Wasn't working out. It was a bad stock to begin with. It had a nice run which got me interested but the volume wasn't there. I think I'm just getting frustrated. I've either sold or been stopped out 12 times now. I forgot what it's like to see a stock actually bring a profit.
Got out at 15.90 Again, another stock that fizzled out.
The gap in the price is because QT crashed on me and had to restart.
This one I like as well. It's trying to make new weekly highs. Got in at 11.16 and stop is at 10.85 Green is entry, black is stop, yellow are the support/resistance lines I drew.
I really like this trade. JDSU looks to be breaking out of this channel it's been stuck in for about a week or so. I waited for it to hit 16 which would be the top of the channel and got it at 15.99 I set a stop at 15.65 which is roughly a 2.5% drop and is also a low for the day.
Green line is my entry point. I bought it during that tall white candle and the black line is my stop. I'll hold it until I either get stopped or take a profit where the stock might be turning around. Don't know exactly how I'll determine when I'll get out but I'll know when I'm in the moment.
Bought DRYS at 117.00 It was touching the lows of the day. It made a double top and fell and I thought it might turn around at the low of the day. I set a stop at 115.90 and got stopped out a few seconds later. It continued to fall which it probably will for a while since it break the lows of the day.
It's funny how I've been watching this stock since it was around 85 bucks and the one time I decide to buy it I lose money on it. I'm weird..
I was trying to catch a falling knife and I got what I deserved but I felt good about the trade, it just didn't work out. I didn't fully wait for the 3 minute candle to fully develop, I saw a doji at the time and it went bullish but finished negative. I need to fully wait for the candles to develop before making a decision.
Green arrow is my entry and red arrow is where I got stopped out.
Found an interesting article this morning about Alcoa's weaker earnings at yesterdays close.
Wall Street on Wednesday took back a piece of Tuesday's record gains after missed estimates from blue-chip aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. and a profit warning from International Paper Co.
"We're beginning to see some negative earnings reports come out," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.
"Percentage-wise, I would expect more disappointments than pleasant surprises, so for the next week or so we could see this market give up 3% to 5% on slower earnings growth," Cardillo said.
No surprise here. ICOC had a quick run and as fast as it went up it quickly fizzled out and I got sucked into it. I had a super tight stop because I knew it was pretty much done for but I still wanted to give it a shot to the upside. If it fell I thought it'd probably keep heading down. Got stopped out 14.77
Plus, the markets have been really neutral lately, not too much has been going on. Probably in anticipation for earnings season next week so I shouldn't get too hopeful when it comes to getting a winner this week. I'm still keeping an eye out though.
Got in at 14.92. Stop is at 14.85 I liked how it is just under key resistance at 15 and If it breaks 15 it could keep going higher. Risk is minimal but the potential gain could be relatively big. We'll see what happens.
Green line is my entry and black line is my stop.
Man, I don't know how to invest for the long term. My brain is so hard wired now for day trading. If I was going to trade LDK I wouldn't of bought it. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I saw it making new highs pre market and got all excited.
I have my IRA at eTrade and since I bought it with cash from another trade (CHNG, made 20%) and it never settled I may be subject to a 90 day holding period, lol. I need to preserve what gains I've made so far if I'm going try and get it back to where it was before.
I'll probably buy some mutual fund or ETF for it. Something slow and steady.
I'm not even going to post the chart as it doesn't matter. Got out at 42.50
Bought LDK for my IRA this morning. Got in at 44.50 Time frame for this guy will be 2 weeks at the most. LDk has been up huge for months now and I like how it's pulled back to the mid 40's. It's a good solid stock, I like where it's been and I like where it's going.
Doesn't really surprise me as it seemed kind of fizzled out when I bought it and there wasn't much time left in the day. Worth a shot though. Lost about 1.5% of my overall portfolio. Got stopped out at 16.78.
Bought ISIS at 16.99. Saw it move and thought I'd get in. I probably got in a little late in the day since I only have a couple more hours before the close but I thought I'd give it a shot. Stop is at 16.75
We'll see how it plays out.
I bought CHNG for my IRA mid last week I believe at 7.50 and sold it a few minutes ago at 9.00 A nice 20% move which is good because I took a huge hit about 6 months ago (lost about 40%, long story haha) and I'm trying to get it back. The chart below might look a little confusing. It's a 3 day intra day chart on a 3 minute interval. Red lines are resistance levels. Green box on the left was my entry and red box on the right was my exit. I didn't take intra day entry and exit snap shots as I wasn't planning on putting my IRA trades here but now that I have, I'll start doing it.
Reason why I bought CHNG was because over the summer it had a huge spike and I was trading the spike for about a week and made a killing. All I know about CHNG is that it's a Chinese Oil company or something like that. Since we've been having this huge China boom lately I thought I'd go back and pick this stock since I knew it was Chinese and it provided nice gains in the past and it's obviously worked out well for me. I'll probably be buying this again if it comes back down.
Risk management in my opinion is so absolutely crucial that I'd like to share with you how I determine my risk. Determining your risk before you trade is something a huge amount of traders/investors don't do. Why don't they do it? Because pre defining their risk tells them that they could lose and we all know people don't like losing. Well, if your trading to sustain yourself financially as I am doing now and plan on too in the future then you need to realize that a lot of your trades will be losers.
Now, what we need to do is figure out how much we'll be ok with losing on each of those trades instead of letting them run wild before we feel like puking before we finally sell them for a loss. Screw that noise. If I see a loser I get rid of it ASAP and preserve my capital so I can trade to see another day lol. Without capital my business is done for.
Onward and upward, this is how I determine how much to lose on any one trade.
For example, let's say we have $2,000. It's easier to do in my head with this amount. Ok, the first thing I do is look at how much capital I have and figure out 1% of that. 1% of 2,000 is 20. The reason I use 1% is because it's what I'm personally comfortable losing on any one trade and if I'm on an 3-5 or more trade losing streak losing 1% isn't that big of a deal.
So now we know how much we can lose on any one trade, 20. Now I figure out how much cash I can use. Depending on how volatile the stock is, I'll either pick a 4% stop or a 2% stop, you can use a 6% stop if you really like those crazy volatile stocks. How much cash can I use in order the stock to go against me 4% yet, still maintain a maximum of a $20 loss?
6% stop you can use a maximum of $350
4% stop you can use a maximum of $500
2% stop you can use a maximum of $1,000
Notice that as the percentage amount we risk declines, we use more cash. The more volatile a stock, the less cash we put in. This idea of risk management is one of many out there you can use but I like this one because no matter what stock I get in, I already know how much I'll lose. Once I know that, I'll start looking for stocks that have maximum potential for an upward run. That's when looking for 3:1 risk/reward comes into play now that we know how much we can lose, how much can we gain?
Wow, can't believe how much the markets are up. The only significant piece of news today was the unemployment rate which stayed the same at 4.7% It's funny how the general public of traders over react to good news and always over reacts on bad news.
These reports that came out today aren't the "holy grail" were looking for to determine if we're going into a recession or not or if the feds need to cut rates again. There is no "holy grail" that will let us know everything is ok. Only time will let us know what's going on and the more time we have the more it'll help build confidence or fear into people. So far it looks to be building confidence, doesn't mean we'll stay confident in the future though.
I'd like there to be some kind of sell off at the end of the day. That'll tell me that people recognize this upswing as too much and start taking profits. If not, then this could lead into next week and then maybe have some kind of sell off next weak. Either way it'll happen it's just a matter of when.
Overall we're looking good. Dow, SP, Nasdaq are all up big, volatility is down almost 2 points. How long will this last?
Zecco finally has my cash and I'll have buying power tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see what's out there.
On another note, I bought all kinds of books to keep me busy after market hours.
- Think for Yourself by Robert P. Crawford
- The Ruminator by Humphrey Neill
- The Nature of Risk by Justin Mamis
- Famous Financial Fiascos by John Train
- Speculation: It's Sound Principles and Rules for Its Practice by Thomas Hoyne
- Dance of the Money Bees: A Professional Speaks Frankly on Investing by John Train
Can't wait until these come in. I've read everything on my "Books I Love" list twice already not to mention all the other books I didn't add to that list. Time for some fresh content.
Still waiting on my cash to settle in Zecco so I can get the action going. While I'm waiting I'm paper trading some stocks I see opportunities in.
LDK was up pre market which got my interest because most of the times LDK is up pre market it tends to keep going. Especially when the overall market is in positive territory.
The green line on the chart represent my entry at the time. I got in at 6.35am PST with a price of 52 a share. Set my stop at 51 which is the black line. LDK rallied upward and I sold half my shares of 100 at the bottom yellow line which is 55.35. Saw it pullback and when I noticed it seemed to bottom out just above support, I got ready to sell my second half (50) of shares. I waited it to make a move above 57.34 to break that pivot point but it never did at the time so I dumped the last 50 at 56.20 (top yellow line). For a nice sized gain for the day.
haha, yeah yeah. I'm moving back to Zecco. I figured I'm going to be paying fees either way and I don't trust myself having such quick access to making trades. I don't want to get too trigger happy and make a bunch of stupid trades.
Plus, I like Zecco.
I'll be ready to rock n roll Friday morning or Monday morning.
Today's been a weird day for the market. I didn't pick up any stocks that were up big pre market nor did I pick up any momentum stocks. Usually I'll pick up GOOG or AAPL or GS or BIDU as that's all they've been doing the last 2 weeks. Kind of weird to wake up with no alerts. I thought my Internet was down or something.
Man, this is rough. Watching opportunities fly by you and you can't capitalize on them. I was watching CTDC and pretended to buy it at 7.50 when it got stuck in that channel. Could of made roughly 20% if I held it for the day. I would of been done trading for the next 2 months if I made that. No big though, these things happen every day. I'm itching to trade though. No latter than mid-next week I think I'll be back in business.
I'm currently with Zecco.com right now because of the free commission trades. Well today their basically cutting back on the free trades and raising the fee. Now Zecco is just like any other broker and if I'm going to be with any other broker I might as well have one that integrates with
Quote Tracker
I'll be moving to MBTrading.com Hopefully everything will be all said in done in one week from today. Until then, I'll be paper trading. I might post up some screen shots on my paper trades but we'll see.
