Put up the30 minute chart for NTRI. Pick an indicator that tells you the day before a breakout up gap is coming the next day or when a long cycle is going to begin in the am. Monitor the action with a common volume indicator. You may think my comments are fanciful. and that is simply your problem. My guess is you do not know either of the indicators I am speaking about. If you did you would have made the trades on NTRI or the many many other stocks that come up through the use of these indicators. What indicators do you use to know that a break out up gap is going to occur? What volume indicator do you use to track high velocity long cycles beginning at open? The questions are rhetorical, in your case. For others they are real and have high utility. you evaluation of my practices as fanciful and theoretical is just an example of you applying your trading yardstick to my suggestions and reading the answer you get on your measuring stick. better get a different measuring stick. If you don't, your mind may begin to believe what you say.
very good and thoughtful postings here. the fear controls his trading and he does not know what he is doing. when he does counter-trend trading, he feels safer, if the market is going higher and higher, he will reason " the higher the safer to short", if the market is going lower and lower, he will reason "the lower the safer to go long".. I think most time that works pretty well, but around 40%~30% time that thoughts do not work, and the remedy is a sound stop loss plan. the bottom of line is he does not know what he is doing. to a scalper, three ticks or five ticks movement in a direction can be called a trend to a intra-day swing trader, three to five 3-5 minutes bar movement in a direction can be a trend to a daily swing trader, three-five days bar movement in a direction can be a trend. if he knows which kind of trends he is trading (good at), then he will not say I can not follow the trend, and he will make BIG money the moment he realizes what he is good at. to a begginer, better start with just scalping, but most people will feel boring and not exciting, it seems to them "it is agaist their dream: they want to get rich quick", and the market always generates lots of temptations (big jumps/big down, so they may think to do swing trading like those who have a deep pocket). after being good at scalping, challenge yourself to trade a little longer timeframe, like intraday swing trading based on intra-day chart patterns or whatever, finally try to do swing trading or speculation trading (need understand fundamental changes etc.), try to do averaging up trading ( that is the unltimate level), when you recahes that level, you can be a very profitable fund amanager but most people learn trading in the reverse way, they know nothing and start to do speculation trading, want to chase the longest trend, that is just like gambling, ....