Friday, January 20, 2017

Day 3 of test: a silly mistake, glad I am just testing

I used to know this but I forgot: despite a trend that looks established before official market opening at 6:30 (PST), beware:


The market went up several points just after I put the trade on ... I had put in a limit order to get out at the profit target the other way, and this somehow futzed up the interface that I thought I could still use to exit near my max loss target. Instead I fumbled around and lost $212, about 3x what I should have.

I reversed course and got some of it back going long, but once again fumbled with the interface missing about $50 of that move. Net for the day I lost $130.

I realize after this episode that what I need is a small computer program for this little trade:

    Buy (or Sell) N contracts
    Set a "one cancels another" set of orders when the market moves:

    • 2.25 points in the 'profitable' direction (i.e. $150/contract)  
    • or
    • 1.25 points in the 'unprofitable' direction (i.e. $75/contract)  
This should work at least 85% of the time if I avoid the 'trade just before opening' thing.

Also! This should be doable to work for multiple different people (hi Ruth!)  ... I can write a program to blast out for several accounts simultaneously ..

I'll get this going this weekend!

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