Happy New Year to everyone and best wishes. Let us all run up the score in 2010 Nod, great progress this year, keep it up.
Made a silly mistake yesterday that cost me money by having a day stop and targets instead of GTC on the es. I should have just canceled the stop and target and redid them using OCO GTC. Today was better, went short for the 1st time in awhile, but did kill the trade a little too soon, but at least it was profitable. I also bought a in the money Jan put on GMCR. I am looking for a good sized retrace. Stop is cost of option, time premium cost is only 1 point. If stock does not move before expiration, I will roll the put over to either Feb or March. Fast rise of stock indicates if it does fall, it should fall fast. The put gives me time so I don't need to pick the exact day that this might happen. Even a bad day in the market could cause this stock to fall.
I have decided to make this a pair trade by buying a stock in the Consumer Staples sector. At 1st I was looking to go long HANS by buying an in the money call option or buying the stock and selling a covered call. However, I saw the JSDA already received a low ball cash offer of $ .30/sh, with the stock selling at $ .48/sh, the market seems to believe that the offer needs to go up. I don't see a deal getting approved at anything under $ .80 to $ 1/sh. At $ .48/sh, we basically have an option with no expiration. I have tried their products, and like them, but did not like that they had no diet drinks. Now that they are coming out with a diet soda, I decided to buy 5,000 shares. I also tried the GMCR, and do like the earl grey, however, their patents run out in 2012, so this should be kept in mind that licensing may end by then. Of course GMCR did do well in buying out their competitors before this occurs, so its not a bad company, but nothing goes straight up forever, and hopefully my timing on this short is good.
Gabfly1 Registered: Nov 2009 Posts: 301 12-30-09 10:30 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from bighog: ...just jabbering away... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not everything in your head needs to get said. Especially in someone else's thread. Just a thought. ...................................................................................................... Yes you are right, i am bored waiting for the new year and the Rose parade. It is a challenge at the end of the year to close the book and wait, wait, wait. Nothing more to learn unless in live trades so boring is the order of the day. I was on my way back from the cable company office where i exchanged the digital box which was dropping the signal and guess what? I was thinking that fly fella is on pins and needles wondering what i did today because of no trading. Then there it was, an actual post of yours begging for more info. :eek: Thanks for being a fan.
-$231 Short X @ 55.74 pullback from HOD, stop above HOD. Moved stop down to 55.80 as the trade moved in my favor and was stopped out on a small whip, then price dropped all the way to 54.78 and I never re-entered the trade, like an idiot. Late in the day watching SEED hit a new high and stall. Short @ 12.78, stop above HOD. I was in the middle of something and a profit showed quickly on this trade and instead of moving the stop to at least b/e, I thought of the X trade and left the initial stop in place, returned to find it hit for -$217. I hate days like this...
What about testing where you move 1/2 your position to break even when the trade moves in your favor and leave 1/2 at original stop so a small retrace does not kill your chance at profit. On the es if I traded with more contracts today, scaling out for me on 1/2 the position and bringing my stop to break even would have made me more money and allowed me to hold the 2nd position to my final target without moving my target. Your problem seems to be moving your stops, and mine is moving my targets. The strategy above, would have given you the profit on your 1st trade, and caused you 1/2 the loss on your 2nd trade.
My problem was that I let my experience and frustration with the first trade affect the 2nd trade. Shorting X where I did was a high probability trade because it had made a strong multi-leg run up from lows and could be expected to pull back at least .40-.50 cents from where I shorted it. I moved the stop a bit too soon considering X trades with a lot of "backwash". My bigger mistake here was not re-shorting as soon as the weakness resumed. When I shorted SEED, I was shorting a stock with a very high short interest near the end of the day, meaning the chances of a squeeze were pretty high. That was indeed a setup where moving the stop to b/e once the .10 move in my favor was showing made sense. It was either gonna pullback like it did earlier, or it was likely gonna squeeze the day trading shorts. Also I had to leave my desk for a while and that was all the more reason to treat this trade differently and at least prevent a winner from turning into a loser. I let my frustration from earlier in the day bleed over into a BRAND NEW TRADE placed under a DIFFERENT SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES. I've done this often. Sometimes I feel so dense; it takes me forever to learn lessons and avoid repeating them.
Did they say it takes 5 years? If you think you can make it in one or two years, think again, pal. You don't even know what your problems are.
Nod, every time we place a trade and get filled, the fun begins. Unless we mechanize the process as much as we can we will be just drawing straws in each and every trade. That is not a good battle tactic because in a sense it is "guessing". It is better and far less emotional just to realize "this puppy is not under my control so i "MUST" control it. The best way i ever found to control each individual trade is to treat each and every one basically the same. Pre-determine the level you want in. Pre-determine where you are wrong and will pull the ripcord and bail. Go all in and get all out. Do not play tiddlywinks when trading. A good trade is the one that gives you clues to bail before the STOP is hit. That trade told you some info and you took the advice. No thinking needed, just pretend you are action Jackson. Then you use the information you just received and inplement that info your next trade. All trades tell you something. Profits will happen, do not worry about profits. Trader muscles and skills are developed, later we call it intuition. ................................................................................................ I will say this also: different instruments trade with different characteristics. Sugar trades diff than corn. Steel trades different than a tech stock. I trade the ES exclusively, it is not emotional because i do not play the field. Tiger Woods knows golf but got his butt whipped playing in less known weeds.