My Trades on a Trend Day

A couple of the three StockPunk readers have expressed an interest in seeing actual examples of trades that I've taken during the day. Although the day isn't over yet, I thought I'd post some trades that I took today. I've erased the number of shares I purchased so you wouldn't be overwhelmed by my massive account size (it's in the hundreds of dollars--I kid you not--OK, I kid you, but I'm still keeping my financial information private).

Today looked like a "trend day" from the very beginning. We had a large (over 1%) gap down from the day before. Price continued to push downward for 10 minutes until we got a retracement that never really got close to 50%. We had a -1,000 reading on the TICK right out of the gate (green circle) that was additional confirmation that price would probably trend down today. The TICK continued regestering -1,000 values throughout the day futher confirming that this could be a powerful move down.

I placed 4 short (betting on the market going down) trades (yellow circles) as price moved up toward the 20 period moving average (yellow line). My fourth trade was very large because I felt that the trend day gave very good odds of things heading south quickly. They did, and I exited my 4 positions at the white arrow.

I waited for another retracement to the 20 period moving average and place two more trades as price rode along the average for a few minutes. Another quick downward push and I exited out at the 2nd white arrow. You'll notice that the price continued down past where I exited and I could have made twice what I did. However, I've been learning lately that I do better if I set a conservative target and take quick profits. Otherwise, I hold on too long and often end up giving all my gains back.

I wimped out on taking a trade after what I perceived as Elliott Wave 4. Things seemed a bit wacky and overly volatile. I was wrong to hold off, and I missed another nice downward push.