Oh man, I can't believe this, hah! It took Zecco 15 minutes to fill a buy order for TWM. A Short fund that I like to buy when I want to short the market. I wanted to get right at the open as I saw nothing but huge amounts of stock being distributed in big volume. I wanted to get in at 71-71.20 but got filled at 71.56 Stop point is at 70.50
I'll be scaling out at 2% gain increments. When I hit my first 2% I'll move my stop to break even.
I'll post the chart when the trade ends.
Went short a little late but I thought the sell off had more juice in it to keep going. Got in on TWM at 71.19 just under resistance but it was looking good. It shot through resistance and turned it into support which was a good sign. It had one more last leg up and peaked and I thought I should unload some shares at this point but I didn't (I was waiting for a 3% gain to unload instead of a 2%, a little aggressive). I was stopped out at 70.40
I held on as it was going neutral. I did notice something that told me I should sell. TWM was on a downtrend but was holding support. A clear sign that a breakdown is in the works. What made me hold on was that I heard a tid bit on CNBC and some guy thought we'd be going lower before the close. That's the only thing that kept me in. If I hadn't heard that there's a pretty good chance I would of got out. CNBC is killin me. I like watching it because it's entertaining and I never do what they talk about unless it's the opposite. But this time it just got stuck in my head and bounced around and I wouldn't sell because of that.
Very pleased with with my performance and how I handled ONXX. I watched to see which stocks were being accumulated right at the open and ONXX shi9ned right away up about 50% in daily volume in the first 5 minutes of the open. Pulled up the chart and saw it had some resistance to break through at 52.50 before I'd get in.
A few minutes later, the next thing I know it's up at 53 and jumping around higher. I waited for a small pullback and got in at 53.05. Saw a nice move right after that as the buying volume kept pouring in and sold half my shares at 53.71 and raised my stop to 53. I let the last bunch of my shares ride it out until it either looked like it might reverse or hit my imaginary trailing stop. It kept rising and when hit it 55 I raised my trailing stop to 54. Right after that It seemed to pullback pretty hard and got down to 54.02 not exactly my stop point but I sold when it hit that point and got out at 54.12
Right after that it looked to jump higher. I should of held my ground and waited for it to really hit my target of 54 instead of chickening out and bailing when it was only 2 cents above it. Could of extracted a little more but overall, I'm very happy with my performance.
Took a shot at QID again. This time I felt confident in the trade. I was watching QID fall down as the market was rallying up and it looked like a good time to short the market for a quick pop. QID was right above some support and as the candle was forming it stayed a Doji for a while before it finished as a tall white candle. I got in during the Doji time. I waited for it to rally a little as it did and once I felt a good time to unload came around I got rid of 50% of my shares. At that same time I raised my stop to 34.90 to bring a risk free environment. I watched it a few more minutes and decided to unload the rest at 35.03 as the ride seemed to be close, if not already, over.
See, if I just would of been patient earlier instead of making those idiotic trades I could of really traded this. I tried putting in the order but apparently I don't have anymore buying power. Bummer... Patience young Grass Hopper...
I got stopped out of CROX but I'm happy with the overall trade. CROX was up on some really good volume. I think around 90% of their daily volume in the 30 minutes. That got me interested so I pulled up the chart and watched the rally. Saw it pullback which I was also looking for and got in. Once I was in it established support which I liked. I had a target of 43.40 to sell 50% of my shares. Once I sold half I was going to raise my stop to break even so I could have the rest of my shares in a risk free environment.
CROX was following the market very closely and started falling as the Q's were heading down and the beginning of the sell off started. I got stopped out around 62.20 and I got in at 43.05 My plan was executed flawlessly. Once I got stopped out subconsciously I'm sure I was mad that's probably why I went to go chase QID on the rally.
Basically I went chasing after a rally. Market was falling and kept breaking support after support and I eventually went short at the bottom. I'm pissed about this trade because I did something that I'm trying to get myself not too. I'm working on the fact that I don't need to be trading every single day chasing opportunity. Every time I do that, I lose money, over and over and I can't get it into my head that trading like that is wrong.
Again, what I need to focus on is being carefree, but not reckless. What I'm doing now is being carefree and reckless. Man, that's easier said than done.
I got out before my stop was hit because it stopped acting the way I wanted it too. Looked like the decline was over and realized I made an idiotic trade.
WCRX had a nice volume increase about an hour or so after WIND and ERES did. It peaked above some resistance I believe that turned into support and I got in at 19.01 It stayed steady for the most part for about an hour almost. The market had a wide spread sell off which caused WCRX to finally break its steadiness and dip a little down. I got stopped out at 18.90
As I'm writing this it seems to be hovering around 18.87 and on very low volume. Could see a comeback after this dip now that the market seems to be rallying back up a tad bit.
Saw WIND when it was up around 100% of it's daily volume in the first 30 minutes of the opening. A very good sign. Pulled up the chart and waited for it to pullback to establish some support levels, which it did. However, I didn't pull the trigger on what I thought looked to be a good buy. I hesitated and missed the spike up again.
So I waited a little more and decided to take a relatively big risk and get in at 13.17 which at the time looked to be right under resistance, the opposite side I would normally buy on. My reasoning was the volume was now up about 150% and the buyers were greater than the sellers buy a huge number. So I got in wanting to ride a small wave up to about 13.30 Well my plan worked out but my target never got hit while the stock seemed to be stuttering to get up so I got out at 13.22 and at the moment of writing this looks to be close to the top of that small move.
The morning run looks to be over and I won't be surprised if today turns into a slow neutral day.
Looking at the SPY 15 year chart you can see that we're basically at the top. The highs we are at right now are back from the .com bubble back in 00/01. If you look closely you can see that we had a false breakout above those levels (red line) and pulled back immediately. It's ironic how we have a credit crisis right at the time of this top. Maybe this is what we'll be blaming the bear market on when we're actually in the middle of it. Leads me to believe that we might not have enough strength at the moment to really blast through these highs.
We have a lot of uncertainty and mild fear at the moment about the market. I think this will eventually turn into bigger fear and eventually full blown panic as we're watching the market decline more and more. I mean come on, this market seems to be held up buy 3 stocks, RIMM, GOOG, and AAPL. The market's been stuck at or around the same levels for about 2 weeks.
I think waiting for more fundamentals to come out is crap. We're putting up false hopes that the market will get better if we just wait one more day to see what it does. Well, I'm gonna be bold and come out and say I think we're in the early stages of a possible bear market.
Traded PRGO a little late in the day and late in the rally. I was watching it move all day as I was in CPHD and ERES, lol. Saw it pullback a little and got in at the perfect time. Which was interesting because I felt really uncomfortable doing the trade but I also felt really confident. Something I didn't feel during those other 2 trades. In fact, I felt like I made a mistake right when I bought CPHD but I held on anyway to give it a chance.
I had a target of 29.20 when I got in at 28.91 with a stop at 28.60 PRGO hit my target of 29.20 but I never pulled the trigger. I got that thought in my head again that, oh it'll go higher. Well, it didn't basically peaked and fell again. I had my finger on the trigger as I was watching it come back down and sold on reaction when it hit 28.99
I'm not too worried about selling immediately when I get to a loss on a stock. That part I can handle but I need to focus more on selling when it hits my target. I think I might start using sell orders when it hits my price target and keep using my mental stop losses until I can sell immediately when it hits my target instead of waiting around for it to go higher and then holding it as it comes back down.
Traded ERES right after CPHD. It was a bad trade. I tried catching the wave and basically got in on the top. I sold out before it hit my stop though. Got in at 9.63 and got out at 9.39 and my stop was at 9.10... Bad trade.
Unfortunately, I decided to go long just before this wide spread sell off started, haha. Everything looked good, right when I got in on CPHD at 25 everything started to fall, I was a little annoyed. I got stopped out at 24 and it looks to be hovering around it for now. I wouldn't be surprised if it starts to rally right now lol. Isn't that how it usually works? Get stopped out just before a rally? Oh well, I should of put my stop at a better spot.
Thought I'd go short again. I missed the quick morning sell off and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to get in on it after the fact. I got in on QID which is a QQQQ Short Fund at 34.56 which was higher than what I wanted. I initially wanted to get in at 34.50 I just sold right now at 34.44 because I didn't like the way it was acting. It was jumpy and neutral and the volume was low. It was showing a lot of small bodies with big wicks, something I don't like seeing a lot of one after another. So, I decided to get out and clear my head.
I went short by buying the SDS Short Fund about 2 hours before the announcement. I had a feeling they wouldn't cut because I didn't want them to cater to market expectations. But, they did cut rates on par with what the market was expecting and everything sold off. Which doesn't quite surprise me as we already had the "cut rate rally" before the announcement so now that we know the fed did what we wanted, the rally isn't there anymore. Expectations have been met.
Anyway, I got in at 49.92 I told a couple people I was going short and everyone laughed at me so I knew I was doing the right thing. I sold out at 50.44 and SDS continues to climb as I'm writing this. Just under 50.80. It's really volatile though huge jumps and then comes back down. But I'm happy with my decision.
I got in on DSX a little too early. I didn't plot out the resistance and got in just under it. When I bought it is when I decided to draw the resistance lol, which is the top red line on the chart. Then it made sense as to why it was struggling to break those levels. Had a quick dip which is when I should of gotten in as it bounced off support but what's done is done.
it advanced up to a peak of 63 which was my target but once I saw it hit that level, I'm like, "oh, it'll keep going" Wrong, it dipped again and seem to struggle at the resistance line again so I dropped my target to 42.90 which was the new top of the down trend line. I wasn't going to miss this again so I put in a limit order to bail out at 42.90. It hit my point and I got out.
Since then, DSX seems to have pulled back slightly, it could keep going higher but I don't know if it has the strength to break 43 and keep going. I mean, it's already up about 8% which doesn't mean that much but considering the environment I think that's a substantial gain and profit taking could be happening later today but I don't know.
Went short this morning by buying SDS at 50.36 and got out before the market started reversing again at 50.43 Very small trade like the last few I've made. I feel really really confident making these scalp trades.
I feel my risk is a lot lower compared to holding a stock overnight, or weeks or months. Plus I lower my risk even more by accounting for the volatility in the stock and adjusting my position size accordingly. So my risk is very very low compared to my reward. This fits in with my personality as I'm a relatively impatient person but I've developed the patience to wait for opportunities now.
The volatility right now in the markets make what I'm doing fairly easy in my opinion. I just ride the waves up and down, trying to make a little cash in a sideways environment.
I went long on SCON right after I went short. The market started turning and the stocks I have in my "hot seat" watch list were starting to turn tot he upside. I got in on SCON at that moment. Got in at 13.20 and got out at the top of the candle at 13.60 which seemed to be the high for that time and about 20 minutes after that.
I'm probably going to call it a day as I'm low on buying power and I can't keep buying the same stock over and over (SDS) even though I want to keep going short on these small dips. So, we'll see what happens. Maybe a rally will happen at the end of the day.
My little fiasco on Friday got me a little worried. I couldn't get out of stock due to some crappy over protection laws by SEC. Anyway, I got out of TWM this morning at 62.20, 20 cents above my initial stop loss point so I'm happy about that. This is the intra day chart for this morning so far. The chart for TWM on Friday should be a couple posts down under General Update.
I figured I'd post an update of everything going on in the last couple days instead of making a bunch of posts for each topic.
First order of business: I bought a second 20inch widescreen monitor. This one will be solely for keeping charts on. It'll hold about 6 charts, each one being a decent size. I'm excited about this. I bought it because I'm getting to the point where it's hard to manage a couple charts, all my watch lists (about 6 of them) and manage my orders on one 20 inch monitor. This new monitor will allow me to keep my watch lists and my charts separate. I can manage my orders and watch lists on my current monitor and the second monitor will be dedicated to at the most, 6 charts.
I ordered this off Newegg.com I love this place for computer stuff.
Second order of business: I'm going to be writing up a detailed business plan for trading. I have it in my head but I feel it'll be better in the long run if I transfer my thoughts into a hard copy. That way I can go back and review it without having to remember it and I can modify it as I develop as a professional trader.
I found two sources with information on how to go about creating a business plan specifically for active traders.
Trading-Plan.com and Tradingwinner.com are the two sites I've printed out and I'll be going over both of them and jotting down my responses to these questions. I'll then elaborate more on each response and organize them into a well defined business plan that I'll keep and modify over time.
Third order of business: This I'm a little bummed about. Basically what happened is today I made my 3rd trade of TWM this week which happens to be a 5 day period. I didn't realize that at the time as I put in my buy order of TWM at 63.88 I put in my stop at 62 but I didn't double check to see if it actually went through and waiting in que. When the time came around for me when I thought it was a good time to sell, I canceled my stop order and put in a market order to sell. Well, I double checked this time around to see if it sold or not, and it never sold. Said I had insufficient resources. Now, I'm stuck with a losing position until probably Monday when I'll try and sell it again.
I'm not too worried about the loss though. I adjusted my position size accordingly to where I put my stop and since I'm getting over a losing streak I've cut my risk per trade in half. So, even though I'm in the red, the overall loss is very minimal. If TWM breaks 62 I'll start getting worried but it looks like it's been hovering around 63. So, the situation isn't as bad as it seems, financially anyway.
Green arrow was my entry early this morning when I thought it would be a good move to go short. Which it turned out to be good but a few minutes before 9:30 when I wanted to get out, I couldn't. So I was stuck watching TWM go all the way back down and now we're hovering around 63. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed.
You might have noticed that I deleted my Covestor Badge on the left which displayed my performance. I was up about 25% a couple months ago and now I'm down about 20%. The dip in performance was mainly me trying to figure out my methods. Unfortunately I had to use my capital to figure it out because I feel it's the best way. No one knows how they will react to something until the shit hits the fan. I've learned tremendously what works for me and what doesn't based on that.
Also, I can tell it's been screwing with my Ego. There's been a few times where I won't get out of a losing trade because I don't want it to hurt my performance trend line and I'll wait and wait and all I'm thinking about is Covestor and how I compare with other traders. I was thinking about this late last night before I went to bed. I noticed that Covestor added a new Ranking section so you can see how you fare against other traders. I saw all the people making 800% and it bummed me out. So, I won't be having that badge up here anymore. It's not about winning and losing money it's about making good or bad trades and I feel I've been making a lot of good trades even though they turned out to be losers because I traded my plan.
I need to focus on what I do, not what everyone else does and then compare myself to them. That's what I've been doing and it's messing up my ability to think objectively.
Made a very small trade this morning, haha. Got in on TWM at 64.02 and got out at 64.39 As I'm writing this TWM seem so be rallying up higher than my exit point. Which is cool, I'm glad there's people out there making money. In retrospect, yeah, I should of held on but I'm happy with what I did.
Basically rode a wave down in the channel that the market is in. Buy low sell high. It's kind of easy now considering we haven't broken the high or low channel lines for a couple weeks now.
Below is an intra day chart of the QQQQ's. It's in 3 minute increments over a 10 day period I believe. We can see by the red and green lines that we're stuck in this tight channel. Buy low sell High would apply at this moment for active traders. Investors, I don't know, I don't know how to invest so I don't know what to tell you, haha.
Below is a chart of my TWM trade, my tiny, TWM trade, haha. Entry and exit points are in green and red arrows.
