side will gain strength that means the price will speed up and advance faster. Sometimes one side will win, but then go in the opposite direction temporarily and that is a correction. Sometimes one side will win but will lose strength completely and reverse direction completely. Due to the rapid changes in the security market, one trader cannot be 100% bullish or 100% bearish.
Therefore, a market opinion may be "I am 70% bearish, and 30% bullish." That simply means that I am 70% confident that the price will go lower, but I reserve 30% market opinion that the price may hit a bottom and may reverse direction and go higher as the market story develops. When that happens, I am ready to liquidate my short position and willing to participate in the opposite direction or stay on the sideline.
Thank you for reading!
Greenfield
Remember to click "Like" and "Follow!"
Disclosure: Chart interpreted by Greenfield. Just a market opinion by Greenfield Analysis LLC for only educational purposes. This is not a recommendation. Greenfield Analysis LLC has no investment in any of the securities mentioned in the article, and no plan to initiate a trade in any of the securities mentioned. Greenfield does not receive any compensation for this writing. Investment involves substantial risk. You should consider carefully before making an investment. Investment at your own risk.
What role does strategy play in trading?Sunzi begins by establishing the importance of strategy. Although the word bing has been translated as "war" in most works in the west, once you approach the original Chinese manuscripts and the sense of Sunzi's work, you immediately come to understand that he was not talking about warefare, instead, Sunzi wants us to appreciate how important it is to develop strategic skills to avoid our own destruction when competing.
Of course trading is man-made, but competition is a natural process. We are all the products of evolutionary competition, however, the true skill in competition—that is, an understanding of strategy—is not inborn. For most of us, competition creates problems, but only in the sense that if we don’t understand strategy, life is unnecessarily difficult. We earn our livelihood, love, and everything else through strategy.
When we say that skill in strategy is important in our lives, we are saying specifically that strategy is a skill. It isn’t inborn any more than the knowledge of mathematics is inborn. We must learn strategic skills. We develop these skills by working at them. Some people are more comfortable competing than others are, but to become successful at any level of competition we all have to work.
Competition in trading brings out the best in us. It enriches the world in which we live. It replaces less effective methods with more effective methods. The trading world competes for every single dollar. In doing so, traders constantly improve their operational choices and decrease the costs of their operation. Competition eliminates poorly developed traders and and leaves only the best in each category.
So, do you really have what this vast compettition arena requires?
EDUCATION: Scalping 3-EMA StrategyHello, dear subscribers!
Today we are going to talk about the popular 3EMA scalping strategy which is usually used on the 1-min timeframe, but we can demonstrate it only on the 15-min chart because of restrictions.
Step 1
First of all we should define that the market is in short, medium and long term uptrend. The 200EMA shows the long, 100EMA - medium and 50EMA - short trend. Consequently all the three EMAs should follow in one direction, it's slope should be strictly positive for the uptrend identifying. The uptrend is an obligatory condition for the long position execution.
Step 2
If the step 1 condition is true the next step is to identify entry points. We should enter long position when the price crossed the 50EMA from up to down, but after couple of candles crossed it again from down to up
Step 3
Take profit and stop loss identifying. You should stop loss if the price crossed the 100EMA line from up to down. Take profit setup can be different: the fixed % growth, the price and 50EMA crossover and the price and 100EMA crossover
Call Ratio Spread DebitThe ratio call spread for debit is the same strategy as ratio call spread credit. But now, the upper and lower strike price are farther apart. This change, give different mathematical results as you can see on the chart.
If you didn’t read the previous post, please do.
In the chart we see a ratio spread of 2:1, in this case, the options that were sold are now worth less than the call that was bought. So this position is now with debit.
Inputs: MA (Mastercard)
Debit paid -> 3.8 (-$380 for one position)
Stock price -> 338
Upper strike -> 350 , 2 calls sold
Lower strike -> 330 , 1 call bought
Days to expire -> 36
Implied Volatility -> 0.309 (30.9%)
Date -> 12/11/2020
The Debit paid is $380, the maximum profit is $1620 with less than 1% probability, the maximum loss is theoretically unlimited.
In this example, one call was bought at 330 strike price for 12.7 and two calls were sold at 350 strike price for 4.45 each, in total 8.9.
The debit = 8.9-12.7 = (-3.8)
If at expiration the stock price will be below the lower strike (330), all of the options will be worthless and the loss will be only (-$380).
Maximum profit = Difference between strike – debit paid = 350-330 – 3.8 = 16.2
This position is neutral.
At the expiration:
Between 333.8 to 366.2 the position will be with a profit. $0 - $1620
Under 330.17 the position will lose (-$380) no matter what price.
Above 369.80 the risk is getting bigger.
Call Ratio Spread CreditA ratio call spread is a neutral strategy in which we buy several calls at a lower strike and sells more calls at a higher strike. In a ratio call spread with credit, there is no downside risk. The ratio spread that we see on the chart has a ratio of 2:1.
We can see from the chart the non-linear behavior of options.
Inputs: MA (Mastercard)
Credit received -> 3.1 ($310 for one position)
Stock price -> 332
Upper strike -> 340 , 2 calls sold
Lower strike -> 330 , 1 call bought
Days to expire -> 37
Implied Volatility -> 0.291 (29.1%)
Date -> 11/11/2020
The credit received is $310, the maximum profit is $1310 with less than 1% probability, the maximum loss is theoretically unlimited.
In this example, one call was bought at 330 strike price for 14.2 and two calls were sold at 340 strike price for 8.65 each, in total 17.3.
The credit = 17.3-14.2 = 3.1
If at expiration the stock price will be below the lower strike (330), all of the options will be worthless and all the credit will be received.
The maximum profit at expiration for a ratio spread occurs if the stock is exactly at the striking price of the sold options. The reason is that the call that was bought has some profit (stock price above strike price) and the sold options are worthless.
Maximum profit = The spread (340-330=10) + Credit received (17.3) – Debit paid (14.2) = 13.1 => $1310 (mulitpling by 100 shers per option contract)
The risk in this position is to the upside. The calculation for the break-even at expiration.
Break-even point = Upper strike price + the points of max profit = 340+13.1=353.1
This strategy has a high probability in general and even more so when used correctly.
The example that has been used could profit the most in the blue zone, where the profit is greater than 50% of the maximum profit, but it will take 34 days out of 37 to reach there.
How implied volatility affect this position?
In a ratio spread, there are more options sold than bought, in the previous posts we saw that volatility increase is harming sold options and benefits bought options, this example is no different.
10% increase in implied volatility, the lines are now in a worse location compare to the original position.
10% decrease in implied volatility, the lines are now in a better location compare to the original position. The position can now reach the 50% max profit zone in 30 days.
The next post will be on ratio spread debit, that looks different from the ratio spread credit, the solution to the partial differential equations of the Black-Scholes model can be seen.
Options strategy Iron CondorIron Condor - a spread with limited risk and limited profit, using four different striking prices but the same expiration date. The position is a combination of puts and calls all of which are Out of the money. The maximum profit is realized between the two inner strikes, and the maximum loss is realized outside of the higher and lower strikes.
This strategy is preferable for beginner traders because there is no unlimited risk theoretically, unlike selling straddle/strangle. When selling an Iron Condor (or Iron Butterfly), the trader is neutral.
Because all the options are Out of the money, the trader receives credit for it.
The inner options are being sold, those options worth more than the outer options that being bought, inner options are closer to the stock price, which means their strike is closer to At the money strike (to more expensive options).
If the stock price closes between the two inner strikes at expiration, all the options will expire worthless. The trader will receive all the credit.
Chart example:
Inputs:
Credit recived-> 13.45, Stock price-> 484,
Top Upper strike (Bought) ->560 Call
Top Lower strike (Sold) ->530 Call
Bottom Upper strike (Sold) ->450 Put
Bottom Lower strike (Bought) ->450 Put
Days to expire -> 46
Implied Volatility -> 46.7% (0.467)
Date - > 02/11/2020
Maximum Profit = The credit recived = $1345
Maximum Loss = Difference in Upper (or Lower) Strike – the credit
= 560 - 530 – 13.45 = 16.55
= 450 - 420 – 13.45 =16.55
Maximum Loss = $1655
If the Iron Condor is not balanced (the differences between strikes are not equal like in this example), the calculations are different.
Like selling Straddle / Strangle, the same conclusions about increase or decrease in Implied volatility are true here.
In these conditions, it will take 10 days for the position to enter the profit zone and 35 days to receive 50% of the credit.
This post relates to previous posts.
Option strategy sell Strangle/Straddle In the chart, you see the strangle strategy when sold, I will show what will happen if the implied volatility changes, you can see this strategy being bought in the next post. You can come back to this post and watch how things play out.
As a rule of thumb, strategies are sold when implied volatility is relatively high and bought when implied volatility is relatively low, the seller would try to anticipate IV decrease and the buyer would try to anticipate IV increase.
Selling Strangle
The strangle is a position involving calls and puts, they will have the same expiration date but different strike prices. Selling Strangle is established by selling Out of the money calls and puts when the stock price is usually in the center.
This strategy when selling a strangle is neutral, the seller anticipates that in the life of the options the stock price will remain between the strikes, and at expiration, the options will be worthless and the seller will receive all the credit.
The green zone is the profit zone, the yellow lines are the break-even lines, the blue lines are losing lines, the lime green lines represent when you can realize 50% of the credit. I added pink broken lines to show where this strategy will have the maximum profit at expiration.
For example, from the chart, these options are from 29/10/2020 close in Zoom.
The strategy sold for -> 44.6, meaning credit is received.
Stock price-> 489.68 , Upper strike (call)-> 600, Lower strike (put)-> 400
Days-> 50, Impleid volatility-> 82% (0.82), date-> 29/10/2020
For one position we received 44.6, multiplying by 100 (number of shares per contract) if the stock price will be between 400 to 600 at the expiration date , all the options will expire worthless, the seller will receive all the credit $4460 this is the maximum profit.
Upper break-even point at expiration:
The upper strike + credit received = 600+44.6 = 644.6
Lower break-even point at expiration:
The lower strike - credit received = 400-44.6 = 355.4
Between 600-644.6 and 355.4-400, one of the options is not worthless at expiration, so it has intrinsic value, the seller will get between $0-$4460, the seller will need to close the position before expiration to avoid assignment.
If the price got to 689.2 or 310.8, the position is losing, in this case (-$4460), this strategy has a limited profit and theoretically unlimited loss.
You can see from the chart that It will take at least 22 days to realize 50% of the credit, some traders don’t want to wait until expiration and they prefer to close the position at 50% credit.
How implied volatility affects the position? (20% increase and decrease)
The blue area is the new profit zone, the purple lines are the new losing lines.
If the IV will raise after entering the trade (left chart), the seller will need to wait 18 days before his position will re-enter the profit zone, what was before a profit area will now be a losing area.
On the other hand, if the IV will fall (right chart), the seller will profit much quicker, the losing lines will be farther away.
Selling Straddle
This strategy is a private case to the strangle (the general strategy), in the straddle both options the calls and puts are at the same strike price, usually At the money.
The strategy is sold at the money because the time premium is the largest there.
This means that the seller receives a lot more credit for this strategy, the downside is for getting the maximum profit the stock price needs to finish exactly at the strike price, the probability for this to happen is less than 1%.
The opportunity to realize 50% of the maximum profit will take longer than the strangle, in this example 39 days. The break-even lines will be much closer.
The maximum profit for this example is $11,690, much larger than the strangle.
The risks are also much larger.
How implied volatility affects the position? (20% increase and decrease)
The selling of the strangle and straddle are not for beginner traders, due to the risk involved, a less risker strategy is the Iron Condor .
In the next post, I will show the buying side of the strategies.
My trading strategies : Trade against the trapped trader!STRAT 11 : Basic premise
As price continues in a trend, more and more traders keep piling into the same direction, hoping that the trend will continue and they will make money. However, at some point, the trend sharply reverses, breaking the market structure in opposite direction and trapping a whole bunch of retail traders in the direction of trend which just got reversed.
We create a zone which identifies these trapped traders and then patiently wait for them to exit, and trade with limit orders in the direction of their exit.
You can add additional confirmation signals from DXY's directions for the instruments which are highly correlated to DXY (EURUSD, USDCHF, etc)
A Market Probe Versus A ShadowA Market Probe Versus A Shadow
A market probe is a way for the bulls and bears to measure the market desire to advance further in the current trend direction or not. A shadow is a rejection of the price reached; therefore, a reversal is more likely to follow with a shadow. The question that I ask myself when I see a candlestick shadow is, "Is that a shadow or a market probe?"
Let review the monthly chart of TSLA Tesla Inc's stock for an example of a market probe. In February 2020, with the monthly chart, we can see an upper shadow of the candlestick, which is often misinterpreted as a shadow, but instead, it is an example of a market probe. The market probed the price level of $191.16 but shortly retreated. The lower shadow for March 2020 is a bear trap. A bear trap is when the market gives a false bearish signal instead the market makes a price reversal and continues higher. In June 2020, the stock price of TSLA Tesla Inc advanced above that price level probed back in February 2020 which is $191.16. Again July 2020, the TSLA Telsa Inc probed a new high price of $357.90 and reached the current market price of $609.99 (as of the market closed on Friday, December 11, 2020). That is an increase of 221.76% from the initial market probe in February 2020 of $191.16.
The next question I think is how to determine whether that is a shadow or a market probe? Furthermore, the question after that is: Is that a market probe or a bull trap. Let save that for another discussion because that will require a more in-depth market analysis and more articles. Ultimately, it is the immediate market conditions and the final market decision that determines the price.
Thank you for reading! Please click Like and click Follow to see more.
Greenfield
Disclosure: Just a humble market opinion by Greenfield Analysis. This is not a recommendation. Greenfield Analysis has no investment in any of the securities mentioned in the article, no plan to initiate a trade in any of the securities mentioned, and does not receive any compensation for this market opinion.
A Probe Versus A ShadowA Probe Versus A Shadow
The candlestick shadow refers to the upper and lower thin lines of the candlestick body. A lot of that has been written already by others, so in this article, I like to mention just a few differences between a probe versus a shadow.
A market probe is a measurement tool. A market probe checks the sentiment of the bulls compared to the sentiment of the bears. A bull probe is when the bulls test a new higher price level, and a bear probe is when the bears test a lower price level. I think a shadow is a possible price reversal, and a probe is when the price explores a new price and may advance further in the same direction.
Is that a shadow or a probe? Let save that for another discussion. To answer that question, it will require a more in-depth market analysis of the immediate market conditions and ultimately the outcome depends on the market decision.
Thank you for reading! Please click Like and click Follow to see more.
Greenfield
Disclosure: Just a humble market opinion by Greenfield Analysis. This is not a recommendation. Greenfield Analysis has no investment in any of the securities mentioned in the article, no plan to initiate a trade in any of the securities mentioned, and does not receive any compensation for this market opinion.
Sometimes the best investment is to wait? The 5 Wait!Sometimes the best investment is to wait? The 5 Wait!
Wait for a correction!
When I buy a sweater, I like to get a discount. When I buy a stock, I like a discount too.
Wait for a bottom!
I am going to be left out when the stock hits a bottom, but I have no cash to buy.
Wait to let the story unfold!
Sometimes I cannot make a decision, I will just let it go.
Wait for concrete evidence!
I let the stock to show me it is a winner first before I buy or sell.
Wait for a good opportunity!
I might love that stock, but the market is too volatile right now.
Thank you for reading! Please click Like and follow to see more.
Greenfield
Disclosure: Just a humble market opinion by Greenfield Analysis. This is not a recommendation. Greenfield Analysis has no investment in any of the securities mentioned in the article, no plan to initiate a trade in any of the securities mentioned, and does not receive any compensation for this market opinion.
Assigned With A Wheel Trade & The Market TanksI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years.
I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails.
They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way.
The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades.
In this article, I want to talk about what to do when you get assigned with a Wheel trade.
Previously, I have shown you the Wheel strategy.
It’s a strategy that I’ve been trading for several months and I haven’t had a single losing trade yet, knock on wood.
So I received a lot of comments on my videos asking,
“Yeah. That’s all good. But what do you do when you get assigned with a Wheel trade and the market crashes?”
And that’s exactly what we are going to talk about today.
What To Do When You Get Assigned With A Wheel Trade
I want to show you how to handle getting assigned when the market crashes by using a real trade as an example where this happened to me, and I couldn’t have timed it more perfectly because a little over a month ago, on October 28th, I was recently in such a trade.
The market was down more than 3% and it was a bloodbath.
Luckily, this scenario provides me with an opportunity to use it as a template to show you what to do when this happens.
The TQQQ trade I was in at the time works as a perfect example, so let me just show you how things panned out.
So with this TQQQ trade, had an open P&L of -$2,667.
So what does this mean? Does it mean that we do have a big loss here? No.
This is only an unrealized loss, and this is how I handled it.
I simply followed the 5 steps of The Wheel strategy, and the 5 steps are as follows:
Pick a stock that’s going sideways or slightly moving up.
Sell a Put Option , i.e. you have to buy the stock at the strike price.
Collect Premium and buy the Put back when we see 90% of the profits.
If we get assigned, i.e. have to buy the stock, we will sell Covered Calls against these shares to try and sell the shares at the strike price.
Collect premium and buy the Call back when we see 90% of the profits.
Selling Puts
The trade initially started on September 3rd, so let’s backtrack a little bit to really dissect it step by step.
TQQQ met all my criteria, and on September 3rd is when I first trading this.
September 3th, when I started trading this, I sold 150 put for $0.66, which is $66 because I traded one contract, and one contract represents 100 shares.
The next day I got assigned. I got assigned because when you’re selling puts it means that if the stock goes below the strike price at expiration, 150 in this case, I would get assigned.
This is exactly what happened a day later when the option expired.
So I made $66 by collecting premium, even though I got assigned 100 shares at $150/share, but here’s the deal.
Since I sold the put for $0.66 this means that my cost basis, since I keep that premium regardless of whether I am assigned or not, gets lower.
So this means that the $150 a share I paid minus the $0.66 I collected per share, brings my cost basis down to $149.34.
Now doesn’t sound a lot, but it basically means that the stock now does not have to go above $150 anymore.
As soon as TQQQ goes up to $149.34 I’m breaking even. Now if it goes above this, I’m making money. Simple right?
Selling Covered Calls
Now that we have been assigned, this is where we start selling Covered Calls.
When you sell Covered Calls against these shares, the goal is to try and sell them at that strike price of that Call, while collecting more premium.
Here’s the trade that I did. I sold a 155 Call for $2.10 on the 10th after realizing 90% of the profits, I bought it back for $0.37 the next day.
So $2.10 minus $0.37 means I made $173. And now my cost basis gets reduced by another $1.73.
Well, now our cost basis is going lower. Our cost basis of $149.34 drops by $1.73, so our new cost basis is now $147.61.
This means that if the stock goes back to $147.61 we break even, and if it goes above we are making money. Easy right?
Next, I sold the September 80 Call, the September 18 150 Call, for $0.45, then bought it back for $0.05.
So this means at this point we made another $40, bringing our cost basis down by another $0.40 to $147.21.
The stock kept going against us. It was going down and this is what many of you are concerned about.
“What do I do if the stock keeps going down?”
Well, you keep selling premium, and by doing so, you’re lowering the cost basis. Well, what I did next was really cool.
Selling More Puts?
So next, I sold actually two puts for $110 and $118.
So that averages out to $114. Then I bought them back at $0.06.
This means $114 minus $0.06. So we made another $108 here.
Now I’ll explain in a moment why I sold a put here even though right now since we own stocks, and we should be selling calls.
There’s a very specific reason for it, and I’ll explain it to you.
Looking back at our trade, we are lowering our cost basis to $146.13.
Next, after we sold the puts and they expired worthless I actually sold another 100 put for $2.40 and bought it back for $24. So we made another $216 here.
Bringing our cost basis down again from $146.13 minus $2.16 to now $143.97.
When To Sell Puts INSTEAD Of Calls
So if you are supposed to sell Covered Calls during this stage of The Wheel Strategy, why did I sell those Puts?
I already owned 100 shares of TQQQ that were assigned to me, so why risk getting assigned more?
Well, I sold these Puts, instead of Calls for a specific reason.
At this stage of The Wheel Strategy is where you normally would sell Calls, however, if you are on this part of this strategy, and the market is tanking, you have to make an adjustment to this strategy if the price keeps dropping, to help keep your cost basis as low as possible.
These were 100 Puts, meaning if the price would have dropped below $100 at expiration for either of them, and I would have been assigned the shares.
If that were to happen, I would now own 100 shares at $100 each, on top of the 100 shares I already own at $150 each.
So now I own 200 shares, I paid a total of $250 for, bringing the average price per share to $125.
Getting assigned these shares would have lowered my cost basis tremendously.
If you subtract the total Premium I received on all of these trades, which was $12.05 a share ($1,205 overall) from the average price per share, which in this case is now $125, this comes to a cost basis of $112.95.
This is what the cost basis would have been IF I was assigned these additional 100 shares at $100 each.
I wasn’t assigned these shares, however, and my final cost basis was $137.95.
Do you see why getting assigned is a good thing?
People are afraid of getting assigned, but as long as you have adequate buying power, and are following my methods for picking good stocks, assignment should be looked at as a good thing.
Selling Premium
You see, this is what the Wheel does. You can sell premium while you own the stocks.
So I then sold a $150 call for $1.57, bought it back at 15. So this means that I made another $142 bringing down my cost basis again to $142.55.
Now, I don’t want to bore you and make this article too long here, but long story short, as you can see, I sold a few more of the calls and I bought them back.
So overall, by just selling premium, even though I still owned the stock, I was continuing to lower my cost basis.
At this point, the stock was down $2,770.
However, by doing this, by selling more calls and puts here, I was able to make $1,748 in premium.
So this means I made $17.48 per share on these 100 shares.
So if you take the $150 minus $17.48 right now, right now my cost basis to break even on this trade is $132.52.
So as soon as TQQQ goes back to $132. Now, what happens if TQQQ keeps going down?
I will keep doing what I’ve been doing, following The Wheel Strategy.
I’ll keep collecting premium until at some point, I can sell these shares for a profit.
Recap
So now you know what to do when you get assigned with a Wheel trade, and hopefully, it becomes less scary for you.
I look forward to getting assigned with a Wheel trade because that allows me to sell calls and make even more money.
If the stock keeps going down, I’ll just keep selling, and I will continue to lower my break even more and more.
So, right now, TQQQ does no longer have to go all the way up to 150. It only needs to go up to $132.52.
I just wanted to address this process because I know that many people who are trading this strategy are concerned saying,
"Oh my gosh, what if I get assigned with a Wheel trade?”
It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing and now you know why.
Trading parallel channel like Proin parallel channel there are two trend lines parallel to each other.
You buy/sell at trend line.
near the yellow arrow sign. you multiple resistance
trend line
fib retracement
previous support now turned into resistance
trade always have two part Entry and exit
you have multiple resistance to sell and you exit at 100% projection of wave at lower trend line of channel
this is perfect example : How you can trade using trend lines, fib retracement and extension, support and resistance.
(market doesn't give you this type trade everyday. so you have to wait which strategy is giving you signal to trade. if you wait you always spot this type of trade easily ).
Cash Secured vs Naked PutsI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails.
They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way.
The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically.
Real money…real trades.
Cash Secured vs Naked Puts
What I want to talk about right now is the difference between cash secured vs naked puts.
If you've been following Coffee with Markus, then you know that recently there was a comment from someone who said
“They are the same thing!”
Of course, that is not the case.
So in this article, I’ll show you the differences between cash secured vs naked puts.
I’ll also explain why I highly recommend that you trade cash secured puts when trading the Wheel strategy.
Selling A Put Option
When you sell a put option it means that you have to buy the stock at the strike price that you sold it for if the contract is exercised at expiration.
This is very important, and you are obligated to do it.
So, therefore, obviously what you want is that the stock stays above the strike price that you chose.
Because in this case, you just keep the premium.
Now, let me give you a very, very specific example here.
Put Example: IBM
So recently, I sold a 115 put on IBM .
I did this with three days to expiration and I received a premium of $43 per option that I traded.
Now, I traded two options, or two contracts. So this means that I received $86 in premium.
If you divide this by three days, this means that we are looking at approximately $29 per day in premium, which is what I’m looking for.
I mean, this is how I have achieved the very systematic results here of 22.7% over the last three months, and if I can keep this up, this would translate into 19.8% per year.
So thus far, what does it have to do with cash secured or naked puts here?
In this example, as long as IBM stays above 115 until expiration, I would just keep the $86 in premium and the option expires worthless.
However, if IBM would close below 115 at expiration, then I have to buy 100 shares of IBM at a price of $115.
So in my case, since I have sold two options, I would have to buy 200 shares of IBM at $115.
This means that I would have to bring $23,000 to the table.
But here’s the deal. In order to sell these puts, my broker only required around $4,400.
Let’s take a look at this.
See IBM here, it says capital required $4,453. That’s only 20% of the money that I actually need to buy the shares.
The Differences Between Cash Secured vs Naked Puts
Now let’s talk about the difference between cash-secured puts and naked puts.
Cash secured puts mean that you have $23,000 in your account to cover the stocks if you are getting assigned.
So if you only had $5,000 in your account, you could still place the trade.
As you can see, the broker only required $4,453.
However, you wouldn’t have enough money to actually buy the shares if you got assigned.
This means that you sold the naked puts. You just don’t have enough money. You just had enough money for the broker, what he required to sell it.
So why would the broker let me sell the puts for only $4,400 when I need $23,000 to buy the shares if I get assigned?
Well, here is why the broker does it. He does it for two reasons.
Reason number one, most options expire worthless.
And number two, even if they don’t expire worthless most traders buy the option back.
So they close it before they expire and the broker knows that.
That’s why he’s only requesting 1/5 of the buying power that you need for buying the shares. And that’s all good as long as you close your position before expiration.
However, when trading the Wheel, you actually want to get assigned. It is part of the strategy.
You see, we not only sell a put option, if we get assigned we will sell calls and get the premium.
So the question now is…
What Happens If You Don’t Have Enough Money And You Get Assigned?
Let’s say you have $5,000 in your account and you entered this trade.
Now IBM is below 115 at expiration and you have to buy 200 shares at $115, but you don’t have the money.
So what happens?
Well, now your broker is buying them for you and you get a so-called ‘margin call’.
What does it mean?
A margin call basically means the broker asks you to wire the remaining $19,000 that you need for this into the account, and he wants to have this pretty much that day.
What happens if you don’t have the money?
If you don’t do this, the broker will sell the shares the next day at whatever price he can get.
So this means that you lose all control over this trade. Your broker is now in control and that’s not good.
You see, when trading the Wheel strategy you want to remain in control. After we get assigned the shares, we want to sell calls against it and collect even more premium.
Summary
I highly recommend that you trade cash-secured puts so that you have enough money in the account in case you get assigned.
This way, you have full control over your shares and you can actually make money with them.
Now you know the difference between cash-secured puts vs naked puts and you know when to use what.
4 simple steps to create your perfect strategyHello traders,
Introduction
How many times did you find a perfect strategy giving great results in backtest but wasn't working for LIVE trading?
This effect is due to "overfitting" your past signals giving great historical results in a past environment.
Overfitting means you're forcing the results to look great; hence not realistic; knowing the historical price action.
Unfortunately, new traders don't know how random financial markets could be.
Then, a backtest with very controlled and precised conditions is often irrelevant for real/live trading.
Building a trading system is like solving a puzzle.
We don't define the entries and exits separately - entries are defined relative to the exits and vice-versa.
Imagine a RubixCube where solving one face of the cube could mess up with the other faces of that cube.
Step 1 - Define your entries
Finding entries is the easiest step.
Most indicators on a big timeframes give great entries but poor exits.
I appreciate low timeframes a lot as it gives me a better control of my RISK.
Thinking that low timeframes require more reactivity is a myth...
If we use the standard values from our trading indicators - yes sure, we often enter/exit dozen of times before the real move happens - and when it happens we're too exhausted to trade it well.
This is weird that many traders use common indicators with their standard values regardless of the timeframe.
Think about using the MACD with the 12/26/9 or RSI with a 14 period for example.
Using indicators with low values doesn't work neither for manual or automated trading.
The new traders wreck themselves either via exhaustion (manual trading) or with paying too many fees (both manual and automated trading).
If your high timeframes trades get invalidated/stopped-out, the drawdown is painful - and you really feel the pain if you use a big position size or a too high leverage... (please don't).
What I'm going to say is going to shock a lot of our readers I know.
Entries don't matter by themselves.
If your exits are not well-thought, you're guaranteed to lose regardless of how great your entries are.
Step 2 - Define your exits
A strategy without exits (Stop-Loss for example), gives a win-rate by design of 100%.
This is the most-common mistake apprentice quant traders make: they think first about PROFIT when actually they must think about the RISK first.
How much you can lose is more important than how much you can win (by far).
If you don't think about your RISK first, I tell you what's going to happen
Maybe you would have predicted the correct directions, but the unrealized drawdown + trading fees + funding will get you bankrupt before the move.
Anyone else already experienced this?
Step 3 - Backtest
From here, you don't even need to use a backtest system.
What I do is setting my chart days/weeks before the current date and then scrolling-right from there until the current date.
The goal is visually checking a few crucial things (in that order exactly):
A) Are my entries early enough?
B) If stopped-out how much do I lose in average?
C) What's the average profit I can make per trade? per day? per week?
You probably noticed that I don't mind the statistical data like win-rate, profit-factor, etc - I don't mind them because they're not relevant.
A backtest with a high win-rate, high profit-factor, high EVERYTHING could still not perform well for LIVE trading if the system is "overfitted".
Let's dig-in quickly into those 3 steps.
A) Are my entries early enough?
There is nothing worse than entering too late - this is obvious because it increases your drawdown if any and reduces your potential profit.
B) If stopped-out how much do I lose in average?
The most important item of the list If your entries are late, we get now that your stops are painful for your capital and psychology.
Even early entries could have terrible exits - and you may still lose
I don't use a price/percentage level stop-loss.
This is too subjective and to speak frankly... not working.
There is a great chance to get filled because of slippage even if the candles never hit your stop-loss order level and then we .... cry and rage because we predicted the correct direction but not the correct potential drawdown.
I'm 100% convinced it happens too often (to be profitable) for all traders using those stop-losses.
I won't say it enough...
Use a hard-exit for your stop-loss - it could be an indicator or multiple indicators giving an opposite signal.
Of course, it should be based on candle close - not candle high/low to remove almost completely the slippage risk .
For the take-profits, that's exactly the same concept.
I don't use price/percentage levels but a combination of Simple Moving Average(s), Traditional Pivots and Fibonacci Pivots
C) What's the average profit I can make per trade? per day? per week?
The goal of any trader: making money and quitting their jobs... I know.
That's why we shall not forget about the average profit we can make per trade and per period (day, week, month, ...).
Here it's important to have written goals and stick to them.
Assuming I want to make 500 USD a day, then I build a system giving me in average 500 USD a day with the lowest risk possible.
Step 4 - Rinse and Repeat
Creating your strategy is a continuous process - not a one step and you're "done".
After the previous step, you may notice some irregularities, some errors, some disturbing elements.
If my entries are late, or exits are late/too big then I go back to the first step and repeat the whole process.
With some experience, building a successful model for the asset and timeframe you want to trade shall take you no more than a few hours.
This is quite fast by the way and you'll already be ahead of most traders out there.
Conclusion
Building your perfect strategy becomes easier with experience and after a lot of trials.
There is no shortcut for becoming rich - you have to put up the work and be/stay focused.
Dave
The only continiously working trade strategy/setup in the worldI'm sure you have spent couple life times reading trading analysis and tutorials on investing/trading/gambling/throwing digital numbers into black void.. whatever you wanna call this digital illusion where funny chart lines are in control of your life's happiness, making you a total willing or unwilling slave.... and NONE of the analyst's predictions work while all analysts are constantly wrong. Analysts and gurus always slimy weaseling out why their projected trade analysis didn't work out. The truth is that they and have no idea what they are doing, their charts are just pretty drawings to make themselves look cool and give themselves pseudo meaning of life. No one has a clue what they are doing, not even the robots, the robots just follow rules with no forward vision of future what so ever.
Some analysts/traders look for affirmation from others in their charts, so they can say they got it right. Even if the analysts get it right 1/20th of the time it justifies 19 charts wasting your time, 19 wrong, but on the 20th they got right they will blow their load or gasm in some form or other, then print the chart out and poster on the wall, forever bragging how they can predict the markets.
Do not worry, F the analysts, because I have knowledge of the only continuously working trade setup in the world. I developed this strategy just as I began trading while being advised by my ex bf. This is the only strategy that ever worked for me in my 20 years of experience in trading Crypto. Countless hours/days/weeks/years of reading guru and analyst charts, I have not grown smarter and all other strategies have created inconsistent returns and/or losses.
This strategy does not care what the price is. You will never have to worry about missing out on a bubble. You will never have to research, look at fundamentals, or be invested or loyal to a stock/crypto/whatever magic poop you trading. Simply sort charts by volume/daily volatility and jump right in. This somewhat mimics the bots and you have to have the energy to do 1000's of exciting sweaty armpit trades while being glued to the monitor! It's what you wanted anyway- exciting emotions similar to gambling at casino, except with actual possibility to win.
Couple notes of accumulated experience before doing any moves with strategy explained below:
Never ever use leverage. I have over 500+ full account liquidations and I have smashed monitors and screamed and blown a lot of nerves. With this setup no leverage is needed.
Never ever let a trade go wrong more than 10%.
Never fomo into a pump, unless it's a real big pump.
Always go all-in, never hesitate. Hesitation shows weakness. How can you tell yourself you are sure what you are doing if you only bring 50% of the stash at the exchange you are at? How can people believe and follow a weak-minded person that does not know where she is going? At most you can lose everything, and that is inevitable anyway with a grave or furnace waiting for you somewhere sometime.
Do not trade when sleepy.
Do not go for 2.99USD omelet breakfast while 3x on a $500k trade during extreme volatility on an alt-coin with no stop-loss.
Do not long when price above 7MA in time frame.
Do not be greedy. Close in time.
Do not trade angry or revenge trade.
1-5% profit per day consistently is the goal, not big leverage.
Use Limit order as often as possible.
Find resistance points.
Shorts can max profit of 100% by price going to zero. Longs have infinite upside. Short max 10%.
Long only. Shorting does not work psychologically with this strategy.
Here is the strategy, which is also have written up on the chart. I am using current BTC market at 15min for this strategy explanation because as mentioned above it does simply not matter what the price is, where it is going long term, or fundamentals or other useless indicators claiming to predict the future.
#0 Watch in disbelief how the market continues to rise with no pull backs below moving averages.
#1 Find some historic support that kind of looks like what other traders might be thinking is support simply because they have no idea what they doing while thinking they doing god's work by dreaming of being charting technician analysts at Goldman Sachs impressing the llittlle blad vampifien himself.
#2 Wait for price to dump, never ever buy above moving averages in whatever impatient time frame you are in. Set some price movement alarms and get behind comp when phone rings and it starts to dump. Be greedy when others fearful. You'll know it' a dump when you just step back and chill until it comes. When it looks EXTRA fukt and you real glad you are out of the water, that is when it's time to step into the liquid.
#3 Open aggr.trade on 1 second view & turn on sound. Get ready to fomo all-in.
Adjust limit buy order price by the seconds so it's always slightly above current price.
Hover your mouse on the buy-button ready to fomo all-in.
When aggr.trade changes tone major way and volume spikes, hold your breath 20 seconds, then fomo-all-in slamming buy button. PRAY! You have no control!
Put STOP LIMIT always 0.5% to 1% after FOMOing into trade. If you wrong, then you wrong.
BREAKING THIS RULE IS YOUR SINGLE GREATEST MISTAKE.
#4 Sell ALWAYS ALWAYS on the the 5th candle since opening trade. Pray you can sell it at the top of the candle, but sell while candle open regardless.
In above chart/example, the absolute best you could done by HODLing trade from $12937 to $13154 is 1.677%, but with this FREE™ trading setup of 6x winning trades and 1x losing trade you are at 3.27%. Obviously trading fees eat a lot of profits and this may not be viable in this calm of a market, but during higher volatility or higher time frames this method works great. For me it has worked the best during the craziest volatility, when market is bouncing intra-hour up and down 2-3-4-5-10%. During the craziest times this method works the best.
Trade 1: 13054/12937 = 1.00904
Trade 2: 12988/12937 = 1.00394
Trade 3: 13022/12937 = 1.00657
Trade 4: 13027/12964 = 1.00485
Trade 5: 13044/12955 = 1.00686
Trade 6: 13091/13009 = 1.00630
Trade 7: 12991/13059 = 0.99479
----------------
1.0327%
The best things in life are free. Thank me later.
A filtered MACD strategy on the 1 hour chartA 1 hour chart strategy. Presented to you.
When:
- The price is above the 4 hours 100-EMA
- The MACD & Signal(5) lines are below zero
- The MACD (blue) crosses above the Signal (red) line
We buy
When:
- The price is below the 4 hours 100-EMA
- The MACD & Signal(5) lines are above zero
- The MACD (blue) crosses below the Signal (red) line
We sell
To keep in mind:
Specific to EURUSD (but it's almost the same thing with most major pairs that all have the same average true ranges):
Stops are supposed to range from 15 to 40 points, with targets 30 to 80.
The daily ATR ranging from 50 to 150 points.
Anything below 30 pts target is starting to be too small and above 80 points it is too big we're not thinking intraday here.
A quick backtest on EURUSD
And that's already 21 trades for the EURUSD with a winrate of 52.4%, plus the title 5 setups that were a bit cherry picked I won't lie. I didn't even cherry pick them I got lucky on my first try (I thought I was continuing my backtest in July 2017 didn't realize it was on 2020) but I wouldn't expect an 80% winrate in general.
EURUSD: 11 Wins. 10 Loss. 1:2 risk to reward. 52.4% winrate.
Next is GBPUSD
And here is another batch of 21 which is a good sample size.
GBPUSD: 12 Wins. 9 Loss. 1:2 risk to reward. 57.1% winrate.
It is important to zoom out (I know no one does it). A look at the daily chart.
Just going to check quickly because it is getting boring. Should have taken the 5 minutes to make a script to filter this but I'm in too deep to go back now.
And I just noticed I have been backtesting GBPUSD with the 200 EMA. Well nevermind, it is the same thing. Result wouldn't change much.
And here I made the whole box. 12 Wins 19 Loss. Still a winrate of 38.7%.
I can go for worse ones
How about the recent EURUSD price action?
37.5% winrate
If you think it gets immediatly better, here are the next ones:
The findings:
- When the conditions are good it won 55% of the time
- When the conditions are average it won 38% of the time
- When the conditions are bad (range plenty of false trends) it won 10% of the time
With a RR of 2 the breakeven winrate is 33.33%
But we have to include spreads. This strategy goes a bit further than "day trading" so stops and targets are quite wide.
The typical stop/target is something like 25/50 (for EURUSD), the spread is 1 point. Other pairs of course are a bit more expensive.
50/25 = 2
49/26 = 1.88 breakeven winrate = 34.72%
(10+38+55)/3 = 34.33% 🤔 ... Interesting coincidence...
If the risk reward on average is of 1.88 and the winrate is 38% then the profit factor is 38*1.88/62 = 1.15 which is not very high but if the strategy takes a whole lot of small trades it is ok.
The few cases I looked at prove nothing, this might have a blind winrate of 50%, 20%, or 33.33% (most likely).
I don't know how to backtest with tools maybe I should learn so I can clic and let it execute for me... Stay tuned for a tutorial! :D
You would have to execute this strategy when you think the price will trend. But not a very strong trend or there will never be a signal.
An average or weak one, or something that contains trends, like what I have shown and backtested 3 times.
So this means you'd still have to make a directional bet. There is no escape. Sorry no magic trick to avoid it.
A directional bet on the price or on the volatility itself, the trends...
Once you make your directional bet, what is the advantage of day trading with a macd strategy over just taking the trade and holding?
The power of compounding.
Here someone made a backtest on the daily chart for the S&P500, the strategy took 500 trades with a profit factor of 1.2 and returned 95%!
Without counting any spread/commissions. And just holding the S&P during the same period returned 151%. Amazing.
Then what is it that gets compounded with technical day trading? Easy. Losses & costs. Also causes to miss out when right about the direction.
Lots of inconvenients, and no advantages. Sounds amazing. The power of COMPOUNDING™.
Ye I'm not sold. There might be a tiny edge but it's just so worthless. Picking pennies...
Got to imagine the amount of desperation to make any profit anyone would have to try that.
And they'd probably end up losing. Why did I waste my time?
Can a Strategy be bought?To be successful as a trader, you have to understand that this activity is a continuous battle for survival. If you don't think like a warrior, you will have a very short life as a trader.
More than eighty percent of retail and intraday traders will kill their accounts in their first three months. The most successful traders learn the painful and costly rules of survival in the markets through trial and error.
The word "strategy" comes from the ancient Greek term stratēgía ("office of the general, command, generalate"), from stratēgós ("the leader or commander of an army, a general"), from stratós ("army") + ágō ("I lead, I conduct"). In other words, it is a matter of "thinking like a general".
The most important book on this subject, the Sunzi Bingfa , poorly translated as "The Art of War", deals with planning and strategic analysis. The fact that this book deals with strategy, not war, explains why its methods are perfectly applicable to the planning of market operations and to any other activity that requires foresight and analysis.
According to its author, the Chinese general and philosopher Sun Wu , known as Sunzi (Master Sun) or Sun tzu, success is not for the strongest or the most aggressive, but for those who best understand their situation and what their alternatives really are. By studying and understanding the strategic framework proposed by Sunzi, you will be able to analyze almost instantaneously any competitive situation in the markets, detect opportunities and make appropriate decisions.
This contribution and the following ones are a tribute to the millenary wisdom of this classic work and a gift to those novice or expert traders who, like me, were defeated before the markets for not having a Strategist mentality.
Dario van Krauser
Strategists Trader