that question gets asked a fair bit.. here's my coles notes. - this isn't my full time job so i'm not always in front of my screens, even if i am i can be pulled away at any moment by other obligations. hard stops/tgts let the trade play out unattended - if the market and stock is trending and i'm in front of my screens i will try to let a back half (usually more like back 1/4 or 1/3) run to a larger target. - i don't do the back half trades enough to have a decent sample size to estimate a realstic win rate range. i'm still not sure it's an EV+ proposition. obviously we can cherry pick examples where I might have left $5.00/share on the table, but we'll probably conveniently miss the ones that clip the tgt and rush back to entry/stop too.
10:20 LONG X 57.13 STOP 57.90 TGT 57.59 10:20 SHORT BAX 48.68 STOP 48.93 TGT 48.72 out -0.07 x stop already bumped up to b/e 10:50 LONG RIMM 64.24 STOP 64.24 TGT 64.81 out b/e ugghhh, i sized it wrong for a .71 tgt..
Yep, your are too late to get in, it should close at highs though. I don't know if you will hold till close. You are better gettig out for a small loss and then look for an entry around 77/50 if it shows atrength after lunch.
Let me give you a OBSERVATION that I have learned over the years.... 3 waves...on a 5 min chart...Only for runners like APC today (meaning no deep pullback.) PLUS market holds gains. Do not enter after 3 waves/ take profits after 3 waves. May be worth something some day.
<img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/spy.png"> <img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/x.png"> <img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/bax.png"> <img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/rimm.png"> <img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/apc.png"> <img src="http://puddles.humanfund.ca/20110111/fdo.png"> 10:20 LONG X 57.13 STOP 57.90 TGT 57.59 - Gaps up with SPY - SPY tanks, X goes - Long over the higher low - out b/e 10:20 SHORT BAX 48.68 STOP 48.93 TGT 48.72 - Huge weakness from the open - Good looking daily for a short - Short under the tight lower high - out -0.07 10:50 LONG RIMM 64.43 STOP 64.24 TGT 64.81 - Same story as X, lotta good heat, just one ugly pullback bar but price is way beyond that bar - The entry was set up based on the red bar using the 1c below the bottom of it for a stop, the next bar just closed when my long got triggered and I should have used the prior bar for a stop (.29). Unfortunately my trade would need to be sized larger for a .29 stop so I stuck with my original .24 stop and .81 tgt rather than using .29/.71. - RIMM gets to .71, not .81. bah - out b/e 12:12 LONG APC 78.17 STOP 77.96 TGT 78.59 - Get into the office and see my RIMM trade out B/E.. - red on a day I should probably be 1-1-1 and showing some green. - APC strong through the day, long over the bar at the highs - 12-1 not the greatest time frame to enter a trade - out -0.25 15:13 SHORT FDO 43.26 STOP 43.31 TGT 43.16 - FDO on my daily short watch list - Huge market weakness at 1pm - SPY trying to come off the lows from 2pm - FDO continues it's weakness - Get short the tight lower high hoping for the weakness to continue and maybe another market selloff to take us to tgt. - out -0.15 http://puddles.humanfund.ca/wp/2011/01/11/2011-01-11-trades/
9:36 SHORT TGT 55.24 STOP 55.36 TGT 55.00 out b/e a polite request to please refrain from posting other's trades and unsolicited advice in this journal ..