Ok, Bloomberg it is! Now I just have to figure out which channel on dish network. Thanks, for the suggestion on news. Today in the market, I watched and waited. TASR is hovering. INTC went up then in after hours went back down. INTC and TASR will be holds for now. I will probably sell tomorrow or Monday in order to free up capital for other trades.
An Observation. You say you are looking to make 100 dollars a trade with a stop loss at 4-5% below where you bought it. So with your TASR long of 500 shares at 11.15 you said your stop loss would have been 10.69 or a loss of 230 +14 in commissions. If that is correct then maybe you need to rethink your strategy since your max loss is over 2X your profit target.
Monkiefs, Thanks for the info. I have been thinking about that. I am not sure if I should just wait out the trade a little longer or if I should get out when I am up. Tough decision. I would rather make many small increases than one or two monsters. Right now I am still trying to feel out the market.
If you are just trying to make small increases thats your choice, but if that is going to be your strategy to make small increases, then I think it would be a good decision to not take large decreases. Again with TASR your stop was at a 244 dollar loss which is much larger than your profit target of 100 dollars. Lets say you were to lose three times in a row which comes out to about a 750 dollar loss. Then you would need to win 8 times in a row averaging your profit target to be up just a little bit. So with your strategy you should have a much tighter stop loss. One other thing you said you would have had a stop loss at 10.69 on TASR if you weren't having computer problems. The stock went all the way to 10.00 what if it didn't come back now you are stuck with a much larger loss than you wanted. Make sure you have a GTC stop loss in place to make sure that doesn't happen. Also just to let you know if you have a stop loss order in with Scottrade you will have to cancel it before you can place an order to sell if you have a profit in the stock or want to sell earlier.
Thanks for the advice. I will begin to tighten my stops and see if that works out well. I found out the other day I couldn't put in a limit on both sides at scottrade. I wasn't too happy about that. Oh well, I may be looking into other brokerages in the near term future. One reason would be to have another brokerage available in the event scottrade is down and the other would be to put a limit on either side of a trade. As for TASR and INTC I am in a slump with both. Semis have slowed down. I am not sure if people are taking profits and it will resume the uptrend or if they are slowing down for summer. Either way, they are slow. I need some more action so they will most likely both go today. In the future I am going to limit my TASR trades to 200 until I get a better feel for the trading range.
listen to monkeif...i agree that your profit target and stop-loss level are out of whack. speaking of the profit-target....I don't understand the choice of $100, i.e. a fixed dollar amount. It needs to be related to the actual trade. I.e., if you're trading 1000 shares, that'd give a wildly different number than 10 shares. Price of stock, average daily movement, etc.; are all going to play a part as well. I don't use 'numerical' targets as such. I set a 'target' based on the -stock-...i.e. based on what I expect -that- stock to do; after looking at recent reversal points, cycle-timings, recent supp/resist levels, etc.. Price and Volume patterns tells all... I expect it to run to the most recent hi/lo reversal points...cuz that's what they usually do! So as long as it continues moving in the chosen direction, I just let it ride with a trailing stop. My "target" would be the most recent hi/lo's....and when it levels off at that hi or lo, that's when I bail and count my cash. If it blows thru, I just keep riding it...again, with a trailing stop. I'm not sure why you didn't sell INTC at 27.80 on Thursday night ?? That pre-announcement run-up was a gift. Since there is usually a big move one way or the other both before AND after an announcement, and it ran UP prior to the announcement....it just makes sense that it's most likely to drop after it....and so it makes sense to take that free money off the table at the peak. Also, the semis, and the whole market, have been going up for weeks already...and INTC just completed its longest string of green candles in years. Trees don't grow to the sky. With weeks of runup, you've -got- to expect Da Boyz to take some profits off the table. Also, if you look at, for instance, the SMH (ETF for semis) chart, it has a very well-defined cycle-timing lately, that's currently on its 3rd repetition this year, and it's been topping right now this week. In other words, the most likely direction post-announcement was 'down', not up further. Also, if you're going to play an issue around "announcement time", you should check history and look for patterns. I don't play INTC specifically, but if I remember right, out of the past 8 mid-quarter updates, the market has risen the day of the yak-yak, and -fallen- the day afterwards, 6 out of the last 8 times, I think it is. By the way, that is the reverse of the pattern prior to 2003. The market has changed. It's more bearish overall now. That's a reflection of severely deteriorating socioeconomic and geopolitical fundamentals. Anyway, if you'd checked that midquarter update history on INTC, you would've had yet another factor helping to bias you towards happily accepting the free gift of that jam-job Thursday night. Always check the calendar for any stock you're going to play longer than one day....and check the recent -pattern- of what happens before/after those events. Oh yeah, one other thing on Intel that day.... For me, the "tell" on Thursday was the high-volume selloff of Intel in the first 5-min bar of the day. 2.5 million shares with price dropping noticeably. That confirmed for me that things were going to head down post-announcement. A few other random thoughts.... Cramer is a shill and has made MANY bad calls. Most of the sharper traders I know would fade everything he sez...except they don't listen/watch him anyways... Just shut him off. It seems like you don't really have a plan or strategy; but it sounds somewhat like you want to "swing-trade"...i.e. hold for 2-20 days. One of the most important aspects of that trading-style is cycle timing. Bring up a 6-mo daily chart for your stock and look for obvious (i.e. clear) up/down cycles, and see where you currently are in the latest cycle. Most stocks have a 10-13 day variation; among other time-frames. Some items have a cyclical variation that's so pronounced, it stands out like a sore thumb. The clearer and more consistent the cycle, the higher percentage a play it is. That's one of my main criteria in choosing stocks to swing-trade....how clear and regular a cycle it has. Is the periodicity regular, are the tops/bottoms well-defined, etc.. To me, that's more important than direction, size of move, even liquidity....because -predictability- goes a long way in making up for any lack in those other areas. If a stock has a visually obvious cycle, like the SMH example above, and it's right at the top price-wise, and is also the right number of days time-wise to expect it to be topping; then it's generally a bad idea to go long at that time... Of course, break-outs do happen, but they are the lower-odds event. The higher-odds expectation is that a visually obvious repeating cycle will complete yet again. Also, the general market background has an effect on the odds of a breakout. The market is basically trending down since the year began. Things have changed from "buy the dips' to "sell the rallies", imho. That means that breakouts to the upside, when a cycle is topping, are pretty unlikely; unless that stock's cycle happens to be topping at the time that the general market is just coming up off an overall cycle-bottom. But in the case of INTC, its cycle was pretty well aligned with semis in general, which were topping now; and with the general mkt which is also topping now. I have tried a number of different tools over the years, and cycles are the single most effective thing I've found for swing-trading / reversal-trading. Last random thought: for what it's worth, I expect the general market to decline right now (SPX to 1180-1188 area). Who knows? Maybe it'll magically blast off for a whole 'nother leg to the upside, but it doesn't look that way to me. Be careful with your longs right here... You might want to wait a bit...or play smaller positions until a clear trend appears again. It -is- easier to play long than short; but look for something that's just coming off a cycle-bottom....like PM's, and Oils. Both of those are heading up strongly right now. Hope this helps....
d9d, Of course that helps. The more input the better. I will go over what you wrote with a fine tooth comb. Looks like good stuff to me. Of course my mistakes are more obvious to me when they are pointed out in that manner. I didn't know about smh as an etf and good call, I should have watched. As for price targets I will start watching cycles intra-stock to see where to go. I guess I would be trying to swing trade with an occasional day trade. Once again thanks for the advice. Now to admit my shortcomings. I feel like I am confessing my sins or something! Friday I sold 100 INTC @ 26.81 - 62. I also sold 500 TASR @ 10.7401 -208.95 That was a hard hit. Then watching TASR trending up before the close I got in 500 @ 10.77 and back out @ 10.83 +16. I understand why I did that. I wanted a win before close. Although I ended up ahead. I should have either waited to sell my initial 500 or just stayed out. I will be rethinking what I am doing and why over the weekend. I have a lot of thinking to do at that!
Didn't really know where to go with the market today. Bought 100 RIG @ 53.30 sold at 53.62 +18 bought 400 TIBX @ 7.19. Still holding. I will come up with some new plays for tomorrow and try to post them this evening. TASR got a new order today and the stock shot up. I will keep my eye on it.