I have a couple goals this month. 1. 3-5% return on capital (I might be increasing 5k streams to 10k so this will probably get thrown off, so lets say profit of $450-$750 is target) 2. Make at least one trade where I capture over 5% (getting close but not there yet)
IPHS long 400@11.98 sold 400@12.11 With this stock, the move was really rapid. I was too slow to enter in the beginning. It shot up really fast. Decided I was not going to chase it, and in the event that it did pull back I was going to give it a shot. Spiked way up, and then came down as fast as it went up. Made a decision to enter based on the huge volume, and price trying to break out of downward channel. Once I got into the stock via adding liquidity (taking has been working a lot better, then trying to save a couple bucks) it just started to drop further. I had my stop in, and was prepared to take the hit if needed. It started to regain its strength and began to move in my favor. I thought it would move much faster and make a new high on the second 30min bar. When I do not see price improvement on the 2nd 30min bar it usually indicates weakness. Volume on the 2nd 30min bar was also really light which made me think that one huge order went in during the open that caused the stock to peak. In addition, it could not hold the b/o price on the daily. Doing this evaluations while trading helped me form the decision to sell. I realized that I made a mistake. Was up at the time, so I just looked for an out. I tried to save some money adding liquidity, it ended up costing me a lot more money than it saved. Note to self, take liquidity on exits chances are it will just go against you, and you might have to keep lowering bid. Reviewed BWLD from yesterday. I made a good sell decision. MWE - work on waiting patiently or keep an eye on position during lunch.
4/15/09 ATN short 400@13.21 covered 13.46 At the time this looked like a good short. There was increasing red volume. price was going down strong in the early morning. When I looked at the high on April 14th, I thought it was at peak and was looking for a continuation of the longer term trend. (the one in purple) I was holding this stock all the way into the close, and decided I had to exit. Did not want to hold 400 shares short overnight on a stock that I was loosing on at the time. It went past my stop during the day and held through till it came back down. Then when the close came the closing price was right next to where my original stop was so It was time to exit. At the time I thought this stock was going to have a strong trend down. After I had bought it during the day, I was really surprised that it was not showing more strength. My mind kept telling me to get out of this thing, but the volume was good, and I wanted to give it as much room as possible. I usually sell to early, and deviate from my plan, so this time I decided to be patient. When I entered the stock I believe this was the price pattern: Against me, against me, getting close to stop, huge downward movement, going with me, going with me, new low, then a huge pop up against me. Then I noticed after the retraces it kept having lower lows. At the time I didn't notice this. Looking back this might have been a good sign to get out. If the stock was strong, and truly had a short b/o then it would have made lower lowers after the retrace. 4/16/09 QSII 103 @48.50 sold 49.75 SYNA 167 @29.83 sold 31.05 Both these stock had really nice setups. SYNA acted the strongest out of both of these just consistently moving up and making new highs where QSII was going up, pull back , new high pull back etc. During lunch time SYNA was on fire hitting new highs, while QSII started to pull back some. When I first wanted to buy SYNA, it just kept running up, thought I had missed it. Then it started coming back way down. At this point I decided it still looked good, stoh was above 80 still. Got in at a much better price that I originally had planned. Then shortly after I bought, it started to run up again and hit new highs. So with both these stocks they had run up a lot, I let this affect me mentally and ended up taking the profits. Then I wrote a note to myself to buy these back during a retrace. SYNA did not really have a retrace, QSII did, but for some reason I didn't re enter. This deviation from the original plan and revised plan upset me. I really need to stick to my plan or figure out a strategy in taking some profits so I can feel better about holding something longer, especially when it makes a retrace as i'm up 3-4%. This is something I need to work on. Maybe when I hit a 2 or 5% point ill take some off the table so if it does come back on me at least I can sell at my entry price and still be up. Also EBS was a really nice short. It was down huge in the first 5min, so thats why I passed on that stock. It continued to go down from 5% to 15%+. Also need to work on erasing these price movement stereotypes from my head and just jump in if its getting hit on heavy volume. 4/17/09 MSA 200@23.55 sold 23.72 This stock triggered a b/o. Entered long. As 9:30 central time approached I noticed the volume was slowing down. I also saw that most of the volume was in the first 5min, and then no one wanted to buy it after that. I am still trying to figure out how to trade when this happens, but it makes you think that a huge order went in that caused the stock to run up, and then when the buyer was gone, the stock went dead. Once I saw this I exited as soon as I could get a price I liked. Other stocks broke out that day, VMW, BJRI, passed on those. I was really close to buying VMW. I am glad I didn't it ran up from where I wanted to enter but then came down quick. It did not have price appreciation till towards the afternoon. Stocks that hit a new 30min high in the morning are the ones I like the most so far.