Wow, the first day we go down and we stay down... bring back the good times! I don't think I have seen us finish on the lows in about 2 months. I'm not going say that this is the start of the correction (which I previously mentioned I expect late Jan or in Feb) but the action today was HORRIBLE for the longs. GS was pummeled hard all day and in the afternoon it got hit especially hard. Trading is still tough with the algos trying to pop the market at every point and making it difficult to stay in the trade as it takes so long to go down. No real stand outs today... except for my XLF trade. Didn't short it at all in the morning... opened weak but there was buying in the morning and I didn't understand why it was in the mid 50s. So I didn't short and just watched it trickle down. Shorted a bit of Citi @ $4.80 and was lucky to make 1.5c hahaha. Anyway the market started to bounce then... I was like oh well here we go again with the bouncing. BUT NO!! This was the first time in a long time we didn't really bounce. We went back up to the previous break down and then did a perfect move down to the lows. I got short $?.35 5k on XLF... the high of the bounce (I have a knack of this on XLF) and added 2.5k @ $?.34. Held it for these new lows. I was watching GS all day and when it took out the $169.20 level (which had like 300k on it) I knew the market must follow. XLF refreshed the .29 level and then came back up through .30 and then .31. uuuugggh... I got out @ .30 and regretted it almost immediately. I wanted to short again right away but this market has been punishing impulsive trades. I then proceeded to watch it go to a low of .20 I think... grrrrrr. I knew that was my trade and I didn't hold. I have a great read on it at the moment and I didn't stay in... very stupid but still profitable trading. What do they say... SITTING ON YOUR HANDS is a very profitable trade! Still green for the month and the save on Friday and the save yesterday has made a huge difference. If I left at the lows of those days that would put me -$1k for the month instead of up the same amount. Its not about how many days your positive its about how big your drawdowns are when you have them. Saving negative days is a huge part of this game and something I didn't appreciate when I started trading Date: 19/01/2011 Net P&L: $670 Month Balance: +$1,280 *blotter attached*
Well I really think I jinxed myself with the above comment. Really bad day today. I was annoyed earlier so I wanted to gather my thoughts before posting. My trading wasn't that bad when I think about it but basically I was on the wrong side of every trade. That about sums it up. I took size on C and XLF expecting a large break down after making new lows. I thought I was going to have a good move down as the market action at that point was good. However we switched into the melt up market again where there is no obvious place to get out as the market never breaks up it just ticks very slowly. I was watching WFC which was really puking and was keeping the XLF depressed. I kept my trades too long and when I got out I had lost a very decent chunk. An additional loss on V, which I shorted the pop as the UBS report came out after the initial news which said that the news may not be as good. So instead of taking the long, I shorted... didn't work out well and lost $300-400 on it. Right at the end of the day I was 95% ready to take GOOG long @ $625 for 100 shares. In the end I didn't take it as I thought if we get an unlikely move down this could easily turn into a -$5-6k day which I wasn't comfortable having. So I decided to give it a miss. As typical with the way my day was this trade could have netted me $2.5-$3k pretty easily. Oh well this is the way it goes. Although I'm really unhappy with the result today I took what was a decent risk. My mistakes came when watching WFC behaving weak and holding the XLF down. Normally I would have gotten out on the market move but the action on WFC made me stay in. We came back down and I could have got out for at $600-700 loss but I took the risk and payed the price. Was annoyed earlier but right now I don't give a crap anymore. Today is almost yesterday and tomorrow is a new day. Confident that I can still salvage this month. BAC earnings may provide so opportunities. Date: 20/01/2011 Net P&L: ($2,200) Month Balance: ($920)
Prop...I am not one to give advice right now given my current trading results but I have to chime in on the 2 comments above. Not that I know every strategy you trade but the news event trade on V does not seem to be part of your arsenal based on your posts from the past. Just keeping you honest here. You did the right thing on GOOG. It is a coin flip, period. I have never seen the edge in that type of trade.
Yeah point taken. I agree with on the Visa trade. Stick to what you know especially when it's not working. GOOG, yeah I viewed it as a pure gamble and wasn't prepared to risk that much on something like that. Gonna take it easy today until it starts working again
Didn't get to update on Friday so thought I would do it now. Traded in the morning and found it pretty tough. In no time I found myself down $1.2k. Not the start I wanted. I got the wrong side of Citi and tried to pick a bottom on AMD (this trade is something I don't usually do but I did and I regret it). I sat back, calmed down and when I was ready to trade again I started to look for opportunities. I saw XLF after gapping up and pulling back it started to form a base around $?.40. Looking at the financials they still looked strong... even BAC which missed earnings actually was holding up. So I took a position @ $?.40 for 5k. I added 2k @ .41 and added little bits on the way up or pull backs until I had 12k with an average price of $?.4160. I thought we were going to have a break out at the end of the day as GE was strong, AAPL was recovering and the financials still looked strong. I started this position @ 11:48am and covered the whole position @ $?.47 at 15:28pm. 4.5hrs...wow, talk about being patient. This made back half of my day. Didn't make another trade and finished down $630. Very disappointing week. Looking at my account I have been making $$ on XLF and SIRI and negative or flat on everything else this month. So what I'm planning to do this coming week is to concentrate my efforts on XLF (SIRI isn't trending and I'm avoiding it at the moment). Anything else that I play will be small size until I start getting some of these trades right. I think this way I will be able focus on whats working and try and avoid what is causing me problems at the moment. Citi is pretty much unreadable at the moment and its moves are making little sense. I'm going to be using it along with the components of the XLF in order to trade the XLF itself. I find this stock is good as you can easily get covered at most levels (unlike C) and I can read the market as a whole better then focusing on say BAC or C individually. This is the case at the moment and so I have to trade whats working. Date: 21/01/2011 Net P&L: ($630) Month Balance: ($1,570)
Well I said I would just trade XLF and anything other then that with small size this week. I didn't take a single trade on XLF today. The market was going up but it was looking weak. But I didn't want to short it while the SPY was strong. Didn't make any sense so I didn't take any trades. Thought about shorting the $?.40 level but it didn't feel right and I passed on the trade. I DID trade others stock but like I said I didn't take any large sizes... the largest position was 4.5k in AMD. Considering at one point I traded 30k on this stock (traded different back then) 4.5k is small size. Half my day came from buying the $7.61 level on AMD adding a bit on the way up. Ended up with an average of $7.6250 and got out the whole position @ $7.69. Was a decent trade and happy with the way I played it. Other then that I made small trades on BAC, GE and NVDA. No size and just took little profits. Feels good to lock in a positive day, was beginning to not know what that felt like. Going to take it easy for the week unless the volume actually starts picking up. Date: 24/01/2011 Net P&L: +$620 Month Balance: ($950)
More of yesterday. There was a surprisingly fluid day on the market despite the early morning chop. The action was all negative until the final 1hr of the trading day. Someone has some news and saved the market at a crazy place. My guess is someone has Obama's speech early and he is going to announce he is seeking a corporate tax cut... anyway thats just my hunch... wait and see. Did the same thing again today. Played everything other then XLF with small size. Was down $300 at one point shorting not long after the open. Got out just before the consumer number. Felt the move was complete BS and didn't take any longs... waited for the market to roll over and shorted some Citi. Made a little bit but I really don't have the patience to play this stock at the moment and can't really read it. I played Citi because I missed the trade on XLF Waited for XLF to form a base @ $16.30 level... took a 6k long @ $16.29 and got out @ $16.34. Got me back to slightly positive. I then tried a little long when it came back down to $16.31... quickly got out at the 30s broke... shorted 5k @ 16.29... it popped up to 31-32... my out was 32 and I decided that I was probably right on the trade looking at Citi, BAC and GS. So I added 5k @ 16.31... leaving me with 10k @ 16.30.... I was correct on the break down. Got out a little too early but was just happy to be positive again and didn't want to give it back. Covered 5k @ .26 and 5k @ .25. Thought about a long @16.22 but didn't want to go counter to the day. This happened to be the low of the day. We then got this big move on the market... lead by GS and BAC. It was very surprising. I didn't get long but I also recognized that the market had come up too much too quickly and so I avoided the short. I avoided it the whole way up... didn't take a long but I think I'm more happy that I didn't try to short it. It finished @16.40... a big move with no pull back. Felt I avoided a bullet with the move on the market at the end of the day. Overall happy with the day and my trading this week is way better then the week past. Date: 25/01/2011 Net P&L: +$500 Month Balance: ($450)
Very slow choppy day. Not many opportunities for my style of trading. I suck range trading and prefer to just stay out of it if its chop like today. Trade one stock all day... EK... shorted 3.5k @ $4.17 average once it looked like it was going to be testing the $4.15 level again. Very easy trade and after checking the chart I felt that the $4.04-06 area was the right place to cover as it filled a gap. +$400 on this trade. It really broke down a little later but I just couldn't bring myself to hit it again. $$ is hard to come by in this market at the moment. So I had traded 7k shares the whole day until the last hour... trade 13k more and just lost $$. Finished the day positive but this has got to have been the lowest volume I have done in 2 years. The days of me doing 3-4m shares volume seem to be a universe away... Market is such a Zzzzzz at the moment. Not worth risking anything! Basically flat for the month now. Might just leave it at that and avoid any potential disasters for the last few days of the month Hope others are doing a bit better Date: 26/01/2011 Net P&L: +$265 Month Balance: ($185)
No trading today. Very happy i didnt after looking at the dull chop on the charts. The muted action after the FOMC announcement was may clue to not trade today. Not trading tomorrow either. I will enjoy a long weekend and see what happens on Monday.
Bad day to miss... the biggest move to the downside since late November. It's a pity but this is usually how the market works. Right when you have given up on something... it happens right after that. I'm so sick of this market going up and I have been waiting for a down day. Low and behold I take 2 days off (I haven't done this for a long time) and it happens. Oh well, I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't have gone in anyway as I don't like trading when I'm not at least 80%. I will be in on Monday though and ready to hit the crap out of everything hahaha