swing trading thumb rule - I

take the position in-line with the trend at the start of the 2nd week of the series and ride without fear till the end of 3rd week of the series.

alternate trading

(in reply to a query)

http://www.mudraa.com/singlepost.php?messid=152809

dear chandrasekaranji,

very valid points. thanks for sharing.

i have given a lot of attention to these considerations in recent times. that is why i say that retail traders are playing on technical level and getting beaten at tactical level. 

i do not rely too much on technicals these days. 

one of my friend in a south indian city has a friend in a european stock exchange and is a top notch software professional. his job is to program and test and improve and manage the software for the top FIIs/ Banks which invest globally. his is quite a "secret" and "sensitive" job. he once told my friend that he comes to know whenever those big fat honchos are about to buy or sell en'mass. he told that they have all the info globally before hand. he told him that big men know it beforehand and make it happen for rest of the world. no amount of technical study can predict what those "doers" are going to do.

technicals are boys toys to self amuse. they do work but not sufficiently.

therefore, i have been working for the last several months to find ways to know DIRECTLY what the "operators" are going to do rather than "INDIRECTLY" trying to guess thru technicals what they are likely to do. 

i don't think that there can be more "scientific" way to do homework for trading! 

and trust me finding the shadow or fingerprints of operators is not impossible if you go all out with that focus. have found 2-3 and working to develop the details. 

regards

trend check?

one of the most popular, most important and least understood and confusing aspect in trading is.....trend.

"trend is your friend!" it is said. but just as in normal world, it is difficult to know who is your true friend, it is equally if not more difficult to know what is the underlying, undercurrent, true trend of the market as of now.

trading without knowing the underlying trend is like para-gliding without knowing the direction and speed of the wind.

as i said in one of previous articles, if you are pro-trend even your blunders are likely to be pardoned. even if a new trader knows nothing about the market, he or she is almost sure to make money if only he or she takes pro-trend trades, sticks to it and doesn't vibrate too much (which market tries hard to make you to).

while a pro-trend ill-timed casual trade is likely to give profit (or atleast little or no loss), a well-timed studied pro-trend trade can give snowball profits washing away all self-doubts.

trend is decided by the market forces endorsed by the operators who know almost all.

and many a times, the trend is not obvious, by choice. market fluctuates a lot making the retail trader believe that either there is no trend or trapping the poor fellow take the wrong trend as the trend.

how is trend decided? 

i pondered over this question for many many months and came out with different answers. i knew that the key to trading success lies in the lock of "trend". over the time, i shortlisted and devised some methods to know the real trend.

the three top shortlisted tools for knowing the real underlined undercurrent trend are:

- moving average

- rsi

- options premium data analyses

but curiously, but not so surprisingly (after you read the game plan of the operators putlined below), all three parameters above are not awake at the same time at any time. i guess this is deliberate, to confuse and trap the prey.

while there are many other ways to know the trend, these are among the best. for these tools are effcient in knowing a hidden, camouflaged or subtle trend as well.

and the good thing is that all three of these are technically and genetically different and hence independent and without influence from each other. 

in my blog www.niftyshots.blogspot.com, i will henceforth, try and share regularly trend for the current nifty series based on my study of the above parameters. since trend changes max 2-3 times a month, don't be surprised if the updation about it in the blog is not daily. so, when i share the trend direction, it indicates the trend on that day / during those days of that series. it may change after a few days as and if market decides for the same.

also, note that i call the trend - underlying trend, because many a times, a trend is either not obvious or not visible. for major portion of the time, operators will not like to let the trend be known. after all, operators are against the majority. and they want the minority to be as small as possible. they will try every trick of the trade to not let you know what the trend is going to be before the explosive breakout or breakdown. or, they will not like you to know that they are accumulating or distributing. accumulation and distribution phases happen before the trend is actually visible. 

what this means is that a trend is there even before it appears on the screen. also, a trend may be there even when there is no movement on the graph. just like a snake which is alive and waiting with held breath, even when it is motionless. not only that, a trend may be up even when the market may move 50-100 points down in one or few days.....vice verse is also true. 

operators do whatever is possible to keep everyone confused. they want you to take wrong sides. and once having done that they tend to move the market so fast that everyone is left stranded behind high and dry.

having said that, i want to end by saying that while operators do a lot of things to confuse and trick retail traders, they leave a few clear, inevitable and shameless clues that reveal the trend for the keen silent emotionless motionless eye.

happy "trading"

how and from where i learnt options

( in answer to a question)

see, i just studied options in a simple way. 

i learnt the basics from various websites thrown up by googl e.  first i learnt the basics from there and then i tried to learn strangle, straddle etc. but soon i realized that those advanced combinations are for deep pocket fii/dii/hni's....besides being complicated and risky.......and foolhardy. 

then i realized that even plain options are very powerful if only one's fundamental method is strong and well developed. so, i just focused on and learnt the basics of options thoroughly. i learnt their behaviour by continuously monitoring them in different situations. 

i realized that learning a tool very very thoroughly revealed powers of it which are much potent than the complicated combinations of the same. 

complicated strategies are only an alibi for lack of a sound basic method.

....and all this i learnt using my own head....with a lot of trial and error and hell lot of practice using just the fundamentals of the idea/concept behind "options".

and while i was on this grand exciting journey or reinventing the wheel of options, i came up with some original and powerful new ideas, tactics, strategies and insights.

fundamentals of anything has the seed of all advanced greenshoots. 

i tried many websites and a few ebooks on options but all seemed to confuse me beyond the basics. just like you can catch the truth behind a person from his body language, you can see thru a book from its word-language.......and these books were definitely lacking "self-confidence" and conviction about what they were preaching. and all were the same as far as the basics were concerned.

best wishes

operator truths every trader should know

- in day trading or short-term trading 1-2% people make the other 98% play.

- they know things beforehand....amazing....but not for them...call it insider information or whatever.....they bloody know all the crucial info....in toto...!!!

- they have got super powerful computers, software and networks (highly guarded with access denied to outside the coterie). they have links and access inside not only one or two but all the principal companies of all sectors across countries across continents. afterall, the money is one only....you can trace the roots of almost all the money to a handful of banks and entities.

- they have got practically unlimited money at almost zero interest! (how about that facility)? actually, they are the insiders, everyone else on the planet is the outsider!

- they don't worry about developments and news. they know the developments and news beforehand. many of them, they shape themselves. those which they don't know or can't influence don't effect them much. do you think governments anywhere can take any decision which is contra to their interests?

- businesses are as much as for the profit from the manipulation of stocks than from the profit from the primary production and distribution.

- operators don't buy options, they only sell (write) them.

- they don't choose which options to sell. they sell any option and as many of them which retail traders are willing to buy. only thing they control is the premium. they put much higher premium in the direction they don't want to go. this way they control the volumes in a particular direction.

- operators don't decide on the time of squaring the option. that is decided by the retail operators who bought it. they square the option and as many of them which the retail operators wish to square off. again, the only thing operators control is the premium at the time of squaring off. they put higher premium on the side which gives less benefit to the retail operator.

- the money is made by the operator not at the end of the series but continuously and non-stop at every second of the trading day in every single trade....they keep making money drop by drop, second by second....it is a myth that operators make a killing in big shots.....they don't....they keep making money by bleeding non stop without much ado....just like rivers are formed by drop by drop melting of snow over vast stretches of glaciers.

- operators are there because retail traders are there and in that proportion. otherwise, operators would have been forced to work only as VCs (venture capitalists).

- operators control/move market in 4 ways
a) actively buying
b) actively selling
c) refusing to support buying
d) refusing to support selling

- when they want you to participate, they don't move the market fast. and when they don't want people to get on board and still want to change the levels/altitudes of the market, they move it very swiftly by controlling bid prices and accepted prices......obedient army of computer networks do that.

- it is extremely difficult and impractical for a retail trader to trader after considering all factors at play. they can't. even otherwise they will go mad doing that. they have to find a tactical and smart and clever indirect way.

- operators don't like smart, clever, stable, silent traders.

- never panic....fear switches off the mind which alone can take on the mighty operators.

- if you don't have your own knife and fork to trade, don't sit at the table.

my own laws and rules of day-trading

my first introduction to stock market was in november 2003. but i got serious only in jan 2009. though i had become literate about trading by that time, my real education and training started only after that. and what a journey it has been in these 46 months. full of sweat, tears, blood, death and re-birth....

majority portion of this journey is archived in the form of my 1000+ articles and posts in mudraa.com as well as my blog.

while the learning is still on and will and should always be, i have no hesitation in admitting that i have passed out of the univ and started my pro journey.

in the past 2-3 months i have been seriously devoting time to fine-tune and test and retest and improve my trading method. during this period, i have written and shared quite less due to the time constraint.

today, was in quite a relaxed mood and took the liberty of teasing myself with one of my favourite self-questions - "what are the laws of day-trading as per you as of today as per your method and understanding?"

this is one question that i have been asking myself very very regularly so that i always keep the larger picture right before my eyes and mind.

here is the latest list of my laws and rules for day-trading.

- trade pro-trend and even your blunders will be pardoned. (i have devised my methods to identify the three phases - up trend, no-trend, down-trend)

- technical indicators are the time tables of operators. operators and bandits never stick to time table. don't fool yourself with technical indicators but be aware of them anyway. look for the clue of the operator movement. retail traders play at the technical level and lose at the tactical level. retail traders will lose lesser simply by playing the trade rather than trading the trade.

- market does opposite to the majority opinion.

- use options, not stoploss.

- do your homework and enjoy the "game" of operators. choose right, sit tight.

- never spend your profit. plough it back after taking out contribution to the buffer fund. start with small principal, don't infuse any more capital. resolve to be a millionaire from one coin with the clever method.

- when you realize your mistake or see that the situation has changed since your homework, admit it and save whatever coins are left. stand up and win back lost coins and more.

- play points and not money. gradually, you will develop strong stomach muscles for bigger bets without butterflies.

- take advantage of the temporary adversity rather than succumbing to it.

- divide your capital in parts and start only with one. don't rush to become an operator overnight. learn to stand before you walk, learn to walk before you run before you fly....multiplication will take care of any amount of time you take to wait and learn addition and subtraction.

- experts know nothing. whatever they say won't happen. atleast that way, that day. not because they don't know, but because operators make it a point to go the other way, the other route. operators' modus operandi will never get exposed openly. because when it gets exposed openly, the operators would have abandoned it much earlier.

- all days are not tradable, all trades are not of same duration and juice. all trades are different in tactically.

- more study takes you away from the truth. finally, you would have to unlearn all to bring the real thing back in focus. the world of conventional trading training is fake. it is creating an army of goats for the predators.

why i don't use a stoploss now!

http://thebestbusinessintheworld.blogspot.in/2010/01/u-cant-be-winner-in-stock-market.html

this is an article i wrote 3 years ago.

i opened it again after all this time and was amused to read it. so i thought why not update it with my present views on the topic.

= i no longer use stoploss. i trade only in options which have inbuilt stoploss. i trade only intraday or very short-term and only in nifty options. i trade only with well-developed method. i used my head to create the method. now, i no longer use the head. i just let that method do the trading for me. my emotions have gone almost out of some window. i just use my head in the evening (no every evening) only to fine tune the method. i am not afraid of the adverse unexpected unforeseen move. reasons? probably one reason is that such instances happen very less. second, i have developed the confiection that i select trades after sufficient homework of technique and tactic that it would be hard to lose if i stayed stable in case of adverse move. thirdly, i have programmed myself to take advantage of the bluff or adverse move of the market instead of panic. one reason that allows me this luxury is that i put in money in steps. i never put all my money on the table. i have sufficient backup buffer funds. 

trading has become boring and hence profitable for me.

i no longer use stoploss. but it is so hard for me to advocate not ot use it to others. because somewhere deep, i know that stoploss is a devil created by the devil which doesn't want you to stop fearing. and ofcourse, fear you will, if light of knowhow and experience is not with you.

Js