I'll probably be keeping my eye on things for the next two weeks, but I doubt that I'll do much trading. There's too much going on right now to worry about a thinly traded market. I might chime in here and there, but for now, I wish everybody happy holidays. We made it through the most insane market in years. Here's to hoping '09 is a little more predictable!
I've been a bit busy with stuff the last couple of days and I haven't had a chance to watch the market at all. It's actually kind of nice to be able to go back after the market close and find trade setups. It's so much more easy when it's not in real-time.
Friday looks like another busy day, so I'll probably stay out until next Monday.
I was dashing back and forth from my computer today and I really shouldn't have been trading, but I just can't give it up! It ended up OK, with a 4.4R gain. I probably would be upset with myself if I had lost money today.
I got out too soon on my successful trade as the market had a lot further to go. I was just so tired of being burned and I knew I wouldn't be able to monitor things. With the way trades have gone lately, I'm happy to finally make a nice gain. We'll see if my fortune continues. I still plan to trade very lightly for the rest of the year.
This past week was the busiest of the year for me, so I haven't been posting or trading. I did take a couple of dumb trades on Friday and lost a couple of "R". Hey, that's just the way I roll.
I will be transitioning with my work and with my future plans in the next couple of weeks and I'll keep everybody informed as things happen. I'll probably limit my trading for the next couple of weeks as I have an overwhelming number of things to get done.
I'll attempt to post as I have time.
My day was a wash. I was up $1,000 for a while, but things didn't go my way on a few trades. I found it difficult to trade today because the market flat-lined for several hours and didn't provide any decent setups.
The bulls should be encouraged by the last few days of trading. Things have really held up well despite everything that is going against the market right now.
I found this video of Peter Schiff to be quite entertaining. He really did a swell job predicting what would happen this year.
Although I lost a bit of money this week, I'm still chalking it up as a success. I was able to reign in my impulsive trading and slow things down dramatically by:
Yesterday I made two trades on DIA. The first trade was based on a bear flag that appeared around 11:30. I saw it developing and placed an order below it anticipating some dojis and a bounce off the 20EMA. Everything went according to plan, but things quickly reversed on me, and I stopped out around noon.
I had noticed the momentum divergence (MACD chart with yellow line) but I ignored it believing that there was no way the market could make gains after the dismal jobs report. Of course, whenever I assume something, I always get kicked in the pants. You would think I would have learned my lesson by now. Nope.
The second trade bailed me out. This time I paid attention to the divergence and bought at the moving average crossover a little before 2:00. I held on to near the close for a decent 2.34R gain.
Brian Shannon of Alphatrends provides an interesting and educational glimpse into his trading day. I think Brian's videos are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning technical analysis and market dynamics.
Corey Rosenbloom at Afraid to Trade continues to demonstrate how Elliot Wave analysis works on multiple time frames. I find Elliot Wave and Fibonacci numbers fascinating and Corey seems to have a knack for spotting patterns and a deep understanding of how markets work.
Charles Kirk demonstrates the rewards of discipline in trading and financial frugality.
Pradeep Bonde at Stockbee summarizes several popular trading books to help you find the one that meets your needs as a trader.
Tim Ferriss has a new TV show on the History Channel where he learns something in a week that usually takes 5 years to a lifetime. I left a comment on Tim's blog encouraging him to use his amazing abilities to learn how to manage his own money after he attended a Berkshire Hathaway meeting here in Omaha.
My "old school" or "dummy trades" today really helped me get back to the old feelings of unemotional trading. I avoided news, chat rooms, and many other bias-creating forms of information. That helped me focus on 30-minute charts and just a few candidates for trading.
I'll have to admit, I more fun trading today than I have had in over a month. I was even down $600 and it didn't bother me because I was trading what I saw and not what others were seeing.
My best trade today was CASY.
I took the trade after the narrow 10:30 candle on the 30 minute chart setting a protective stop (blue dotted line) right above the candle. The stock trended perfectly the rest of the day as you can see on the 5 minute chart.
I got jumpy as the market moved into positive territory and I sold when price broke the 9 period moving average. As in classic trends, the price bounced off the 20 MA and headed south for another nice drop into the close. I made 2.09R on the trade, but I missed out on another 3R. Part of my nervousness came because the market as a whole wasn't trending down (at the time I sold) and CASY was already down 13%. I thought the chances of it continuing down were slim.
I missed an opportunity on POT as well. Here's the 30 minute.
POT quickly moved in my direction and I moved my stop to break-even. I stopped out soon after and then POT moved down the rest of the day. I missed a perfect bear flag on the 5 minute chart.
I had a couple of long trades today that went against me. Overall, I made .87R on the day--my first positive day since November 19th.
November was my worst month since I started day-trading in August. I lost 2.73R for the month.
November also took a toll on me psychologically. I just couldn't seem to make things work week to week and I ended the month "Afraid to Trade" as Corey puts it. I avoided nearly the entire last week as the market rallied nearly 20%!
There are a few things that I think went wrong in November. First, I got caught up in shorter and shorter time frames to the point that I was getting stopped out of trades within minutes. Losing money that quickly created anxiety, so I'd lower my position size after my first or second loss. Often, when I finally hit a winner, my position size was so small that it didn't make up for the losses I took on the first couple of trades--which created more anxiety.
Second, I think I've tried to cram too much information into too small a time frame. What I mean by that is that I've learned an enormous amount of trading setups, techniques, indicators, patterns, etc., and too often I try to cram them in to every trading day, and I end up making too many trades in a frantic bid to "trade them as I see them".
Third, I let too much "noise" affect my trading. I read far too many blogs, listed to too many news programs, and spent way too much time in stock forums. Nearly every single time, when I traded based on some outside influence, I lost money--often very quickly.
Fourth, I made too many trades--83 in all. I traded 65 times in August and made 23R.
Fifth, the market seemed a lot more volatile in November, and many of my setups just weren't compatible with the type of volatility that we were experiencing. I should have been much more patient with my trades, and allowed the day play out a little more before I committed money.
When I started day trading in August there were days where I couldn't find a good setup, and I would end the day without trading a single stock. Lately it seems that I find dozens of setups which all seem to go against me.
I think I am going to try and step back from the five minute time frame to the 30 minute time frame that I was trading in August. I tried that today, and although I didn't find any good setups, I was much more relaxed and really felt good about staying out of the market because nothing "looked right".
I guess I should still feel good about how I'm trading. Last November I lost 17% trading the Zweig screen, and most of that disappeared in one week!
I decided not to trade last week with the Thanksgiving holiday and all that. Of course, last week turned out to be one of the most trade-worthy weeks in long time. Curses to you Mr. Market.
My job prevented me from trading yesterday which was an incredibly trade-worth trend day.
So I had a couple of hours today and the market see-sawed me out of a 1.5R loss. I'm getting a bit frustrated.
I'll be back tomorrow with a November wrap-up.
I was up a thousand bucks for about an hour today. I gave it all away and added more. Down 1.24R.
I struggled with several trades that were going my way early on. I felt like we were in a trend day so I wanted to hold on instead of taking profits early. Things didn't go my way and I ended up breaking even or losing on most of my trades.
One of my positive trades today was CBST.
CBST had a long period of consolidation and a tight bollinger band squeeze around 2:00. I thought the stock would shoot up a bit more than it did and I sold it as I saw the general market start to falter toward the close. Of corst CBST went on to finish the day near its high.
MVL looked to me like it had a nice bear flag setup in the direction of the general market.
It reversed and stopped me out and never made its "target".
My trade in POT was just stupid.
For some reason, I gut feeling that shorting POT was a good move. There was no real reason other than my "feelings" and as usual, the market rewarded my lack of edge with a 1R loss.
All day long I waited for a rally and played a couple of short rallies unsuccessfully. I kept my powder dry for a late afternoon rally. A meeting at 2:30pm went long and I rushed to my computer to watch the final minute of the 500 point rally that I missed. What a sucky week.
Today I lost 2.25R.
I was anticipating an oversold bounce today. We got a bit of a bounce for a short time. Then all heck broke loose again. You can almost anticipate a 300 point sell off or rally at the end of every day anymore.
We've sliced through the lows of 2003 now. Wow. It's pretty scary out there.
I lost 1.3R for the day.
I had the potential for a swell day. My self-doubt got me out of trades too early as the market gave up the ghost. My short trades could have brought in 10R. Here are the two that I could have made a nice return on.
There was really no excuse for my exit on TCO. I got tired of holding on to it after it gyrated for an hour. The market was in a solid downtrend and when I saw TCO touch the 20MA I got rid of it and broke even.
I'm too worried that the market will whipsaw me out of my positions and I've been way too quick to move my stops to break even for fear of losing. I've proven that if I let my trades pan out that I make more than when I monitor them too closely. It's still incredibly hard for me to watch a trade go against me even if it has only made a little bit of cash.
SYK was a little more iffy. I probably would have sold when price broke the 50MA around 3pm so my sell around 1pm netted me a bit more. Of course, in retrospect, holding until the close would have been the smartest move.
I had myself convinced that when the DJI hit 8100, that all sorts of heck would break loose and the market would rocket upward. Obviously, that didn't happen and once again my bias cost me. Van K. Tharp always emphasizes that we don't trade the markets--we trade what we believe about the markets.
I topped my emotional trading today with a ridiculous scalp play on DIA.
I thought when price broke the 50MA average that we were going to shoot upward. The market bounced off the 50 for a half hour and then plummeted. I was away from my computer for 45 minutes after I made the trade and came back to see that my stop had triggered and that the market was free-falling--just the opposite of what I had thought was going to happen. In addition to being humbled by my poor decision-making, I discovered that I had used a position size that was double what I intended. Dumb.
For the day I made a lousy .30R. I guess I shouldn't complain given the markets big declines, but I should have done better.
After analyzing my returns by day of the week, I discovered that my Tuesday returns averaged out to be negative. Today I continued the trend by losing 3.57R. I'm such a punk. Fortunately, I'm still trading half of my normal position size so I didn't lose an insane amount of money.
Here are my average "R" results since August for each day of the week.
Monday--2.20
Tuesday--(.51)
Wednesday--1.03
Thursday--.27
Friday--.70
So, it looks like I've got some things to figure out for my trading on Tuesday. I think maybe I grow too confident after a good day on Monday and figure I'm trading with "the house's money". I tend to throw my trading rules out the window and take impulsive trades that quickly turn on me.
Also, Tuesday is usually a busy day for me with meetings and appointments. I often try to "squeeze in" trades when I have time available. Obviously, that strategy hasn't worked out too well.
I remember the days when a tenth of a percent was considered a trading range. Today the Dow was bouncing between 8500 and 8375 and that was considered "range bound". The market made it difficult to find clear entries and exits for me today. There were some really good setups, but I got too jittery and didn't allow any of my trades to develop too much. I made 1.30R today, so it wasn't terrible.
Many stocks spent the day stuck in a range today, so I decided to trade a couple of Bollinger Band squeezes.
AOC started nicely but I raised my stop too soon and broke even. It continued higher and I missed out on a couple of "R" in gains.
I traded AMZN going the opposite direction (I shorted it). I had a good gain on it, but it turned on me (I ignored the signs to sell early). I made .50R on AMZN.
My main goal right now is to preserve capital while I continue to learn how to exploit the edges I see. My goal remains to crawl back to break-even returns for the year by the end of 2008. I'm still down about 15% YTD, so I've got a ways to go.
Last week AAII's Zweig Stock Screen had just 3 picks. That's the lowest I've seen since I started following the screen several years ago. This week there were just 4 picks (the numbers on the side are 26 week relative strength):
The top 5 relative strength stocks in the screen are down 50% year to date.
I was able to improve my performance this week after feeling a bit out of control over the last two weeks. I made 5.07R for the week. Unfortunately, I decreased my position sizes by half for the whole week, so my profits were cut in half as well. That's OK, because reducing my position size allowed me to get back to my old trading habits and kept me from getting overly emotional with each trade.
After my stupidity on Tuesday, I made it a priority to keep my losses small and avoid over-trading. I feel good about how the last three days ended up (a 5.25R gain). Now if I can just keep things in check and continue to trade this way, the month should end up pretty good (hopefully).
I had a hard time finding any good trades today. I placed a "fade the gap" trade after the open. It nearly filled and then headed back down. I made a piddly .34R on that one.
I made a bit over 1R on a quick scalp of SRS during the downward push.
My final trade came on a bear flag setup on NTRS. It was up over 1R but retraced back along with the rest of the market. I sold it for a .21R gain.
For the day I made 1.58R.
Yesterday's fake trend day got me all scared and so my trading today was pensive and skittish. After the bear flag failed at noon, I decided to call it today and took a paltry .42R on a day that was practically handing me setups. I had some afternoon appointments so it's all OK.
To show you the fractal nature of chart patterns look at the chart below. I originally posted this chart because I thought it was the chart for today. Actually it represents the last 6 days, but it's kooky how it has nearly the exact same pattern as the 5 minute chart for today.
Here's a trade that I wimped out on way too early today. I was following 30 minute charts today and noticed a narrow candle on MOS. It went on to follow the market down for the rest of the day.
Here's another trade I wimped out on. I took the trade after the bear flag, but when things reversed a bit, I got out for a tiny profit. If I had held until the end of the day, I could have made 5R.
It's important to take one day at a time. Every trade is different. I missed out on a potential 8.75R today because I let yesterday's trades affect my trading today.
Brett Steenbarger has some good advice on TraderFeed for guys like me when it comes to managing risk throughout the day. Today I lost more than I should have because I didn't follow my rules. Here's what Brett has to say:
"Every intraday trader needs to have--and enforce--a "drop dead" level for the day. That reflects the maximum loss you're willing to incur in a single day's trading. If you hit that level in a day, it tells you you're not seeing the market well and, like a pitcher on a bad outing, you need to get off the mound and call it a night.
In my own trading, I have--in addition to the drop dead level--a warning level that is roughly half of the maximum loss I'm willing to incur. If I hit that warning level, I drop my size (risk) and don't return to normal-size trading until I've worked my way out of the red for the day. By heeding the warning level and dropping my size, I give myself a chance to battle back. I also give myself an opportunity to participate in afternoon moves that could make my day. Dropping the size and waiting until I see markets well keeps me in the game."
I made the assumption that today was a trend day and quickly stopped out of several trades as the market broke through the 50MA. It came down just as quickly so I imagine a lot of traders got smacked around today.
I was too impatient with my trades today and I didn't really wait for confirmation from the averages or from the trades themselves. Take a look.
CVS was probably the closest thing to a good trade today. It went against me for a 2R loss, but I think the setup was there. I took the trade after the bear flag and made money until the reversal near 1:45pm.
DOW was my first trade of the day. I sold it short on the first red candle on the 20MA. It didn't take long for me to stop out as the stock headed for the 50MA. As it turned around, I thought I might have placed my stop too close, but the stock really didn't go anywhere and I would have been stopped around 2pm anyway.
I lost 3.42R today. I violated my rule of quitting after a 2R loss because I was convinced that the market would continue trending down. Dumb.
I went back to my trading journal to figure out why things don't seem to be working for me lately. What I discovered is that I have become much more impulsive with my trading. In August, I seemed to have a lot more patience. I traded only 11 days out of 20. My largest daily loss was 1.83R. I also was trading using 30 minute charts instead of the 5 minute charts that I've been using lately.
Here's the 30 minute chart for DOW.
On this time frame there is no clear entry point or trend. I should have used this chart to confirm whether DOW was a good trade or not.
Here's one that I was following but didn't take.
SOHU had a decent 4.23R potential with much less stress monitoring the 3o minute chart.
I think that I'm going to try and slow down a bit. I seem to do much better at a less frantic pace and my decision making seems to be less impulsive.
Today I traded the way I'm supposed to. I followed my plan, I avoided outside noise (I didn't read or listen to anything this morning), I chose stocks with clear setups, I had specific targets and I avoided emotion-laden, knee-jerk decisions.
The market rewarded me by giving back my losses from last Friday -- 4.37R.
Most of my gains (3.45R) came on one trade (out of the four I made today). Let's take a look.
I actually took two trades on NRG. The first was just after the bear flag formation. It petered around for 15 minutes and I sold it at break even. After that last doji near the 20MA I took another position and followed it down until it quit around 1 pm. I debated holding on, but I'm glad I got out.
I made my first "fade the gap" trade with DIA. I got nervous when things reversed a bit and I got out at break-even. I should have held on. Maybe next time.
Overall, I'm happy with how things went. I don't know why I got caught up in trading in ways that leave me feeling exhausted (and broke). I'm glad I made some money today because it will reinforce my trading plan and help me get back on track.
I threw all my rules out the window and traded like a true punk today losing $3,000 in the process. I was up $500 at two different times and still insisted on trading it away. The whipsaw late in the day wiped me out and I was done.
Unfortunately, I can't feel "good" about this loss since I made all the mistakes that I made last Friday--with the same results. I went for quick scalps while avoiding my bread and butter trades, I traded after I had lost 2R (ending up with a 4R loss), I followed the chatter on a stock chat room, and I didn't take profits when I had them.
So I turned an OK week into a crummy one. For the week I was down 1.67R. My frantic trading created nearly $400 in commissions.
I've got to get back on track and quit this stupidity.
It's hard to know what the market is going to do today. Futures were positive, but with the breaking news about unemployment being blasted all over the news, it's hard telling what chaos that will wreak on the markets. I think I'll sit out the first hour and let things settle out before I try any trading. Be careful out there!!
Today was a nearly perfect trend day (take a look at Corey's explanation), but I traded all day fearing a reversal. I made over 2R, but I could have made a ton more if I had just followed my instincts rather than worrying about being wrong.
All my trades were 10 minute scalps, so I don't have any good charts to show you. There were a ton of bear flags out there, but I was just too wimpy to take them.
There were so many opportunities out there today to go short, but nearly every one I took didn't work. I ended the day up about .36R.
I've never traded the indexes, but the DIA set up a nice bear flag about 12:30. It went on to make the target near the close after reversing for a bit. A stop on the declining 50MA would have insured a decent risk/reward return.
I was up over $1,000 on two stocks today. After moving my stops to break even, they -- broke even. I can't seem to get the knack for how to manage my stops so I can avoid losing but also keep my profits. Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better during this volatile market period to grab 1R profits whenever they appear.
Monday was good with a 1.38R gain on two trades. I gave all of that back today with a 1.77R loss. I'm avoiding the frantic trading that characterized last week.
Despite the record breaking downturn in October, I was able to survive the month with an 8.81R gain. Ironically, the last week of October was my worst. I was up nearly 15R for the month going into last week. I got too cocky and started trading for quick gains and got my clock cleaned with a 4.16R loss for the week.
I have some time to reflect over the weekend, and I know what mistakes I made. It takes me a long time to learn from my mistakes, but hopefully I won't be taking the same stupid emotional trades that I took last week.
My stats for October:
Win percentage: 41.18%
Number of trades: 65
Number of days traded: 21
Average number of trades per day: 3.1
Average win/loss per day in "R"=.42
I've noticed that my average win/loss per day in "R" has been declining each month. I only traded 11 days in August and averaged 2.12 R each day I traded. I think I was sticking to my system better in August. The same goes for September.
I traded like a complete idiot today. The lessons of Monday's lunacy didn't stick apparently. I think I was emboldened by my quick profits in my scalp trades yesterday, and I tried to duplicate my success with awful results.
I won't even post charts of the stocks I traded because none of them had any sort of setup. I kept trying to catch moves up or down but the indexes couldn't make up their mind which way they wanted to go and so my stocks duplicated the uncertainty.
My first trade lost nearly 2R from the get go. I couldn't believe how fast that much money disappeared from my account. I didn't even have time to set up a decent stop and in a panic, I sold the stock as it raced down.
I should have quit there, but I assumed that the trade was an anomaly. I quickly discovered that it wasn't and I was down another 1.50R. Ouch. I took a couple of more trades that were up nearly enough to make back my losses, but I only broke even after I moved my stop up to my buying price. I ended up the day with a 4.42R loss. Just dumb.
I need to get back to the trades that worked over the past three months and quit trying to get fancy with new trading setups (or lack thereof). I need to follow my rule of quitting after 2R in losses in a day as well.
I had active trades going for a total of 6 minutes today. This market still freaks me out a bit. The last hour of trading is a good reason why.
I made 1.87R today. Most of the gains came on a 3 minute scalp trade on MOS as it was consolidating down. I didn't have the guts to trade the bull flag that occurred after the consolidation. It met it's target despite the huge drop in the indexes at the end of the day.
I made back my losses from yesterday and then I got all conservative and timid as the market rocketed to 11% gains by the end of the day. I've never felt this bad about making money.
Most of my gains today were made trading CF. I shorted it for a gap fade after the market rolled over about 10:15. I took profits on the way down because I was nervous about the volatility in the market and in the stock. So I turned a potential 8R gain into a 2.69R gain.
Because nothing worked for me yesterday, I was scared about my losing streak continuing. Nothing worked for me yesterday because I took trades that were outside of my comfort zone and I didn't trade my plan. I continued to trade after I had met my -2R limit trying to get back to even.
That's why it is so important to look at each trade as a unique opportunity. My trades today were completely different from my trades yesterday, but I allowed my failures yesterday to influence my trading today.
My second trade with CF was after the nice bull flag that set up at 2pm. I set up a bracket trade and was going to allow this one to run on auto-pilot, but after the trade triggered, I got scared and dumped it way before it had reached its target (which it went on to meet--and more).
I went back to my days as a "newbie" with my trade on UYG. This was a completely inappropriate trade for me on so many levels. First, I put an order in before the market opened anticipating a huge opening. I knew better (it has NEVER worked for me to put in a market order before the open), and I watched my price get filled at the high. I was down .75R within seconds.
Secondly, there was no setup and no edge to this trade. I thought that the financials would spike today (they did--hours later), but I really had no business trying to get in when I did. Thirdly, I had no logical place to place a stop and determine my "R" value because I didn't know where my order would get filled. Just dumb. I lost 1.08R on that one. It could have been a lot worse if I didn't immediately notice how badly it was going for the ETF.
When I lived in Romania in the mid 1990's, I constantly had to convert American dollars to Romanian lei. I often had to go out to the street corners and find a "bisnitar" (pronounced beeshneetsar--they gave the term "money changers" in the Bible new meaning) to convert my currency.
Inflation was rampant after the fall of Communism, and many retirees saw their comfortable retirement savings deflate to the cost of a hamburger and fries in just a couple of years. My wife and I had to carry sacks full of money to the telephone company to pay our bills. You never kept cash around for more than a day because it could lose 25% of its value overnight.
Recently, in Zimbabwe, the bill pictured above would give you enough buying power to purchase these:
(Thanks to a WallStreak contributor Market Monk who posted a link about Zimbabwe here.)
Things are tough here in America, and the stock market sucks right now. But we still have a ways to go before we should be running in the streets worried that the world is over.
This wasn't a good day for me. Nothing worked and I kept trying to find working trades despite being down 2R by lunch time. I should have packed things up and waited until tomorrow.
The market really chopped around and seemed to reverse every time I took a position. I hate days like this.
My beloved Stock Superstars Report which is run by the American Association of Individual Investors (I'm a member) has gone negative in overall performance since its inception in 2002. The portfolio consists of over 40 stocks that are picked by experts using screening criteria and risk metrics. There's not much working out there right now, folks.
What an interesting week that was. This was only the second week since I began day trading in August that I didn't have any losing days.
For the week I made 4.81R. I monitored my trades much more as the market chopped around and I took my profits much more quickly. I'm sure I left a lot of money on the table, but it felt better to pocket gains than to continue risking losses as the market jumped up and down.
My only trade today was a quick (10 minutes) in and out on AGU for a .58R gain. I could have held on for more than 10R gain, but I wasn't comfortable with the swings the market was showing.
The Zweig RS 5 screen was down again this week with a 10.53% loss.
It's been really busy for me the past couple of days. I have been trading and I'll post my results tonight. I'm not so sure I'm prepared for trading on a day like today. It looks a bit wild out there and I've never traded with the threat of limit down hanging around. I might just sit back and watch the carnage. Who knows, maybe this will be the "capitulation" day everybody's been hoping for.
I made 1.88R on this trade today, but I messed up on my target. I sold CS short on the gap move down after the consolidation flag. I've drawn the target (black arrow) but I hadn't set up the target at the original purchase (dumb mistake). Instead I moved my stop to the top of the second consolidation (red arrow) and got stopped out as the stock moved back up. Setting up a target would have gotten me out with another 1R in gains.
Another clue that things were heading the opposite direction was less momentum on a lower low (MACD chart at 11:00 am).
Ever other trade that I considered taking would have turned against me, so I'm glad I stayed out for the rest of the day. It's my 42nd birthday today so I quit trading at lunch time and went out for some Indian food with my family. It was swell.
I sold at 3:30 to protect my profits only to watch things go nuts the last half hour. I should have known. My trade in AGU took all day to jell. I assumed that it wasn't going to make it to its target so I cinched up my stop and got taken out right before the end of the day rally. I'm a goof.
I tried using Corey's tip using Tradestation's Fibonacci extensions. I didn't trade it, but I found the bull flag on the DOW to be interesting. Notice how the price bounced off the target four times before breaking through and heading higher.
All in all, it was a wimpy day for me. I made +.38R.
This was a wild week that turned out OK in the end. For the week I made 5.41R.
The Zweig screen finally had a good week making 6.26%.
The market was very choppy today. I found it hard to keep profits and sold several stocks at break-even. I did manage to make some money on a couple of trades.
NIHD was a decent trade, but I didn't hold to my target which was met near 1pm. You'll noticed that momentum shifted downward right after my target was met. I made 1.02R but I could have made an additional 3R if I had held until it hit my target.
AGU was another winner, but again, I sold too soon. I could have held a little longer and made an additional 3R. I pulled 3.54R out of it.
I got out of AMED right on time and made 1.09R.
All told I made 4.69R on the day.
I got out early. Things were chopping around way too much. I managed a decent trade that was more luck than a decent setup.
This half hour trade made me 3.12R -- not great, but decent for today.
My other trade was on FDG. It refused to go down yesterday so I bought it when things were looking good at the beginning of the day. I sold it as things soured and lost .54R.
I somehow managed to pick the only two stocks in the market that didn't go down today.
I assumed the market was in a downtrend so I shorted AMT when it bounced off the 20 period moving average (green line and arrow). It had a pretty good run down to 29.50 but then bounced up with the market just after 2:00pm. I trailed my stop on the 50 period moving average and stopped out about even.
FDG was an emotional buy as evidenced by my entry point. Dumb. It was a losing trade until it headed down, but for some reason it bounced back up near the close. I had placed my stop on the 20 period moving average later in the day to avoid a loss in this stock. I thought it might head down with the rest of the market (and the rest of coal stocks) but it jolted higher.
I'll live to fight another day. I did make 7 bucks today, so I guess I shouldn't complain. I'm sure there were quite a few people that lost their shirt today.
I took two trades today and neither went my way.
TRMA could have been a good trade if I had set my stop a little further away. It went just a few pennies past my stop and then ended up with a pretty good drop for the rest of the day. Could have been a 5R+ winner. Instead I lost 1R on it.
MWV looked like a nice continuation of yesterday's gains with a consolidation pullback. It tanked with the rest of the market for a 1.11R loss.
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