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Author Message  holycow Member Username: holycow Post Number: 639 Registered: 08-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 03:26 pm:     Chinese Astrology 1) if you are born in the year of the chicken... bad news... you will look like a chicken, cluck like a chicken and walk like a chicken! The upside is you are a "conquerer", you chase after every hen you can lay your eyes on and you'd just go for your "root"... oops, don't mean to be rude but then I am talking about "chicken" or the Rooster. Them roosters as you know are one hella casanova... 2) the above "texts" are just for kiddin' only. 3) on a more serious note, I think this year will reward those who play it safe... hence it pays to "THINK CHICKEN"! 4) my resolution for 2005 - play it safe, play it well... and have fun! 5) some others' view on 2005... 3 Thoughts To Help Make Your New Year A Profitable One Thursday December 30, 5:19 pm ET By Tim Truebenbach Rather than simply wish you a Prosperous New Year, I would like to share a few thoughts on what has helped me out in the past so that you may use them and learn how to create a Prosperous New Year for yourself! The first and most important point I will always harp on is that loss-cutting and an exit-strategy need to be used when entering a trade. #1: know where you are going to cut your loss should things go wrong. On the flip-side: know where you will expect to take profits if the trade goes right. I usually will exit a losing trade when down 7-8% or if the stock violates key areas of support such as 50-day moving averages. I will exit winning trades when they gain 20-25%, unless they do it quickly, whereas I will hold the trade for a longer-term gain. One thing to remember is that when a trade is losing you money, you are probably wrong about it. The second point I will make is that it almost always pays to learn from mistakes. This was a major lesson that paid dividends to myself as we continue to emerge from the market's bottom in 2002 and find very different rallies than one's I experienced in the 1990's. While breakout stocks have been choppy through 2003 and 2004, I simply started looking at what worked with these same stocks after I had been knocked out of them. Many times, they continued on an ascent as the market truly puts in a bottom and recovers from what appears to be an oversold condition. This brings me to my third point: historical analysis. This is not to be confused with learning from our actual mistakes, but to always take a peek at history before wading into a market. Often times, you will be able to use this information to earn much larger profits than may have otherwise been had. 2003-04 appear to have been choppy; especially when taking a look at January through June of this year. We saw the market rise and fall and basically go nowhere until late-August. At first glimpse of simple price action, this seemed a lot like the sideways 70's, but after further review of past markets, economies and political conditions; current times size up almost in parallel to the early- to mid-1930's. This period saw an identical period of consolidation in 1934 as early 2004 and allowed me to realize that we eventually in for a nice move which we now seem to be experiencing. Historical analysis can point on some great longer-term opportunities where we may have otherwise settled for a quick, smaller-profit trade Lastly, I have to emphasize having fun with what we do. From Warren Buffet to William O'Neil; every successful investor I know about seems to have absolutely LOVE what they do. There's no point in adding undue pressure to an already tough game. We are fortunate to live in and invest in the most successful economy and country in the world. Enjoy it everyday and you are bound to do well as a fringe benefit! Happy New Year! Tim Truebenbach HC "... if you've got a chart, I have an opinion!"  holycow Member Username: holycow Post Number: 641 Registered: 08-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 06:03 am:     The Master Swinger has a change of heart, he thinks trend riding is great and swinging may be a little "off"... A Trader's Resolutions for 2005 Thursday December 23, 12:00 pm ET By Alan Farley, RealMoney.com Contributor We're finally wrapping up the old year and making way for 2005. That's good news because I've spent the last month playing defense and building my profits incrementally rather than exponentially. That lid will come off soon, allowing my strategies to shift from conservative to aggressive. I try new things in January because seasonality offers a great opportunity to expand my skills and discover better ways to make money. Things will be no different this time because I'm already looking at new markets and methods. Let me share a few of these ideas with you today. Bigger and Better My first goal is to trade larger share sizes. For many years I've been comfortable spreading my positions across many instruments. I'll often keep eight to 10 trades open at a time, but none of them is larger than 600 or 800 shares. I control risk by tracking cumulative size within the portfolio and adjusting that number depending on the environment. This basket mentality reduces volatility as long as there is poor correlation between the open instruments. In theory, this means some positions will go up on a typical day, while others will go down. In fact, there have been times when I've had high exposure and watched my equity limp around in $10 increments all day. I'm comfortable trading thousands of open shares by applying this methodology. Admittedly, there's an enormous risk with the strategy that can't be overcome: a shock event that takes the market and all of my positions with it. Of course, if and when that happens, it will be a bad day for all of us. In 2005 I want to increase average share size but decrease the total number of basket instruments. In theory this should raise volatility levels incrementally. I also want to keep the 5,000- to 8,000-share limit I'm using now. This number is a function of market risk rather than personal preference. For example, it was higher during the hot markets in 2003 and lower in the choppy environment just before this year's elections. Delayed Gratification My second goal is to do more trades based on weekly setups. I keep tripping over great patterns on weekly charts, but am too impatient to sit through the swings required to take advantage of these opportunities. I hope to overcome this shortcoming by setting aside a broker account and using it exclusively for longer-term trades. The big problem for me is that I've never seen a profit I didn't want to put in my pocket immediately. In order to play weekly charts successfully, I need to sit on my hands and give up small profits as long as the pattern doesn't violate the setup. This also means accepting drawdowns that can persist for weeks. Of course, the flip side can be quite rewarding. Weekly charts yield larger profit targets than daily charts and can produce outstanding results over time. But I suspect I'll need to break all the clocks and remove all the calendars in my office if I'm going to prosper from this strategy. I'm an impatient soul when it comes to my money. Building an Autopilot My third goal is to develop more automated trading techniques. I've always been a discretionary trader. This means I make my own decisions based on a detailed analysis of the chart. Unfortunately, I'm so busy these days I have little time left to look for secondary positions. So I'd like to build a set of rules that executes a subset of my trade universe automatically. Of course, this is what system traders do every day. But I only want to add nominal exposure with this methodology rather than use it to replace what I'm doing right now. And I have very specific ideas about the types of scenarios I want this system to trade. Unfortunately, I'm not a programmer and don't have the best tools to bring this objective into reality. So I'll be teaching myself some programming language in order to pursue this 2005 goal. Thanks to James Altucher's great book Trade Like a Hedge Fund, I've discovered a ton of system-building tools at Wealth-Lab and started to play with them recently. Early next year I'll take my solo flight with these signals and see if Mr. Market likes them. HC "... if you've got a chart, I have an opinion!"  peterloh Member Username: peterloh Post Number: 1007 Registered: 03-2003 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 11:12 am:     HC, Well come back and a timely quote from Alan Farley.This at least gives me some reassurance that I am on the right path.You information is timely. Near end of 2003 and beginning of 2004, I reduce the numbers of shares that I hold and trade from 17 to about 10 now.I have triple and quadruple the size of the trade.It is good that now that I can pay more attention to them individually. It is difficult to ignore the small profit and the swings, but I am having success here.As my capital base is fairly large, this set up suits me better.So trend continues to be very important, more than anything else, way ahead of moving average. As many shares have increase in price a great deal, I am paying attention to some which have not enjoyed the recent rise, and the ability to pick them before their ascend is a bonus. As for weekly setups, I have changed from daily to weekly 10 years ago, so I am glad an experience trader agrees this is the way to go. Wishing you a great year ahead in your trading. Your posts is not only educational but entertaining as well, thank you. Best Wishes, PL ------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: Please note that comments made in this column is mainly for the interpretation of charts in technical analysis. It is not made in my professional capacity and should not be taken as advice.In my professional capacity I am only allowed to give advice on certain managed funds authorised by my license dealer.Any share discuss is for general interest and should not be relied on to make an investment decision.It is likely that I may own the shares that we discussed as a trade or as an investment. Please consult your stock broker or financial adviser in regard to your personal situation.  holycow Member Username: holycow Post Number: 643 Registered: 08-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 01:02 pm:     Hi Peter, It's good to be back and "back into the market"... some day I think I will get a "real life" without thinking of stock and/or stock trading - gotta say this stuff has more fun than playing computer game! Just love it! You have a good 2005 too. Cheers. HC "... if you've got a chart, I have an opinion!"  holycow Member Username: holycow Post Number: 696 Registered: 08-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 09:48 pm:     Continuing the Chicken theme... WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? MOHAMMED SAEED AL-SAHAF (COMICAL ALI): The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We do not even have a chicken. GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either for us or against us. There is no middle ground. TONY BLAIR: I agree with George. HANS BLIX: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question. ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken? TRISHA: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it survived a serious case of moulting and went onto accomplish its dream of crossing the road. JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together in peace. ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of the chicken to cross the road. RONALD REAGAN: What Chicken? SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity. BILL GATES: EChicken 2003 will not only cross roads but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your cheque book, and Internet Explorer 7 is an integral part of eChicken. BILL CLINTON: What is your definition of chicken? GRANDAD: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road and that was good enough. COLOLNEL SANDERS: Did I miss one? HOMER SIMPSON: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm chicken! HC "... if you've got a chart, I have an opinion!"  holycow Member Username: holycow Post Number: 2231 Registered: 08-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 06:50 am:     "WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE - Terrorist on the Run" H5N1 Subject Features: spotting a feather jacket with beady eyes, sharp beak, has the tendency to cluck when excited. Warning: do not approach the subject without protection, it is armed and dangerous; it is a weapon of mass destruction and if handle wrongly, it can wipe out the whole neighbourhood and potentially it can wipe out the whole financial market. Be warned! HC "... if you've got a chart, I have an opinion!"

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