help - index trading sucks so far, page-39

In terms of some more of your comments:

I definitely will avoid after hours action – I hadnt known about the practice of stop hunting but intuitively I wondered about (read I didn’t trust) out of cash hours trading with market makers. I hadnt been caught that way – all my stops were hit during cash hours going for intraday swings and getting it wrong. A couple of the earlier successful trades were left overnight based on conviction about the gap up/down to the next day, which I’m comfortable doing.

And yes, 3 out of the 5 straight losing trades would have returned to profitable trade territory if they had not hit their stops (all within 10 mins of initiating the trade). I’d now say based on what I’ve read that 10-20 points is too tight compared to the volatility at the time, and I need to either open them up or think in terms of target levels as Winks suggests, which is what I do in stocks (so there’s a change in my pattern).

The other factor which I find missing which I find useful in stocks is the ability to watch several other stocks in the same sector and what they’re doing during the day, as a indicator of what the target stock is likely to do – with an index there’s not as many comparators through the day – sure Asian markets kick in by lunchtime but its not the same.

Funny though about psychology, as Robbb’s FTSE chart reminds me – I have found myself sweating far more over $5 a point on an index than I have trading $100 per cent on a given stock

Much to learn and will tread softly for a little while…