wow- how many times have I lost a little trading the home builders. nice work tony. I was not committed to any of my trades today because I have not been going short enough with these scanners. I did sell a flag breakdown in newp I made 4 cents It closed 85 cents lower. I was long esrx and made a little I got in and out around 57. I was long hlyw and lost 10cents on 400 on the low tick against me I should have made money on it. I overtrade qlgc and lost money on it. Had I stuck with my original stops I would have only lost only a little bit more than I did trading it. I also trade qcom before it hit the scan and them once after. I made money after it hit the scan but not much. Overall just poor discipline. Good stockpicks considering I did not see much but poor discipline. I did all right otherwise because I was shorting but by not trading these scans correctly I think I played too defensively in my other trading. This sell off is making it tough for my to put on positions because it is so extended but I am still looking forward to the opportunities. Overall I lost 71 dollars gross on the above mentioned stock trades so I actually made money on the scans, (although after commissions it was probably breakeven for scans). Sorry I was not more specific but it really would not have been educational since my discipline was poor.
Hi Tony , great work. Is there any chance you could explain when they first showed on your scanner, what drew you to those setups and did you trade as soon as they first appeared or wait before trading? Any help would be much appreciated
Ok day considering I was long again. I made 256 bucks on light trading off these scans. At one point I had three positions open and they were all working well but then I started to tighten stops going in to the fomc announcement. I found it interesting that there were very few nasdaq power trader selections today. It led me to believe that the rally was going to be sold. (anyone confirm this reasoning) I have also found that I do not like the noise of the popular stocks as my stops either get hit or I have to live with uncomfortable drawdown. I would like to hear others input on whether the fashionable stocks still represent good reward when they show up in the bottom fisher or skyscraper. I also micromanaged the positions taking little bits of profit as they go up. this is not really my plan when I start the trade but until I feel the market ready to move in the direction of my positions it just seems that they meet stronger resistance at certain place than I would expect. I then dump some of my position after the next bounce or sometimes my stop that is a little to tight gets hit. I think I need to get over this impulse and I think I will when I trade with the trend. 11:18 bought 400 apol @ 37.18. I sort of whimped out an after sellof sold off half at 37:13. 100@37.23 100@ 37.70 bought 400 pcar at 68.69 sold 100 at 67.67 on a stop loss that had been move up as the last part of my posion. sold 100 at 68.98 then 68.94 then sold last one on a stop at 69.05 I will finish later 400 amgp at 24.33. I seemed to enjoy these lesser known. 100 at 24.90-100 @24.85-100 200 @ 24.65 market 200 gild @31.05 now I wound dumping making a few trades and lost about 50 dollars. this stock is just a wide swinging stock. I have made money in it before but you just have to hold on for the ride. today I tried to trade it and it beat me. It was not worth my time and if I am scalping Id rather it be on the nyse. Stock selection b discipline c (because i did not really follow my plan.
I watched BRCD go down this morning before it was on the scanners. It had 3 pauses where I could have shorted. I just couldn't pull the trigger. Similar situation with BRCM except it only had one good pause. I shorted AMGN Entry 46.45 Stop 46.60 Target 45.85 I got stopped out. One of my problems is determining reversals versus pullbacks. I find that what looks like a reversal on a 1 min bar does not look like a reversal on a 3 or 5 min bar. Of course, if the price is dropping fast like BRCD and BRCM were at the open, then it is difficult to short. Anyway, I felt like crap with a bad headache today so I got a massage this evening. I feel much better and I am charged up to go for tommorow. Tonight, I will read some more of The Stock Trader. Mike
this moring after I got out of my few small trades I was going to tell you how impressed I was with the scans. But now just about every stock on a naz scan hit their 50 day or 20 day moving average so what I can a say except that I should have traded larger this morning. to the plus side, I usually pass or lose money on days where there are big gaps and then a slow grind in the direction of the gap. Gap and crap. I have never made money scalping major nyse stocks on gap and crap. But since I did not trade any nyse today I do not know if they traded well or not. Buy 400 mrvl filled only 100 at 34.92. sold 100 35.80. if only!!! bought 200 exar at 21.60. sold 100 at 21.69 after the shakeout and 100 at 23 which was my targert. Not bad. I intended to buy 400 but only had my thing set at 200 by mistake. bought 200 retk at 23.07. sold 100 at 09 after a shake out sold 100 at 23.49. shoul have held for 50 day as was my plan. 400 anad at 10:26. poor chase and took losses on 300 profit on 100 lost 17$ total. I did not like trade from beginning so I just minimized my lose and started looking to make good trades elsewhere and I did. 200 Qlgc at 48. decent pattern at time but just wanted on shot at ride into last hour made 24cents on 100 put in breakeven stop and it got hit. I made $286 on no volume. So far I have made a few bucks almost everyday on these scans and one day I had a good day. Eventually I will have to step up the program. This scanning has also helped my other trading so I am please with the results so far. I also have become very satisfied with putting in stops and then looking to do other trades. Another note. I never made money trading nasdaq before so this is a bit surprising.
Days like today are really frustrating because I feel like I missed all of the opportunities. I have never seen the market gap open this far and I was in disblieve. I was afraid most of the morning that this thing was going to turn around and go back down just a fast as it went up. Obviously, it didn't. In the afternoon, I stopped looking for plays because I did not believe it could go any further. Again I was proven wrong. On days like today, I find it very difficult not to have an opinion about the market. I just need to look at it, observe it, and react to what I see. What further frustrates me is that I took ERTS at 57.20 as it formed a double bottom on a 1 min chart. I traded up to 50 and then the MM's pushed it down. I bailed at 57.29. What really hurts is that it traded down to 56.91 and eventually broke out to 60.50. I also shorted USAI which was on the Knock Down scan. I should not have taken this trade becasue the market was so strong that even the weak stocks did well. Aside from that I believe I had a good technical entry - lower high and lower low. The r/r ratio was also too little by the time I entered. I got stopped out. Mike
Mike, I know this is hindsight and I don't want it to sound too high and mighty but from my understanding of Tony's explanation of the scans, they don't necessarily mean that you have to trade in the implied direction. For a KD, this would be a short ofcourse. But if you had watched USAI after the stoploss you may have noticed that it traded up to the open and then after a test it closed the gap. A long position at around 29.20 would have been a good entry. I didn't trade USAI but I'm just trying to learn from your comment and offer something useful. Hope that helped.
Bullfighter, Give yourself a pat on the back bud You did a lot of things right. First, you did not do the big sin of CHASING stocks! Next one day does not make a trend! Everyone wants the market to go up....lets hope that it does....that means that there is going to be plenty more opportunities for you. On the other hand if the market tanks tomorrow...guess what, everyone is going to bail out just as fast as they jumped on....so there is another opportunity for you....I think Tony said in his book that not being in the market sometimes ...IS A POSITION....so you did great !......tomorrow, get ready for tomorrow
quitting early today as I do not want to give back the small but nice overall profits I have had today. I was using these scans this afternoon to prevent myself from trading in my other accounts. To my surprise I made back the money I was down from the this morning and grossed $1.40 after being down about 150 dollars. This afternoon I bought 200 ckfr (new kid or powertrader) at 23.16 and sold 100 at 23.35 and 100 at 23.95. I am frequently pulling 3/4 of a point or more with these scans. Short 400 isil (knockdown) only got 100 at 23.95. never went against me covered at 23.42. both of these trades had pretty good sized volume bars on the daily chart and decent setups on the intraday charts. Although the ckfr was a bit extended with a minor pull back. Both these trades were made to stop myself from making trades in my other accounts. my thought is when I really want to do something but the indexes are chopping around try and find a premium scan a trade it small. This morning I tried to short utsi twice off knockdown I think,(definitely a scan) with tight stops lost about 86 bucks. Lost 14 cents on 300 star long off a scan. It was extended but in a nice consolidation. just broke the wring way. I scratched a short of 400 brcd at 23.22 after it just would not break at the time even though the market was selling off. Lost 5 cents on 400 nycb from 30.18. all these trades felt a little forced today except the isil. The market was just not that appealing today from my perspective and from the fact I could not get my morning trades to work. This afternoon may have been good but I was cautious. Stock selection b- discipline b
p.s. I was wondering if people had any input as to when the best time of the morning is to first look at these scans. yesterday I pulled some good trades early but today I ran into a small problems. Should we be waiting for the first good market consolidation after a breakout of opening 15 minute range or ???? Finally, if we decide that it best to wait say 1/2 to 1 hour who wants to fill me in on how to set up a good opening orders spread sheet and which stocks should be in it. I take private emails. It think an oo approach and a disciplined futures approach and these scans could make for a very well rounded trading plan.