Hi all, purpose of this journal is to document my daily trades. I will focus solely on short plays In general my trading plan is folowing: 1. to identify 5 stocks which gained over 10% previous day -any day more than 5 candidates will be found -from these I will try to handpick those which rise did not result from any substantial change in quality of business. -another criteria is that candidates must be available to short from my broker (IB) 2. For those 5, will watch their low, high, open, close prices. 3. On opening of markets, for first 15-30 minutes, will not take any position 4. Position will be taken after first 30-45 minutes in those candidates which are not continuing their rise ie. which are in negative teritory (actually, only one trade will be taken, in a lot of 500 shares) 5. Stop loss is to be yesterday close + 10 cents 6. If stock takes yesterday low (another 500 shares will be shorted, and covered if it goes back) 7. Profits are to be taken after 1-3 days (depends if hypothesis worked well) this general plan is not definitive, and there is lot to discuss and tihnk about. why journal? well I started this tactics one months ago, before that I simulated it for few months. It showed good results, but just recently I noticed that my execution became questionable, and yesterday was particulary bad (shorted CNET, and then covered, shorted again, then covered, went long, took a loss, then at the end of the day shorted again, in short: overtrading, recipe for disaster. ) So I realized, action is to be taken. Chance is, that I will not only enter real trades but simulate trades on days which I dont feel too good for trading. from yesterday I have short position in CNET at 10.09 today before market open I will post my list of short candidates any sugestion is welcome
symbol last (high) GI 13.98 (14.15) NUVO 5.46 (5.48) ATSN 11.74 (11.80) BIV 6.85 (7.10) IVIL 5.03 (5.12)
for this undertaking and very good luck to you. shorting single stocks is IMHO one of the real real tough things to do. looking forward to your journal. did you consider to take a glance on short interest figures? good luck to you
covered ALXN 21.01 loss 6$ short DHC 6.13 yes, indeed, this kind of shorting is not an easy art to conquer. short interest - no, it is not my primary concern (not in these kind of stocks)
My overtrading was due to poorly defined entry rules. Once I firmed up the rules, it cut my # of trades per week in half. It's a tough pill to swallow, because you have to decide EXACTLY what kind of setup you want to trade.