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Home > Archive > 2003 > 12 > 18 :: Archive

Thursday, December 18, 2003
Issue Contents:

08:58 Good Morning
Headlines and reaction.
09:09 Daily Swing Trade
Today's stock setups.
16:10 The Swing Trade
Our approach.
16:16 Active Trader Transcript
Real time forum log.

Good Morning

I'm pleased to report that we're turning the corner on the bad cold.  I hope to be back up to speed tomorrow.

If we had been given this WSJ headline by fortune tellers back in February, I think most would have dismissed it as an "only on Fantasy Island" scenario. 

Five new stocks hit the market, including the U.S. portion of the $3 billion China Life IPO and online travel concern Orbitz. The industrials edged up 15.70 points in a late rebound to 10145.26, another 19-month high.

Of course, truth is stranger than fiction.

^ 03.12.18 08:58 #

 

Daily Swing Trade

We had no setups yesterday.

I went through the top NASDAQ stocks and the Dow 30 again.  What a difference.  While most of the NASDAQ stocks peaked weeks ago, people are diving into things like KO and F as if it's some sort of new religion. 

From a swing trading point of view, it's problematic, since the whole idea is to get in on a swing reversal and ride a single up or downswing.  For example, F began the current upswing on December 5 and has been going up ever since.  There has been no retracement setup, not even a pause in the form of an inside bar, to set up an entry on the buy side, and I'm not about to just close my eyes, buy and hope for the best. 

If we take a look at the price action over the past three days, you'll notice that it's gone up on ever lower volume.  Yesterday's bar was an expanded range one, a tall candlestick.  Given tomorrow is the quarterly expiration of options, I would not be surprised to see a sideways day today, and that would form a harami pattern.  And quite often, we've seen dramatic reversals after expiry.

KO is much in the same boat as Ford.  You'll note that virtually all of the candles on this upswing have been very tall indicating that people are jumping in big time on increased volume.  Yesterday's inside day was a pause in the upswing, but it could also be a stall in the upswing.  This is one where you could play a surprise move on the downside intraday if yesterday's low is broken.  You could also set up a swing trade on the short side if yesterday's low is broken in anticipation of a pullback, but this is typically a one or two day hit and run.

Did anyone ever imagine that TWX would look like a net stock?  Well, I guess it has become one overnight.  This is perhaps the ugliest bull flag I have seen in a while, but the fact is that it is a small pullback where we can set up a buy on break of yesterday's high that targets a test of the December 15 swing high.

I will be going over the mechanics of swing trading today in the workshop, and will edit the transcript for upload over the weekend.

^ 03.12.18 09:09 #

 

The Swing Trade

by Teresa Lo

This is an excerpt from our real-time service, dated 2003.12.18 and 2003.12.23:

12:11:07 Teresa: OK, let's get started with swing trading.
12:12:37 Teresa: First of all, I want to emphasize that swing trading is no different than any other kind of trading.
12:12:53 Teresa: Do not get bogged down by words like "day" or "swing" trading.
12:13:02 Teresa: Or "investing" for that matter.
12:13:17 Teresa: These are all descriptions for the timeframe, or investment horizon.
12:15:10 Teresa: The setups in swing trading is no different than in any other kind of trading.
12:15:44 Teresa: We are still looking at retracements. Retracements are pullbacks in a directional uptrend and weak bounces in a directional downtrend.
12:16:25 Teresa: In the Handbook, we've organized the retracement patterns according to "speed and size" and documented how each one is handled.
12:17:01 Teresa: The smallest retracement is actually a pause, where it stops for a bar or two, typically inside bars, when there is a blazing fast move.
12:17:44 Teresa: The second one is a tiny one swing move, which is my favorite: the 2-4 bar flag.
12:18:00 Teresa: The third one is a larger flag, but it's still one swing, and consists of 4-6 bars.
12:21:02 Teresa: We want these flags to retrace about 25-40% of the last swing.
12:22:09 Teresa: If the flag takes any more bars or retraces any more, the odds of it being able to get to the target is lowered. And our rule of thumb is that the time it takes to get to target should be about 1/2 the time that it takes to retrace, IF the trend is still in effect and going strong.
12:25:58 Teresa: When the one swing flag exceeds 4-6 bars or retraces more than 25-40%, but it's still above the 20EMA, we start to think of other possibilities.
12:26:52 Teresa: Larger retracement patterns include pennants (upper edge connected by a pair of lower swing highs and lower edge connected by a pair of higher swing lows),
12:27:39 Teresa: and classic flags. What these have common is that they are all two swing retracement patterns.
12:28:03 Teresa: The next one would be the ABC Correction. It's the same ideas as the classic flag, but the pullback is even deeper.
12:31:30 Teresa: The daily chart of TWX is a pretty good example of a two-swing classic bull flag
12:32:06 Teresa: We've got ADX rising to into the pullback, confirming that it's a directional uptrend. It pulls back to the 20-day EMA on contracting volume and then blasts off.
12:32:36 Teresa: The daily chart of $SOX is a good example of a two-swing ABC Correction.
12:33:42 Teresa: Note that it's a huge pullback, to the 50-day MA. This is the last stop bullish buy spot for most investors, so until a stock sinks below, you have to use the process of elimination to look for potential buy setups -- however ugly -- before you start to think "downtrend".
12:38:14 Teresa: That's the list for retracements.
12:38:27 Teresa: The other patterns that we trade are exactly the same as we trade in futures.
12:39:59 Teresa: There are the tests - tests of tops and test of bottoms. The type that I like the best is when the swing can trace out an M shaped test of top after an uptrend, or a W shaped test of bottom after a downtrend.
12:41:08 Teresa: I wrote an article about the test of top and it's in the Knowledge Base.
12:43:33 Teresa: There are other tests too, of course. In StreetSmarts, Connors has his Turtle Soup and Turtle Plus One setups, which are tests of 20-day highs.
12:49:11 Teresa: These setups require that the last 20-day be a certain number of days before todays' high, and is designed to catch fake breakouts.
12:49:51 leont2: thanks
12:53:51 Teresa: My favorite fake breakout setups is the Trader Vic 2B Test of Top.
12:55:59 Teresa: And of course, we have the spike trades, where we are looking for a sudden reversal. The biggest requirement is that they need to be on extreme ADX for the symbol and timeframe. Quite often, these are set up on a harami pattern.
12:58:46 Teresa: Here's a link to the harami pattern.
13:19:28 Teresa: You can see that the setups in swing trading is no different than intraday trading.
13:19:52 Teresa: We're still talking about retracements, tests, and spikes. And real breakouts, but we can get to that later.
13:22:06 Teresa: The only thing you need to know about breakouts is what it's NOT, which is when it goes up to do an M Test of Top, or a W Test of Bottom.
13:23:00 Teresa: This is a breakout
13:23:24 Teresa: Typically a move after a protracted sideways chop, frequently triangular in shape.
13:27:16 Teresa: Here's a cool chart. I remember talking about this years ago in one of our Saturday Summits. I said, "what if this was a big-ass Mother of All Bull Flags?"
13:29:39 Teresa: It was sort of a half-joke at the time, but it highlights the importance of seeing the glass half full and half empty at the same time, because at the time, they were all convinced that this was a big head and shoulders TOP. In August 2002 when I did that interview with TASC, I said that it was hard to imagine that the H&S top would come to pass, since everyone knew about it. Certainly no one every talked about the possibility that this was, gasp, a bull flag, however ugly.
13:32:58 Teresa: OK, you now know that we're basically looking for the same patterns on daily charts for swing trading.
13:33:22 Teresa: The next challenge is in execution, particularly if there is a gap up or gap down.
13:34:24 Teresa: In swing trading, most traders use yesterday's high or low as the trigger point, and that's also one of the reasons why a test of the previous days' high or low is important. Obviously, other people like specialists and market makers also know that, so they are going to use the opportunity to
13:34:36 Teresa: "run stops", etc. if they can around these important points.
13:41:04 Teresa: We can handle this in a couple of ways.
13:43:39 Teresa: First, we can avoid the situation all together by attempting to enter intraday.
13:46:22 Teresa: For example, once we have a setup identified, we are typically going to enter a trade like this.
13:47:04 Teresa: If we are trying to get short for a swing trade, we will place a sell stop in an upswing, under the last green bar.
13:47:31 Teresa: If we are trying to get long for a swing trade, we will place a buy stop in a downswing, above the high of the last red bar.
13:52:23 Teresa: red bar = lower low and lower high than the bar before
13:52:33 Teresa: green bar = higher high and higher low than the bar before
13:53:05 Teresa: So, we can either use the break of yesterday's high or low to enter, or we can do it intraday.
13:54:26 Teresa: For example, we could use the 15M intraday chart.
13:55:16 Teresa: If we are trying to get short, we will wait for the first intraday bounce after yesterday's low is taken out.
13:55:57 Teresa: If we are trying to buy, we will wait for the first intraday pullback after yesterday's high is taken out.
13:57:12 Teresa: This helps us avoid getting caught up in any sort of market maker or specialist games at yesterday's high or low, and by entering intraday, we can limit the risk to the size of the intraday pattern, since if it doesn't go from there, we can get out.
14:01:55 Teresa: Of course, some trades will blow through without a retracement, so you'll miss some.
14:05:23 Teresa: I really only use the intraday entry is there has been a big gap up above yesterday's high or a big gap down below yesterday's low. That's when being able to enter intraday helps a lot.
14:24:46 Teresa: Anyway, after all the combinations and permutations comes the swing trading with options method.
14:26:42 Teresa: The reason to use options is to basically limit exposure, since we can quantify the ultimate dollar risk at the beginning of the transaction.
14:32:30 Teresa: My preference is to use in the money options, and set the stop loss at the point when the options get to the money.
14:35:39 Teresa: When it comes to options, there are a few things that you need to know.
14:39:46 Teresa: Most people buy out of the money options because they are cheap, but they are cheap for a reason, mainly because the seller has calculated that the odds of the option getting into the money and actually being exercised is practically nil.
14:40:06 Teresa: We're not interested in throwing money down the drain.
14:43:32 Teresa: We would like to use options to lay off risk, but we don't want to use them for extra leverage or anything.
14:43:49 Teresa: And here's the big afternoon push on the futures.
14:48:49 Teresa: Now in this situation, we know that it's pretty well overdone in even the larger timeframe, but we might be able to play the smaller one on the ES. In case of spike top, if we buy any retracements here on the 5M, we will do a small size.
14:50:22 Teresa: Anyway, the plan with swing trading with in-the-money options is that we have precalculated the risk, and we have no problem with losing a certain amount. That certain amount can be with the stock itself, or it could be intrinsic value of an in-the-money option. Doesn't matter to me.
14:51:02 Teresa: What's important is that we don't pay a lot for time premium, and if we are wrong, we get out when the option gets to at-the-money, because that is when time premium is at it's maximum.
14:51:33 Teresa: The goal is to lose only intrinsic value as much as possible if we are wrong.
14:53:03 Teresa: And get out before time premium starts to shrink in a big way. This is why all those out of the money options vaporize so fast...
14:57:23 Teresa: This is what we need to compute the options that we want.
14:57:30 Teresa: We need the 5-day ATR value.
14:57:59 Teresa: We need to know the trigger price of the trade setup.
15:01:12 Teresa: Let's use today's swing trade setup: TWX
15:05:15 Teresa: Here's the chart. The 5-period ATR represents the last week of trading, which is enough for our purposes, since we anticipate on holding a trade for only a few days.
15:17:26 Teresa: Back to TWX - we identified this setup as a bull flag. Ugly as sin, but a bull flag nonetheless. It's a pullback in an uptrend. ADX > 30, 2-day pullback.
15:21:10 Teresa: Here's another look at TWX, the windshield view
15:24:00 Teresa: Today's setup is documented in the newsletter.
15:25:07 Teresa: I used yesterday's high, which was an inside bar, basically to get a head start.
15:29:17 Teresa: The trigger price was yesterday's high, 17.55
15:30:00 Teresa: The 5-day ATR was 0.466
15:31:09 Teresa: Now, you've seen that we intentionally trade small patterns that are typically found when the market is moving fast, so there is no need to be wrong by more than one bar, either intraday, or in any other timeframe.
15:31:40 Teresa: The 5-day ATR gives us a pretty good idea of what is an "average day", and this is how we quantify how much we plan to risk.
15:32:09 Teresa: The upside target was a test of the December 15 swing high, which was 17.92.
15:33:25 Teresa: The potential reward was 37 cents while the initial risk was around 47 cents. Perhaps not the greatest but since the daily chart is in an unmistakable uptrend without extreme ADX, the probability of it getting to target is much better than 50-50.
15:34:48 Teresa: We use the ATR value to calculate which options we want too. In this case, to be in the money on the buy side, we will take the 5-day ATR value and subtract is from the buy price. That means 17.55 less .47 = 17.08. This would be the ideal strike price for call options.
15:36:44 Teresa: We want the options to have at least a couple of weeks left on them, so since tomorrow is expiration of the December options, we're looking at January options
15:40:02 Teresa: The closest call to our strike price is 17.50, but if we had to bail at our initial stop loss, which is also 17.08, we'd probably be losing a little more time premium than we planned, but with a month left, it's probably OK.
15:41:14 Teresa: Personally, I would have gone with the $16.00 calls, since we would have had to pay virtually no time premium.
15:42:54 Teresa: If you think about it, the stock was basically at 17.50 and the sellers were asking for 60 cent time premium, while the time premium on the 16.00 calls was just a fraction of that.
15:46:33 Teresa: The only other thing you need to know is that for PUTS, you basically ADD the 5-day ATR value to yesterday's LOW to get the ideal strike price and initial stop loss.
15:48:04

Teresa: For CALLS - subtract the 5-day ATR value from yesterday's high.

15:26:59 DECEMBER 23: There was one swing trading with options question from someone, and that was related to the amount to risk.
15:29:13 Teresa: Normally, people use options to gain leverage, mainly by using out-of-the-money strike prices. Of course, 90% of these expire worthless so it's like a lottery ticket.
15:30:24 Teresa: By using in-the-money options, our goal is to lay off the risk in terms of limiting total loss, while using options to approximate how much we would lose if we were actually trading the stock. Therefore, we want to use in-the-money and lose intrinsic value but not too much time premium.
15:31:36 jillster: hola check
15:33:36 Teresa: hola!
15:33:48 jillster: t, you used to swing trade options 2 weeks before expiry
15:33:50 jillster: less premium
15:33:54 jillster: would you still hold that rule?
15:34:01 jillster: how do you calculate how much premium is okay
15:34:09 jillster: time premium and volatility/premium?
15:36:49 Teresa: At least 2 weeks before expiration.
15:37:06 Teresa: And we only give it a day or two, and if it doesn't go, we dump it.
15:37:31 jillster: you didn't like doing it further out i recall (i.e. more thn 2 weeks) cuz of time premium
15:37:39 jillster: but sometimes there is volatilty premium too right?
15:38:00 Teresa: That's why we insist on buying at least one five-day ATR in-the-money. We allow ourselves one "average day" error and that's it.
15:38:39 Teresa: Well, I think it's more important to make sure that you don't have less than a couple weeks. More than that is fine too, since it's unavoidable.
15:39:07 jillster: a friend of mine was doiing a "gamble"
15:39:15 Teresa: For example, there are four weeks left on all January options now, and if we want to trade with options, that's all the choice that we have.
15:39:15 jillster: with rambus jan 05 otm otpions
15:39:18 jillster: strike price 50
15:39:27 jillster: so i'm watcing them go from 2.50 to 3.60 and bak to 2.50
15:39:31 jillster: even tho rambus is not moving that much
15:39:34 jillster: but those calls are very popula
15:39:38 jillster: 20,000 of them
15:39:50 jillster: so ti seems like the option price increases as the popujlarity of it increases, is this so?
15:40:16 jillster: i didn't think options that far out should be so affected by a change of only 3-4 points in the stock
15:41:06 Teresa: Take a look at the option chain for RMBS http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=RMBS
15:41:25 jillster: i just did it, okay, its 2.60 today for the jan 05 50's
15:41:30 jillster: see, there are 20,250 of them
15:41:34 jillster: he got them a month ago at that price
15:41:41 jillster: then they went to 3.60 like last week
15:41:55 jillster: i'm just curious, why they change in price when they're a year out--change by a buck
15:41:57 Teresa: Isn't the last traded price around 26 on RMBS?
15:42:01 Teresa: Why are they playing 50?
15:42:04 jillster: let me see, hold on, but i think hyou right
15:42:13 jillster: because some people are gambling on the idea that rambus will win its court case
15:42:17 jillster: and giving it ayear for delays
15:42:26 jillster: as in, the ftc delayed a judgment by 2 mos just recently
15:42:31 Teresa: They must be 25s.
15:42:36 jillster: and they think, it will go to 100
15:42:44 jillster: nope, the jan 05 50's-look at how many people are polaying those
15:42:48 jillster: compared to all the other strike prices
15:43:04 jillster: even today it looks like 127 contracts traded
15:43:25 Teresa: I'm looking at the tables here...they're at a nickel.
15:43:38 jillster: rmbs is at 26.37
15:43:44 jillster: it dropped about 3-4 points after the ftc delayed
15:44:18 jillster: you're loking at 04's, these are 05's
15:44:19 jillster: a year out
15:44:21 Teresa: They're playing January 0*5*...crikey.
15:44:38 jillster: right, its a pure gamble based on the hope that
15:44:43 jillster: rambus will win its court cases against everybody
15:44:52 jillster: and people will go nuts and pusht he price way up
15:45:22 jillster: anywya, what confused me was why an optoin a year out was so affected
15:45:30 jillster: i know i used to trade these things in the boom mania
15:45:39 jillster: but I've forgotten a lot of it :-)
15:45:53 Teresa: It's so affected because it has loads of time to get there.
15:46:04 Teresa: Anyway, back to the risk.
15:46:42 Teresa: I think when it comes to swing trading with options, it's a bit of a different game, since it basically for investors to get capital gains - that's the bulk of the people out there.
15:47:30 Teresa: As such, it's probably acceptable to risk 5% of an account on each trade, assuming you have a $10,000 account.
15:48:01 Teresa: This is how we did it before for clients. We tell them that they should have an account that they can divide into 20 "shots".
15:48:20 jillster: so 3% w/ futues but 5% w/ options
15:48:33 Teresa: This means that they can make 20 trades with $10,000 for capital gains.
15:48:53 Teresa: Whereas professional trading is not the same, and we risk 2% per day on a declining basis.
15:49:28 Teresa: It all boils down to the fact that it takes money to make money, and there's not much a normal person can do with $10,000 whereas they can do something with $50,000 or more over time.
15:50:18 Teresa: Let's look at an example.
15:51:34 Teresa: Let's just use RMBS as an example.
15:52:05 Teresa: This is the option chain for RMBS, with it last traded at $26.35.
15:52:13 jillster: :)
15:53:07 Teresa: The 5-day ATR is presently $2.18.
15:53:40 Teresa: Now, for this example, we pretend that we want to buy it. We don't have a buy setups on RMBS, but we'll imagine that we do.
15:54:45 Teresa: Well, just say that we're gonna buy RMBS "just because"...the last price is $26.35.
15:55:49 Teresa: We subtract the 5-day ATR from $26.35 to get the ideal in-the-money strike price, one that assumes that we'll give it a one-day margin of error. This gives us $24.17.
15:56:23 Teresa: We take a quick look and the closest are January 25 CALLS and January 22.50 CALLS.
15:57:33 Teresa: The closest in-the-money calls are the JANUARY 22.50 CALLS last at $4.10.
15:57:41 Teresa: What do we know about the 22.50 CALLS?
15:57:59 jillster: t, why is 22.50 closer than 25, if 24.17 is the price?
15:58:32 jillster: and if its currently at 26.37?
16:00:52 Teresa: If we have to ditch at 24.17 -- which doubles as the initial crash stop -- wouldn't the 25s out of the money?
16:01:13 jillster: ok
16:01:19 Teresa: But it's a close call, so if up to you.
16:01:26 Teresa: But I'll take those 22.50 calls.
16:01:32 jillster: ok, what do we know about them?
16:02:40 Teresa: Right now, at 26.37 - 22.50, we know that they are worth $3.87 intrinsic value, meaning that the time premium is $4.10 less $3.87 - $0.23 cents.
16:04:05 Teresa: 26.37 - 25.00, we know that the 25 CALLS are worth $1.37 instrinsic value, meaning that the time premium is $2.25 less $1.37 = $0.88 cents.
16:04:33 Teresa: You can see that you pay a lot more in time premium, and plus you can see how fast that time premium would vaporize if you have to ditch the 25 CALLS out of the money.
16:04:52 Teresa: Anyway...the plan would be to use your $500 wisely...so that if you're wrong, you can get some money back.
16:05:18 Teresa: $4.10 x 100 = $410.00 per call.
16:05:58 Teresa: So you can basically afford ONE CALL, which represents the right to call up 100 shares at 22.50 before they expire later this month.
16:07:44 Teresa: Say you have to ditch them at the crash stop, if you're wrong. $24.17 less $22.50 = $1.67 intrinsic value and maybe you get $0.50 cents time value, and you can "expect" to get back $2.17 of your original $4.10.
16:08:44 Teresa: If you had bought the stock at $26.37 with a stop loss at $24.17, you would lose $2.20 per share. Using options, the estimated loss is $1.93, since you made time work for you by using in-the-money options.
16:08:51 Teresa: I kid you not.
16:09:20 jillster: very excellent explanation
16:09:23 jillster: i will print it out late
16:10:07 jillster: t, does anyone else use 5-day ATR etc like you do?
16:10:09 jillster: This your own method?
16:10:12 Teresa: The bottom line is that it pays to buy in the money, and it's even more important if you are wrong, since you will get back more money if you ditch it quickly while it's still in the money, because the time premium is at the greatest as it goes into the money.
16:10:36 jillster: tiem premium is greatest when it "crosses over" into the money?
16:10:42 Teresa: Jill - I just want to know what the "average" day is over the last week. It's sort of common sense, because we want to use a stop loss that rises above "ambient noise".
16:10:48 Teresa: Right jill.
16:11:01 Teresa: But we want to get out before that, so that we can still get back some intrinsic value too.
16:11:27 jillster: it makes a lot of sense, just curious, if this is comonly used
16:11:48 Teresa: Theoretically then, that $10,000 will get you more than 20 shots, if you know what I mean. You can almost double the initial position because you "expect" to get money back if you're wrong.
16:12:04 jillster: right, and that would be, wrong 20 times
16:12:33 jillster: which is unlikely
16:12:43 Teresa: If you expect to loss around $1.93 per call, you can work that backwards to a position of around 2.59 calls.
16:13:07 Teresa: And should it blow out and go to zero, you can adjust your next trades accordingly, and still get 20 shots out of that $10,000.
16:13:24 Teresa: I think that will do for the explanation before the transcript cuts off.
16:13:27 jillster: ok
16:13:32 Teresa: We can come back to it tomorrow.
16:13:40 jillster: t, one last ?
16:13:44 jillster: it seems riskier than futures!
16:13:46 Teresa: Anyway...have a good one. We can do some Q and A tomorrow.
16:14:06 Teresa: Jill - Well, it takes money to make money, I guess, and that's a fact.
16:15:05 Teresa: Have a good evening.

^ 03.12.18 16:10 #

 

Active Trader Transcript

Real time forum log.
Click on the title above to expand this document.

^ 03.12.18 16:16 #