The Student Loan Ranger

Level 2/TA era still poisoned with fundamentals and trading errors

This part links to a series of posts I made beginning with me just learning about technical analysis. At this point I was trading UK stocks on a swing basis, but still favoured fundamental approaches to my stock picking rather than purely TA. This period lasted about 6 weeks as I developed the new skills and there was a good mix of wins and losses. After that and to the back section of this post I got quite good at making calls based on technical analysis and my trading picked up.

This era also saw the start of my weekly Crystal Balling and Roundup posts and also the introduction of some sort of risk management to my trading. At around this point I began to lower my risk tolerance after some heavy blows at the start of my career.

Towards the end of this I had my first big win trading SOLA. After that (and in the next section) I went on a nice run of swing trades in a series of stocks I don't care about any more.

-----

“I do like TA but I just think it has to back it up with either strong balance sheets, good products, contract wins or a booming sector” Not anymore, I don't even care what the name of the company is lol.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/t.html first post about TA – BLVN was a blatant bearish wedge in retrospect.

“I watched quite a lot of videos last night on technical analysis - mostly from informedtrades.com and alphatrades.net. They were very interesting and insightful, and at the moment I'm a little shocked at my earlier trading tactics” NOW we’re talking! I remember this period, and was puzzled at why it took me so long to find technical analysis. I got really into it about here.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/down-like-clown.html The start of what would then become “crystal balling”

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/house-rules.html developed first set of trading rules but also features a potential dangerous love affair with CFDs. I can’t really remember if I stuck to these rules or not. I think I cut my loss on SEO around this point.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/crystal-balling-april-14th-18th.html first official crystal balling post featured TATA, BGC, LONM.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/afternoon-nap.html first intra-day action post with an early indication I was wearing thin of trading the uk market

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/disciplinary.html first post realising the mental demands of trading, in particular discipline and insight into overtrading. This was a bit of a wake up call.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/fridays-bell-end-of-week.html Applying TA to some stocks, but clearly lacking the skills and knowledge about risk:reward, entry and exit, measured moves, volume analysis, sector analysis. I hadn’t learned enough about the game to be making the kind of trades I was calling.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/weekly-round-up.html first weekly roundup post and beginning of excel programming relationship. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxkyYnHmBtyHBkLcX8RMj4yNL7_4qHgI2fgVtrRWaBGvTBOFXZLG6b0_7CisMNuIwFpP2v07musWZnIyCzfIxjPx66dqQm-TYpqtrKUJDwEtIFBhhjdsDnhWADoNMazmYYQKlu0cp2_Us/s1600-h/port.bmp not bad for week one really.

Funniest part of that post “BKG is a strong buy for me at the moment, nuff said” The chart imploded and crashed a few days later.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/crystal-balling-21st-to-25th-april.html stellar call on AAL. Amazingly accurate on BP too. The very first glimpse of risk management with the statement “but I would use some very very tight stops at about 457 just in case it doesn't want to reverse”. I should have looked into this sentence a lot more carefully, it’s simple but says so much about risk management.


http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/weekly-round-up_26.html ridiculously prophetic calls on bottoming price levels of NG. and ADM. Beginning to become very consistant at calling trade entries and TA.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/crystal-balling-april-28th-may-2nd.html for the first time, crystal balling includes specific details on the trade entries, with target prices. However, at this time stops were not included.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/midweek-wrap_30.html Anti Britian and the change in perception towards the UK market is confirmed in this post. I still believe every part of this rant.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/05/pattern-spotting.html me excelling at TA and developing new ideas. This pattern was pretty predominant for a while, though I haven’t seen it lately. I am unaware if this pattern exists in any textbook or is well known.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/05/crystal-balling-may-6th-may-9th.html crystal balling finally features stop loss limits. All analysis on this post was superb, with all targets hit. WTN was one of the biggest moves I ever anticipated, moving nearly 140% in the next 2 weeks.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/05/crystal-balling-may-12th-may-17th.html i am beginning to incorporate measured moves into my stock analysis. This post really shows the start of my love affair with SOLA, the best stock ever! Looking back I was really beginning to get great at TA, however it was mostly due to the charts at the time. Swing trading TA is significantly harder these days, given that most charts look like Victoria falls dropping into a sea of blood.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfvIwXhsjnDZFCQJPYIehYSkVMo36_7HCd-Ag8_CnwUB-oWaf2ZkZHnB7JJaURs_cGuoqDrdrDFN8hT9H9mCskYJ9OIUT3AKwIJMxOAv9m69iasgJ2d1TMfi3oZINbQcXDHz4sZBfqZU/s400/sola.gif Is this not laughable? This is the standard of charting you can expect to find in the UK. No interaction, no adjusting timescale, no dealing from charts, no indicators or studies. I used to pay £20 a month for this garbage! Now I get a service about 100 times better for nothing!

From time to time I notice I get visitors coming to my blog from google, having searched for “ADVFN versus QuoteStream”. If you have come here after typing that and have come across this post; here is my advice: Do not sign up for Quotestream or ADVFN – both are utter garbage and a complete waste of time. Do not trade the UK markets full stop. Spent some time learning TA, get some money together (>£3500) and open a US broker account with ‘Interactive Brokers’ or ‘Think or Swim’. You get this information for free and trust me, it’s at least 100 times better.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/05/intra-day-action.html perfect trading of SOLA and my first big win.