'Odd Ball'

Investing Strategies Technical Trader's Sanctuary
#1

‘OddBall’ is a tank commander in the movie Kelly’s Heros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlr6m2AWskg This is the clip that’s relevant.

Oddball: This engine’s been modified by our mechanical genius here, Moriarty. Right?
Moriarty: Whatever you say, babe.
Oddball: These engines are the fastest of any tanks in the European Theater of Operations, forwards or backwards. You see, man, we like to feel we can get out of trouble, quicker than we got into it.

Apply that insight to trading, and your goal becomes a set of rules designed to get you out of trouble “faster than you got into it”, or --even better-- to avoid trouble in the first place by being very picky about which “Buy” signals you act on and by getting out of positions at the least hint of trouble, rather than hanging around and hoping.

In fact, Tushsar Chande has cataloged the four possible approaches one can take:

Fast in, Fast out.
Slow in, Slow out.
Fast out, Slow out.
Slow in, Fast out.

Each has its upsides/downsides, its advocates and detractors. Quill’s ‘Simon Says’ system is symmetrical. You exit on a reversal of the conditions that got you in, and the time frame doesn’t matter. The latter two approaches to entries/exits can also be used in any time frame. Where they differ from the first two is in the weight of
evidence each action might require.

E.g., if you’re making your decisions on the basis of a three panel chart (such as below), there can be as many as five different things providing signals. You could use a voting system and decide to act on 3 out of 5 agreement to get you in, just as you could require 3 out of 5 agreement to get you out. But Odd Ball wouldn’t agree. He’d want all the pieces of evidence to be positive in order to get in, and he’d exit if even one of them turned negative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlr6m2AWskg

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#2

Follow-up on exiting fast.

Take a look at this chart. https://www.barchart.com/shared-chart/DIS?chart_url=i_165739… Everything looks pretty good, right? There seems to be nothing to worry about. However, if a flexible interpretation of ‘Doji’ is used, then the two-candle pattern at the hard, right-hand edge of the chart has flashed a warning sign.

The late Norm North defined the pattern this way. The Doji Star(-) pattern is a two-day, bearish, reversal pattern. The pattern begins with a long white day that occurs during an uptrend. The next day gaps even higher, but prices trade within a relatively small range and then close at or near the open.

What’s a ‘long’ day is relative to what has gone before, and the candle body on 5/27 is clearly longer than most preceding ones. Not as long as the long candles seen in some charts, but ‘long’ enough. Likewise, what is or isn’t a ‘doji’ (or a ‘hammer’) is relative. But I’d call it ‘doji enough’. Had I gotten into DIS on 5/26, I’d now be ready to exit at next day’s open at market purely on the basis of this candle pattern alone. Its single negative vote would be enough to kick me out of the position, never mind that all other pieces of evidence in the chart are positive.

Now, note what does happen the next day. Prices gap up again for the fourth day in a row, but then turn down for the day, partially filling the gap. https://www.barchart.com/shared-chart/DIS?chart_url=i_165739… From there, things go downhill. In fact, retrospectively, the day is marked as the lookback high. https://www.barchart.com/shared-chart/DIS?chart_url=i_165739…

Clearly, this is a cherry-picked example, and things don’t always work out so well. Sometimes, exiting fast leaves money on the table. So you gotta decide what you’re comfortable with doing. Me? "Better a missed opportunity than a realized loss.

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