SLM Too much inside info. Look at the chart. Down every 5 minute bar but one for the last two hours. Seems like a dangerous time to go long.
Candle, i gotta agree with you.. i would have wanted SLM short under yesterdays close.. anything that cant go up on a broad rally like yesterday is just plain weak.. Stockk, hang in there man.. you learned an important lesson and made a nice save today.. next week will be better =).. one thing that i notice from reading your journal is that you place alot of emphasis on bids and asks while trying to determine how much stock a specialist has to buy or sell.. but with all the players that sit on the sidelines waiting for the stock to reach their entry/exit price, i wonder if some basic chart reading wouldnt improve your odds.. what im getting at, the daily chart of SLM is ugly.. on the 60 min it was just breaking down out of a bear flag.. and the stock finally bounced as it ran into its 200 day ma on the daily.. just an idea.. but maybe if you used some chart reading tactics to select stocks for long/short bias it might provide a safety net to keep you from getting the rug pulled out from under you.. just my .002 =) -qwik
Candle, Excellent analysis and reasoning, thanks for the post and chart. The reversal wasn't a "classic" Morning Star formation as the up-candle following the doji did not close well into the body of the prior down-candle (in fact it didn't close into the body of that candle at all), but that's immaterial as the doji on high-volume signaled a "blowoff" and probable reversal. The following up-candle confirmed it, and the squeeze was on...
All down candles is something I would personally not be averse to going long against, given that there is other pertinent information to back up a long decision... for example, imagine that there had been all down candles until 12pm... the SLM formation and the volume behavior would have suggested an opportune time to go long at 12.05pm (even with all red candles upto 12pm) ... [the difference between a 12.05pm entry on SLM and the actual entry at 11.37am is explained in my previous posts]
Qwik just my .002 =) Good chart observations and a suggestion that could definitely help Stockk's game. Surely that's worth more than 1/10 of .02 ?
candle, sound reasoning and analysis. Would you consider a thread of your own illustrating some of your trades and the reasoning behind them?
Hi Protrader, I am not sure about an entire thread, but I will certainly post occasional annotated pictures, where relevant. Regards, Candle
Candle, You are a 100% correct, the reason why I went in SLM is because of group mentality (with the other guy on my team ) and I knew that SLM got upgraded today. I know even with a big seller, the stock will hold or at least will not get killed like it did. When he spreaded the stock and did not print for 5 or 6 minutes, I thought that was it. It cleans out the sellers. Since anytime a stock got spreaded and printed relatively fast, there would be a second round of sellers. The seller stepped away after the first 30k print and I thought he was done at least temporarily, enough for me to scalp 25c. I had every intention of getting out at $79.00, but when he blew through the fig. I panicked and didn't keep my composure, I went from, alright I'll get 20c to !@#$ how do I make my money back, and that was the totally wrong thing to do. Sell first, ask questions later. I should have taken my 50c loss and walked away, but I couldn't control my ego at that point!! Disaster happened. I really like how you put the chart in the thread, if you don't mind please show me how you do it, as this will make a more interactive discussion and keep a better history of my trading. Magna, I appreciate your vote of confidence, although I was down $400 today, $250 of that is commission, not that, that makes it ok, but I feel I lost my discipline on that one trade and I did ok. the rest of the way to recuperate what ever I can. Qwik, On the question about entering and exiting, I use the tape primarily, that's the way I have been trained and that's the way I feel most comfortable with, but as I said myself, I am putting too much emphasis on that and I have to have a more balance approach to enter and exit trades. Any suggestions are welcome.
Stockk, To do annotated charts, use a free website like Bigcharts.com, right click on the chart and save it as a BMP file to your PC. On your PC you can modify BMP files in Microsoft's Paint program (which should be provided free when you buy the computer). Set yourself up with a Geocities.com website (free) and upload the annotated chart to there. Remove the index.html file using Geocities File Manager, so that your website index is fully viewable by all visitors. Candle P.S. To save on file size for people viewing your charts, its best to save your BMP as 16 color.
Accidentally hit submit before I can finish my thought. I just wanted to say that it was totally my fault that I had this $1000 loser because 1. I got in because somebody told me that the stock is going to spread and to go for a bounce. STUPID. 2. I never traded the stock before and I don't know how the spec. prints and for me to get in, is like me sitting down on a poker table at Ceasers and not be able to spot who the sucker is, guess what, I AM THE SUCKER. 3. Did not have an exit plan in place for such a high risk trade, and even if I did I didn't follow it to a tee. I let the revenge factor stopped me from taking a 50c loss. I chose on the wrong stock to pick a fight with. Who do I think I am? ROCKY? 4. I haven't played gaps in like 3 weeks and I NEVER THOUGHT IN A MILLION YEARS I WOULD LOSE MORE THAN $200 IN THIS STOCK. I was dead wrong, as I now have flash backs of how I got killed in CAH, CRY, FRX, LLL, UBS etc. These are all the stock that I have lost a point or more playing the dangerous game of bottom picking. I will never know if the sellers are done and I am taking a leap of faith to go long. Now that I think back, why would Mr.T teach us to play this game is beyond me. It is so funny, that I badger all the guys that I came here with, to not have any big losers. I nag at them all day long, and sometimes people think we are married. lol. and here I am getting smoked with a $1000 loser. Incidentally, Mr.K's game had been excellent this whole week, he made $600 Wednesday and $700 today. Good for him, he had now learn how to control his losers, when will I learn?? Hopefully this will be the last time I bottom pick ANYTHING in the middle of the day. I don't care what anybody says, I want to play my game and that's sector trading for now, no more fancy bottom picking go for home runs type of trade. NO MORE.