10-17-03 Two dumb trades today, that kinda diviated from plan but not completelty. I took DO Short at 18.12 (300 shares) ended up getting stopped out at 18.28. Oil stocks dont move worth a shit. Dumb trade on my part. I need to concentrate on just trading certain types of stocks. (certain range and volume) (-47) I also took SPY short at 104.17 (200 shares) covered 100 at .05 and the other half got stopped at .20 (+9) Made a lil money this week...nothing to write home about, but green, so cant complain. -38 bones on 1000 shares.
Oil service stocks like DO are generally a good group to trade, and they do move. If you don't believe me, spend some time with CAM, WFT, SII and the like, you'll change your mind. Watch the oil service index ($osx in esignal) when you're trading these guys, they're all very highly correlated to the index.
10-20-03 Pretty slow day today. Typical chop chop day after WR7. Didnt see to mcuh oppurtunity today for trades. I took UNH long 400 shares at 54.50. It gapped up nicely and held its gap in a nice tight base. It also was strong on the daily. Scaled out 100 at 54.65. Futs ended up getting weaker so i put in a breakeven stop. It end up taking it. only made +15 on it, but thats a good example of why partials are a must in trading. I also took SLAB short at 49.90. It sold off hard after the buying this morning. Showing alot of weakness due to the base all afternoon even with the buying in the markets. Only got 200 shares of it. Partial fill, but no big deal. I ended up taking some off at .80. It just didnt want to break in any of the selling that was happing in the futures. I put a break even stop in when futs decided to take off to the upside (damn choppy days) stoppe dout break even on the other half. Ended up making a mesely 10 bucks on it. ANother good example of why partials are good. Ended up grossing 25 bones today on 1200 shares. Not real disappointed seeing as it was pretty choppy today, and volume was on the light side. Feels like summer still, evne the weather has been nice here in Iowa
10-21-03 I dont have alot of time ot write in here tonight, so im just going to list my trades quick. Im sure ill get alot of shit from some traders about wasting my time doing a journal here and not being vey descriptive. But im a guy that learns from mistakes, and not from writing stuff down. I will say one thing though...i have got my trading down to trading certain gap patterns in the morning, and also trading Nr7 and Nr4 inside days from teh previous day. There is a huge edge in these techniques imo if you can trade them right. I took AXP long at 48.32 (300shares..partial fill) took profit on 200@48.47 and took the other 100 at 48.40. (got stoppe dout on low tick of the pull back then it ran ...shit happens) (+38) Took AAI long at 18.98 (300 shares), took partials on 200 at 19.15, and took the other 100 @19.34 (stopped out on low tick again on the pull back lol) +70 Took QCOM long 200 shares at 45.03 took 100 at 45.17 and the other 100 at .15. Kinda dumb trade, left alot of money on table, but it was going into doldrums and wanted it to be quick. (+26) I also tookk CREE long into the breakout this afternoon, ended up scratching it cause it didnt have any momo behind the breakout and futures didnt either...good move on my part, it ended up droppinbg hard. Again, im in a hurry so didnthave time to write much, but i am not a writer Ill try to keep this journal a lil better into the coming weeks, but im really busy, so its hard. I may just end up doing weekely updates soon, and talk about real good trades i had or bad trades. But anyways, +134 gross on 2200 shares.
10-22-03 Nice gap down this morning. Was great for gap trades. Only got one off though this morning. I saw so many...not sure what i was thinking...maybe this has got to be good to be true...well it wasnt..it was true and i need to stop sallying out, and be active in the morning if i want to make a living at this. After watching many stock setup perfect off gaps i finally took one. I shorted HYSL at 31.22 (300 shares) Very nice setup. I need to also learn to take more size in the mroning, the odds are usaly behins me on my setups, and the momo is there. I ended up atking 200 out of HYSL at 31.02 and the last 100 at 30.50. I managed that trade perfect, just should of done more size in it. Next week i may start upping my size for the morning gap trades, and on top of it i need to be more active. Days like today were gap trades are my bread and butter, i should of been in 2 art least. Ended up making $112 on that trade. I had 20 stocks on my NR7 list today to trade intraday. With the large gap down it can skew stocks for trading intraday ive noticed. Hard to know "how far will they go down" There was alot of decent setups, but most were over lunch time after the futs broke down more. (was doing some homework, an derrands over lunch time) I took BVF short at 27.90 (400shares) ened up covering at 27.91. Just didnt have the momo behind it. But of course it eneded up dropping nicely after a llil bounce. (-$4) I took EMR short this afternoon. It was staying very week into the lil run up this afternoon. After it broke down i shorted it at 55.06 (only 200 shares) It ended up dropping pretty well, and normally i would of took some profits into it, but i had a small position so i just put in a breakeven stop and ended up getting stopped at 55.07 (-2) I tottaly didnt capitallize on the sloppy trend day we had today...i should of been shorting the shit out of the market today instea dof just sitting and watching. Oh well, i learn from msitakes...this game takes awhile to conquer. +106 gross today on 1800 shares. Klac got creamed in afterhours, looks as if we will have lots of nice gaps for tomorrow
10-23-03 We had a nice gap down this morning as expected with the earnings from KLAC, etc. not being so lack luster. Not as many great gap plays as i would of expected today. Or maybe I just didn¡¦t catch them: D I will explain how I trade gaps; I haven¡¦t really explained it yet in my journal. Basically what I do is get a list of all the major gapers through scanning. Watch them all the first ten minutes. A break of low on a gap down after the first 10 min is a short below LOD, and vice versa. Of course there are a lot of factors involved, like how big the gap is, how large is the morning range, how long has it based etc. Stop is usually, and is suppose to be above HOD or Below LOD¡Kthat plan gets broken occasionally if I think there is a better stop of course. It¡¦s a very simple breakout strategy that seems to work very well. Speed is ¡§key¡¨ with it, and bullets help a lot on the shortsƺ. Gap Trades: BRCM: Short at 29.62 (400 shares). BRCM put in a very nice base at the LOD. I didn¡¦t put my stop at HOD because it was just a little too much for me, and the setup was text book so figured would just drop ¡§Don¡¦t Predict, React¡¨. Well the futures decided to rally and it stopped me out at 29.85. I had stop above the base. If I would have had the stop above HOD I might have made that trade work better for me, at least a scratch or small profit, but overall it was very choppy this morning. (-$92.00) BLS: Took it long at 25.85 (400 Shares) another very pretty base with a break of it on the 3rd 5 minute bar. Put stop under LOD like the plan calls for. Ended up taking 200 shares profit at 26.00 and got stopped out the rest at breakeven. Not disappointed in this trade at all. It held up very well compared to market this morning. This also was a nice hedge against the BRCM gap trade. (+30.00) Right now this is what the future hold with the gap trades. They are a very good strategy for me and pretty much shoot 90% profitability on them. I need work on a few things though. One is I need the right tools to find them. I will getting IRT soon to scan the market for them with filters, along with IRT saves all market data to hard drive so I don¡¦t have to wait for damn E-signal to load market data up. I need the speed. By the way, if anyone is interested in using E-signal I can put you in contact with the ¡§nicest¡¨ and best rep to deal with over there. Being in the trading business side I¡¦ve had to deal with many data provider reps, and this guy is the best. Hey, maybe there could be a discount involved. Also I need to be taking more of them. On big gap days I should be doing 3 gap trades. Not one or two. I also will be upping size a little more on these. The statistics show they have an edge. I might as well start making some more money with them. My other strategy I do intraday is just basic setups. These would include triangles, bases breakouts, etc. I only watch NR7 and NR4 inside days from the previous day intraday though. I¡¦ve found this too be much more of an edge. I have a buddy that scans for these every night, with proper filtering of volume, and range. I usually have a list of 20-40 stocks to watch. I¡¦m sure he¡¦s is reading this journal entry, so a big thanks goes out to him for sending me the list nightly ƺ I will occasionally take other setups intraday, but it all depends on the market. Intraday Trades: The market really wasn¡¦t great fro my style of trading today. A typical after the trend day. Lot of swings, but not finding a lot of setups. Only trade I took was¡K BSX: Long at 65.00 (300 shares) this was a nice 15 triangle. It also was a NR7 stock yesterday. It keeps hitting .99 intraday but just didn¡¦t want to break that. It finally did later today. Huge orders went off after it broke. There must have been a lot of buy orders set at 65.00. It ended up being a great trade. I know I have an edge when I can make money going long while the market is tanking. I took 100 shares profit at 65.24, took 100 more at .22, and the last 100 at .19. Very nice afternoon trade to make back my lose from the morning. (+$65.00) After starting the day with a -92 lose right away I battled back to have a +$3.00 day gross on 2200 shares. This week has been going very well. Like is said last week, I am working on new strategy and I was going to start trading it this week. It must be working, or I am just getting lucky! LOL I have had 12 trades so far this week. 8 being winners, 3 scratches, and one lose. I have a few things to work on going into next week. One is I need to learn when to trade bigger, and when to cut back (this morning I shouldn¡¦t of been trading big like I was, after a trend day). I also need to be more active. I find myself calling it a day after a $100+ morning. That was a decent day when I was trading 1-200 share trades, but I need to be making more than that now. I also will start swing trading next week small size. I won¡¦t be risking much, just want to get a fell for it. I also need a platform that has stop limit orders, and NASDAQ stops. This is something I can¡¦t really help right now. I missed a lot of nice setups today because I didn¡¦t have an order in, and I just pulled the trigger when it triggered. This doesn¡¦t work with a breakout trader. I need to have the order in before it breaks. Without NASDAQ stops a lot of my breakeven NASDAQ trades turn out to be -.01-.04 trades. These add up fast! Ok, OK, I am done writing a story. Any questions, or comments, just ask!
I have attched a chart of my BRCM trade. I got stopped basically on the high of that pop. If i would of had a tighter stop (HOD like im suppose to with plan) i would of made a little on the trade. Little over .20 at the low after it dropped. I cant say woulda shoulda, but just should of stuck to plan and did share size accordianlly.
10-23-03 Gap Trades: Nem: Long at 42.19 (300 shares) took profit on 200 shares at 42.35 and was stopped on teh rest break even. +35 Intraday trades: AFCI short at 22.43 300 shares. stopped at .62 -57.00 FCX short at 36.57 300 shares , stopped at 36.78 -63.00 Amgn Long at 60.60 300 shares took profit on 100 at .70, 100 at .85, and stopped on rest at entry +40.00 Took CKFR short at 25.26 300 shares. I accidently shorted 300 more at the low as i was trying to cover with minimal gain. Ended up screwing whole trade up and getting out a various prints. -34 Took CHIR long at 55.60 200 shares, took profit on 100 at .85, and took rest at 56.00. +65.00 Ironic that all my shorts were losers today in a weak market. -14 gross today on 4000 shares. Im thinking about making anew rule of scaling out into losers. Does anyone else do this??
I have tried that scaling out of losers before but I end up losing more money. Now I usually get out if the trade hits my stop. Just trying to follow a rule of trading "cut your losses short". I have a friend who sometimes buy or short more shares when the trade is going against him, but he is a really good trader and he knows his levels. I think if you are confident in your tape reading ability it should be ok to scale out into losers.