Dattrader, I was looking at the sell-offs Tuesday around 3:00. VRTS tanked hard and the others soon followed.
I see you finally got wise to the trading fact of looking at daily's first .It improves your profit potential greatly if you know the daily trend of a sector ,index or stock. Just in case you need a refresher in what you are finally incorporating in your trading,go back to my post to you on Jan.19th in your Jan. Trading Journal.Its all there.
>>>>Daily's are not so much for entry's and exit's, but are very useful for overall trend determination. Hittman, Many daytraders absolutely do use the daily charts for entry. They simply go long/short at the break of the previous days high/low. That's why, say, for longs it's great to find stocks whose daily charts are in an uptrend and who finished the day very close to the top of it's price range. Hold on, I'll find an example for tomorrow. Long: MU short:brl I also like these stocks because they both have nice big ATR's And hey, I sent a resume over to your firms Mellville office today.
The pain absolutely paralyzed me today as I haven't took such a hit in one position in quite sometime. A horrible fill ruined my day and I failed to come back from the morning deficit. This couldn't have came at a worse time as I honestly have been feeling good about my game, everything seemed to be coming together and I really thought I would breakout soon. Bam, ouch, ouch, ouch, there was absolutely nothing I could have done, I honestly thought I was going to make a killing when I went for a full 1500 share position after everything has been aligned. I really thought it was a low risk trade with the kind of liquidity I am dealing with and the kind of seller in the stock. 75 cents off 1500 shares, ouch, not the kind of way you want to start a break out. I am up just $200 for the month, $400 for the week with that trade alone. My brain was paralyzed and I missed a few huge opportunities and closed the day near the low. 28900 shares each way on 5 of 19 shooting, -244 before commissions, -1167 after, 5 bullets. I closed the day exactly where I was after that critical hit. I churned away a lot of shares and took out most of the damage before commissions, but I simply could not make that power play when it counted to get my net up. Pre-Market: All the daily's looked weak, bad earnings on CSCO (it opened down and stayed down, broke the key support level, further adding to my short biase), some analyst said financials are oversold and I diagnosed as a potential gap-and-trap. Yes, HI has been down 3 day's in a row but he looked weak and while I thought he may do an afternoon rebound, I still had him as a short off the open. There were other news items but on a day like this, nothing else mattered. 9:30: Thought MU had a strong daily and went long 500 for a gap-fill and stopped out for flat. Futures went up a little and prompted came in as my bullets went up as usual. Bulleted CCU for a gap-fill and he stopped me out twice on two attempts approximately 15 cents per attempt. Bulleted CRA on BTK sell-off for 40 cents. 9:39: Everything looked like crap and I went short 500 shares on HI at 45.15. 9:41: A 100K offer showed up, the type of size every trader with a bullet dreams about, I mean, this is why you have a bullet, when that 100K offer shows up you want to pount that BID with him. I sold 500 shares more into 45.01. Futures ticked down more, HI was the only credit service in the green at that time, and I knew it felt good. 09:42: A 100K BID showed up and the ASK stepped down to 45.01, I knew I could get out there if he hits it, and I waited to see who is going to win. It looked too good, as soon as the BID was almost gone I sold my full bullet. 09:43: The flawless tape set-up, the ASK stepped down to 45, the BID is at 44.95, and he started to hit it. I was short 1500 shares, I knew it was going to be a good trade. All the stars were aligned. Still, being very tight with risk control I had 700 shares on a stop at 45.01. And I had 800 shares in a market order ready to send if he hit the figure with size. I knew the stock was somewhat oversold, but when you see a seller of that size, you just have to let it go. Yesterday I talked about trying to up my size a little bit and what better opportunity than a huge offer stepping down to sell a full bullet? I asked every single trader I work with would they have went for the full bullet if they saw something like that, the answer was unquestionably yes. 09:44: I saw a 50K print at 44.98, and I saw the size of the offer at the figure at 45 cut in half. Immediately I went market 800 share to cover. I saw the futures upticking and BKX going back up, I can't take the chance with 1500 shares. 09:45: That 30 seconds or so felt like an eternity as 82000 shares went off at 45 and the ASK was gone. My order unfilled, I knew I was going to take a spread hit, I was thinking 10 cents, a quarter maybe, and that hurts, on 1500 shares. BID stepped up to 45 and ASK is at 45.05 with 20K shares, a long sigh of relief as I told myself my loss would be controlled and I will get 45.05. I even looked at another tape for one brief second as I had CCU/CRA shorts. 09:46:01: He showed the ASK at 45.75, and my blood went cold. My orders still unfilled, that's right, I had a stop at 45.01, and a market order in before he even killed the offer at the figure. There was size at 45.05. What's up? I thought my order entry system went down and I covered 100 shares CRA immediately and I was filled in two seconds. What's up? I told myself he probably won't print there, I will probably get something like 45.30 . . . 09:46:12: My orders were filled at 45.75. I was down $1200 for the day. It happened so fast that I went numb, I couldn't feel the pain until a few minutes later. Yes, a strong buy came out for the stock exactly when I sold that last 500 shares. Yes, there were a lot other day traders in my firm, and in other firms for that matter, who saw the set-up, who went bullet (and we are talking about 2000-5000 share bullets here). Everyone tried to cover at same time, stock oversold to begin with, Tony Oz style bottompickers jumped in, bam short squeeze. 09:50: Still, I was stunned, it was truly a heaven to hell experience, I honestly thought I will take half a point off 1500 shares, I honestly thought there was zero risk with that set-up. I managed my existing positions and did not add any new ones (except pare in/out's) because I was just stunned. I was as fast as I can possibly be, and there was absolutely nothing I could do other than accepting the pain. 10:24: Every credit service now up on the day and I went long in ACF. I got out for 40 cents profit and watched it go up another point. I went bullet on CTX on home builder sell-off at 57.52, one up tick and I bailed on my 500 shares and did not sell again when he finally broke down. I went long PPG 46.07 and out 45.75, the low of that double bottom. 11:00: Went long MU and got 30 cents out. Got EMR at 55.25 and scored a quarter there. Added LXK and lost 15 cents. Went long LAB for 10 cents. I cut the deficit to 900, and I felt good. I knew with another play I can cut this down to a very manageable deficit. 12:34: Home builders were getting killed and DHI had an offer, bulleted at 36.15 and it went down to 35.85, everything looked good. Bam, a few prints later he printed 36.45 (I was able to cover at 36.20). I thought it was a squeeze, I was wrong (although I was able to cover half at 36 on the way up). 1:30: Took small positions in DOX and stopped out for flat. Took NEM as all the other gold stocks were up on the day . . . when you are trying to come back from gold stocks, you know you are getting too desperate, and it is time to go home. 2:00: Basically churned all of my bullets a little bit during the last two hours as the market sold off. None of them gave in, I was just way off today, time to swallow this loss. Sleeping will speed up the healing process, tommorrow is another game.
1. From time to time I see hitman mention "horrible fill". I'm wondering, how often do you get filled when you hit the Bid/Ask with LIMIT order? Or do many of you use MARKET order? 2. I was looking at WHR today. It looked like a good short at about 14:41. Take a look at the chart. Then comes, WHAAAAAAM!!! :eek: This almost makes hitman's loss on HI look like a squeeze. You know about cutting losses, but how do you prepare for something like this?
To answer your second question, you don't take the trade at that level, and if you were in it from a higher level you get out. Someone was prepared to absorb everything thrown at him during the previous 25 minutes. Just look at the sharp increase in volume with the price hardly budging. Everyone who wanted to sell, including the premature shorts had sold. It was, therefore, not surprising that a brief rally in the index should have produced a vicious short-covering rally in this stock.
Hitman Last couple days HI has been fairly liquid with heavy volume. One thing thay teach at the Brigt school in vegas is that on liquid stocks,most of the time "trade goes to size" as oposed to the Jef Cooper "steping in front of size" for low volume stocks. IMHO randomwalker
I disagree with your analysis of WHR. you don't take the trade at that level Far too easy to say, after the fact. But in realtime it's a reasonable area to try a short, a retest of the morning lows in a stock showing considerable weakness. Someone was prepared to absorb everything thrown at him during the previous 25 minutes. Just look at the sharp increase in volume with the price hardly budging I look at the chart during that time and I don't see what you're seeing. Looks like a normal pickup in volume starting after lunch, around 2:15. And nothing exceptional about it's level, much lower on average than the morning volume from about 9:30-11:30. and if you were in it from a higher level you get out. As a daytrade you get out whether you were in it from a higher level or not. That's basic risk management. As a swingtrade you may well want to ride it out as the stock collapsed the day before so it's weak to say the least, and the probable direction is further down. It was, therefore, not surprising that a brief rally in the index should have produced a vicious short-covering rally in this stock. Again, easy to say after the fact. Lots of stocks down during the day didn't have vicious short-covering squeezes during that brief index rally. The way this stock hop-skipped-and-jumped up it sure looks like something else was going on, something other than just a short-covering rally.
From the looks of the chart , HI gapped up .75 cents to 45.75, then a minute or two later printed back in the 45.15 area, before resuming a strong rally. This must be the famous 'price improvement' you get on the NYSE.