What is the worst slippage you've gotten when a stop was blown through on a move against you on, say, 400 shares of a pricey stock like AAPL or GS? That is definitely a concern of mine trading these things.
More imp than slippage... I started losing consistently in aapl once IMHO there is too much of speculation in them. There was a guy in my firm who was trading POT for 3 years each day. When he started losing had a very tough time. Occasionally they can be big winners. Some time earlier I took 8 points move on just 100 shares: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2707461#post2707461
Slippage on a rogue move is my main concern. I use .10 - .50 cent stops, so those losses I can handle, but a 2.00 or more slippage would be painful...
On GS, I have my best long-side day-trades on intraday double bottoms (where the second bottom shakes the first and reverses) on the 5-min charts. On AAPL, my best long-side day-trades are on up days in the market with entries in basing areas on a sharp down 5-minute bar. Aside from GS and AAPL, I day-trade mostly $40+ stocks with volume of over 1,000,000 shares that have already moved a good $ amount that day.
Trade the same stocks over and over - over thevyears I found filters didn't really work - had em avg vol over 1 mil price over$20 - reverted back to core list. Just find trading a random stock over something you watch every day is much more difficult- no SWM for me aci. Pot mos de Akam gs aapl rimm fcx x pcu jpm jcp rl. No Bidu goog etc for me big spreads can make for really wide stops vs relative gains Little bit of everthing Except oih USO stocks such as slb rig eca justdontblike em for day trading Coal stocks someone was asking btu aci Pcx
Stocks which can give minimum 50 cent( or 2%, whichever is greater) intraday swings are those which I prefer. I pick from those which are pre-market active, have substantial news or prev. day range greater than 6%. Have a journal dedicated to that which somehow gets neglected http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=190027
I won't be trading until sometime in June, but I have been keeping my eye on CRBC lately. If I started trading next week, that is what I would pop my cherry with. Looks like a good fit for an underfunded noob.