Riding the peaks and troughs of the S&P but not very well
Today I thought to myself that if I could ride the peaks and troughs of the market, I could capture more of the profits. I am finding that I tend to chicken out at about +10 prices or so…. if I am to capture more profit, I’ll need to ride through a couple of peaks and troughs. Stock prices and any type of financial chart never moves up in a straight line.. it dips and peaks as it goes up and down.
Anyway, as you can see, the first trade was a short when the market approached making a triple top. Unfortunately, it went beyond this and I got out at a scratch trade.
Then I went long at 139775 and the market did go my way all the way up to 139000 but the trough was a bit deep and hi my stop at 139575 for -8…. grr… it hit it almost exactly before it went up again to hit 139000 again.
At this point, I shorted at 139850 and I could see this could be a good entry… this was a triple top near the 139000 level.. just 2 prices shy of this. The market moved down and hit the trough at 139350 and then went up to form a peak. I was hoping that there would be move below after the next peak… unfortunately, once again, the peak ended up going higher than I had expected and I closed out for +4.
The thing is, the peak was shortlived and the price action tanked to beyond 139000.. darn, this would have been a really good move and profit level. I had missed out on 35 prices of profit which is extremely frustrating.
Todays total was -4… it could have been very profitable… so close, yet so far!
