Official Room Calls: 3/4 trade green for a total of +7.8 points (+2.8=[3/5 * (2/3*10 + 1/3*-6)], +14, -9) or +2.6 points per trade per contract.

Track-record wise, a pretty ho-hum day, but to be fair to ourselves, there were many non-official calls which our traders did capitalize on. Of note today is the large gap down that had formed in the morning of 42 points which was filled during the deadzone period (lunchtime doldrums). We do not play the gap in the classical way but do keep tabs on the gap effect (the tendency for the index futures markets to gravitate towards yesterday's closing price level) as it does have a bearing on our own trading. Our MaxSpan (opening range breakout/breakdown) system trade was net green, although the gains were modest this time. Systematic trades such as the gap fill trade or MaxSpan which have clearly defined rules and are easy to execute (the rules and parameters vary, but those who play them correctly always stick to a well-defined set of rules and execute them systematically) have the pitfall of large drawdowns and the tendency to tweak the executions (which can decrease the profitability and overall effectiveness of the system). For example, after the crushing 60-70 point loss on the gap trade from last Friday, if gap fill system traders did not stick to their plan and shied away from following their strategy, they would have lost out on decent gains this week which recouped the losses of last week.

So far Alex has called his trades 157 correct out of 199 trades, with 1 BE trade. Great work Alex! :D

Text Transcript (all time stamps are in EST): http://puretick.com/chat_logs/paltalk_log_011007.html

Executions/Track Record: http://www.puretick.com/trkrecord.html

Audio Transcripts:
Morning Session (subscribers only): http://puretick.com/member/audio_logs/alex_01102007_morning.mp3
Afternoon Session (subscribers only): http://puretick.com/member/audio_logs/alex_01102007_afternoon.mp3

Related Blogs/Podcasts:
Morning Session: http://www.puretick.com/blog/?p=62
Afternoon Session: http://www.puretick.com/blog/?p=63