Got a little of my gains taken away from me today... Purchased SPN near low today. Have a tight stop for a small loss at 38.15. Not sure of the odds of this trade... it looked a little like capitulation selling to me so I gave it a go. If it drops below 20 DMA, I'm out.
Thought I banked half of my shares on SRCL. Freeking simulator doesn't always sell. That's not my bad though... I still stuck to my guns and banked half of my shares at 90 (2x risk). Raised my stop on SRCL to 87.20. If I was profitable I would maybe stay in this, but now it makes no sense. Had 3 bucks a share and now down to practically 0. Should have trailed my stop closer on CHAP. Formed a lower third high... looks like no 3rd watch breakout. Selling tomorrow entire position at the market. (get out while I can) No more reasons to stay in... Will try to scoop up PPD bottom of the range tomorrow. Looks like direction is up. Sub industry is doing well... market is doing well overall still, feel that I can be more aggressive and catch the bottom without a confirmation. Also, my tape reading skills (limited) that I have tell me stock will most likely break up. Will look to pick up shares 61.50-62. R/W is pretty good on this one. Stop at 61.44. Not sure what I was suppoed to do with GNA today. I guess I could have gotten out fully once it started going down... but one of my problems is that I bank everything too early. I will keep stop at 14.35 since I have banked half of my positions at near 16 and will break even at this level. AIRM looks like it's going to test the breakout level (volume increase on little price movement). I have not banked any shares as I have only been put in a 1:1 R:W scenario. I will exercise patience on this one and not touch my position as it is small in the first place (stock does not meet all of my criteria). Like I said with SPN, keeping a tight stop. That is all.
The pullback plays are my exact entries pretty much. So are breakouts/breakdowns. I like to keep it simple... not that I have tons of experience to actually trade with more sophistication, but... the only indicator I have ever had success with are MAs and those arn't used to make decisions in and of themselves. Looks pretty much like any simple method with good r;w and good probabilities translates well in any vehicle... Do you have a journal on your own, I notice you are refered to in the graph. (nevermind it is someone else sorry about the confusion... this is an edit... I try not to clutter my own thread with multiple posts...) My time scale is longer, but the same trading methods stand. Side note: I am slightly interested in learning proper procedures for trading channels. The several graphs you showed my had wonderful opportunities for channel traders... I know I can be consistnet with my current methods, but I am always looking for new and better things. I have a general idea about how to make channel trading profitable but want to read about it first before I start forming bad habits. Anyways, that's off the topic. I think I need to eventually look in Hershey's journal as I live in tucson and have a lot of resources to help me learn such trading.
Here are two trades for tomorrow. Will do recap on all of my trades during the weekend just to refresh my mind on why i took entries... see what i did well and see where i screwed up. Notice that I am taking 1/4 of a position on each of the stocks because they do not match all of my criteria for several reasons. ATPL besides being under 10 dollars, however, looks like a great trade as a "snapback". Better than 1:2 R:W... selloff two days ago looked like some capitulation... I like to see this towards the last bar before the pullback but this works as well in my opinion. Hoping to grab some stock from weak hands tomorrow. Chevron provides a decent trade... however its not perfect. Slope downwards has decreased so in my opinion based on my observations, because of the decreased paced to the downside, we will not break up as much. Today's candlestick could turn into something bullish if we have a strong close tomorrow, however. My entry is as normal... even though for me to follow the candles I would have to wait for verification.
Doing very well so far following my strategy for buying breakouts/pullbacks... at least for the amount of time I put into my actual trading (not the learning part, the actual execution, research, etc.). Up 5% on my portfolio since I began using my strategy about half a month ago. If I end up +10% by the end of the month I think I will have enough empirical data to show that with disciplin I have a winning strategy. Last time I traded my method with disciplin I managed to net 13% in a month. Then, I resorted to new "riskier" methods and lost it all plus some. Did a little housekeeping work today on my orders: Leaving SPN to run. Got in very early and feel quite comfortable on my position... I am not going to get jumpy and bank profits before my targets like I often do. Letting PPD still have its room as well. Moving slower than I was expecting, but still has not come to my profit target. Here is a question for me to reflect on, or for someone else to help me answer: If I am playing a breakout out of a tight range, is it reasonable to set my profit targets towards 2 x my risk (defined by the high minus the low of that range). My breakout style using interday charts and buying stocks making year or all time highs requires me to sometimes set some profit targets based on equal moves or just arbitrary sometimes(which i dont think is right). This is why I like my pullback strategy as it has good r:w usually and I know where to take my initial profits. An example of this can be seen in PPD. I would preferably liked to have bought PPD at the bottom of the range (I thought it would breakout because the volume was telling me this), but I didn't get in on the bottom of the range because I wasn't filled. Therefore, I bought at the break of the range. I am trying to figure out if perhaps I should bank half of my profits at 1:1 R:W and keep my stop and that way I at least break even and the profit target is more reasonable than waiting for PPD to get to 70. Or maybe... because of my risk tolerance, I am better suited towards buying bottoms of ranges and not waiting for the confirmation... Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated. I raised my stop on SRCL to 43.80 (stock split). I am selling my whole lot of CVX tomorrow. Got lucky on the trade... but cannot read the volume and don't feel comfortable with the stock in general. Might regret this, but will see soon. Getting out of GNA as well. Looks like might form a micro head and shoulders... and I simply asked myself, if I didn't have the stock already would I buy it now? The answer was no, so I am getting rid of my position for a net gain of 8%. Not shabby for a 2 week hold. Banking half of AIRM tomorrow. Keeping stop at 32 still. No more position research for a few days. Need to install TC2000 on another computer... had to send mine in for repairs.
Gotta admit... I am low on ideas the last few days. Managed to get TC2000 up and running and did a scan. Found nearly nothing... CLF is far out from the 20 DMA,and shows signs of euphoric buying so I am reducing my positon to about 3/4 of what it usually is. (probably should even go to 1/2) Testing the waters with DSUP playing 1/4 of a position. Not a normal play for me... but could be profitable. If breaks up, goes into 52 week high and stock could pick up momentum. Steel is doing very well right now so industry should carry it. Not even going to mention charts... im not in love with either trade. Hope that this isn't my boredom speaking. Feel that each trade does have some reasons for entry though...
Not tooting my own horn here... but the 3 stocks I have left in my holdings, PPD, AIRM, and DSUP are holding exceptionally well in today's down day. DSUP even rose 3 %... it's nuts. Hoping to finish this month with 10% +. We will see... depends on the next week and a half of trading.