30/04/2015

Crazy day, stocks overacting to any bump in the road and not respecting levels.

Check list is helping a lot at keeping me out of trades I like but are low probability and have little chance of working



Pre trade list

Looked at lots of stocks that opened flat or low but no decent setups so only small size and few trades

Profit today and happy for any upside. A few more days and will increase size so any up day is a good day

IWM

This index move fast and over reacts to events.

Entered on support and held till it stalled. I sold half the position and then put in a stop at break even and just left it to do what it wanted

OCR

This was up on good 1stQ yesterday and a take over rumor This caused a big upside and with a lower open and high today and no conformation of the take over its a good fundamental for a breakdown.

It stated to work and then held. Will look at this again tomorrow as each day will wear it down some more

BRCM

Held well at support and level on longer term chart

Entered and when it failed to move cut the position.

Got out with fees so happy

29/04/2015

Jumpy day full of opportunities and happy to watch others trade them.

I made 2 trades and ended up with profit and the plan is to keep trading with small size until I get a run of 6 of 10 days in profit and a success rate of 60% in profitable trades. At that point I will increase avg size of each trade.
I will still take advantage of any high conviction setups that can be traded with a tight stop until them but respect a stop loss of max $50.00 on any one trade

I looked at a lot of stocks today with running constant scans during the trading hours. Only a few make it to the check list and this again saved me from over trading. When I am comfortable with the format of this list I will put together a checklist for entering trades as well.


PL

HOT

Looked to short this as there was no real driver for the increased price and it seemed to be just hype. It did hold up and I made two trades. I cut the first one when it did not move as quick as I wanted only to watch it drop a little.

I missed the next opportunity and then took the one after. It was looking to strong so exited for a small profit 

KBR

A really good trade with a nice entry. Price was in a tight band on the 5 minute chart and it moved easily off this. I took half off when I left the screens and cut the rest soon after returning. There was a nice higher hold and a good move into the close.

 I will watch this one tomorrow as it is very strong 

28/04/2015

PL 

I needed to stop overtrading and impluse trading so have created a pre trade check list. Its a work in progress and only takes a few minutes to fill out for each stock. So far it has stopped me trading in a few stocks that I would have normally entered and this has been good.

I use a rating system and give 1 point for each positive item and then look to the charts to see if the price, volume and levels are setting up for an entry.

For shorts I will use a -1 for each strong point 

It stopped me trading F today as it was weak in most timeframes and not much to drive today apart from loyal investors.

AAPL was an impluse trade on the open and I should not have taken it at the level I entered. The expected level or price that I should have found support and did was around 40 cents below and it stopped there and then moved up nicely. 

The insight for the day is that I need to trade levels supported by price and volume not get excited and see good in every micro pause in price 

COH

Good trade, set up on the five minute chart at the open high and volume dropped away. There was a clean move down. I got out way to early and missed about double on what I got as I was annoyed at my AAPL trade and wanted to chip away at getting the money back.

MRK
This stalled at the mid pre market range and spent 10 minutes in a tight range. Volume picked up and the spread opened with bids chasing this up so entered. Got out when it stalled at a level and after the first red bar

NOV
Looking for a short and it didnt work. It did test the high and closed off this level so will be looking to short this tomorrow it shows weakness

 AAPL

Got excited and traded this at the wrong level. Needed to wait for it to test a prior low
Lesson for next time

27/04/2015

Down day, using a pre-trade check list to control random trades and refining this to make a useable process so will take a few days. It did stop me from taking a couple of trades today that I would normally have traded so a good start.

market started strong but faded to lows and no upside. Tomorrow will be an interesting day and have no idea what it will so.

I will be looking for good long and short trades for tomorrow

AKRX

looked to short this but no go. News was all negative and it started out ok but did not fail from the lost of the day. The trade to take was to short the mid day move up.

Lesson, dont go long at the top of the range or go short at the bottom.

Wait for a break on volume and then the re-test

I tried two more shorts near the end of the session but cut them very quickly on volume changes on the tape 

JD 

Strong in principle but no go on the day.

3 trades in all but no move up 

BRCM

again looked strong and was setting up but failed to move off the bottom and was rangebound.

I cut this trade due to no movement 

21-23/04/2015

Missed a few days of posts

Been very frustrating with a string of small losses. The money is not a concern but the inability to get in sync with the market is and I need to change this
My thoughts are to make small improvements in how I approach trades and to pay more attention to trends and levels.
I dont have the skill or the bank account of the SMB professionals so its best to learn from them and copy only the trades that make sense to me

PL from the last 3 days

21/04/2015  Profit and a good day. Very few stocks and clear levels also small positions and still ended positive for the day

22/04/2015 No magic today, just could not get it together. Wanted trades to work and could only see good in them but that was a disconnect from reality

23/04/2015  Too many trades and not so well managed. I take a break mid morning and need to place take profit orders on stocks. This is best done with OCO on entry and I need to keep placing these and putting in sell orders at tested levels. 

One good set of trades at end of day in BRCM 

BRCM

This is how I love to trade and have not done one for a while.

Stock off earnings high from yesterday

Clear downtrend for most of day

Determined seller at 45.54 on tape. Orders refreshing to around twice bid levels and ticking down a cent or two as well. Selling pressure solid when these orders were flowing

Total of 3 trades 1, 2 & 3. 200, 100, 200 lots  Sold part @ 4 and closed @5 on first trade

Entered again @ 2 and sold position at 6

Seller started to keep a cap on upside so sold another 200 @ 3 and chased down with stops 2 cents above trade price. Sold at 07:55 just on close

I like trading this way and will look for more. There is potential to hold for bigger move on these or scalp 20 cent moves with some volume. Just needs decisive actions and hard stops above action on the tape 

20/04/2015

all indexes green for go today. Started out strong and just keep quietly running to the upside

Stuck to the plan today with small size and following two of SSpencers picks as well.

PL + $35.56
Very happy with this, its hard using small share size as transaction fees chop into but all the trades worked and still made profit overall on each one


Charts

RCL, traded long and followed SSpencer. It gapped down a lot and I would not trade this but the plan is to man up to it and learn something new so I did that. Spread was wide and random with 30 - 50 cents and small bunches of orders at each end fighting it out.
I settled on the second red bar along the bottom range and started to form up bids and offers behaving and then moved up nicely to resistance. I exited it there had also added when it started to move off the bottom and settle

LVS, no real reason for this move up, earnings due later in the week and it moved up to the bottom of a gap on the daily where it had failed before. I entered and just waited, closed out at VWAP and then entered again later on. The second trade made a tiny profit and was slightly negative after fees but happy with well managed trades.

this trade is a direct result of following Steve and looking for weakness at the of a range if there is no driver and clear levels

HAL, I dont like this stock as it does whatever it wants but again copied Steve.

 First short I missed the top as it moved fast so entered to low, took a tiny profit negated by fees but a good trade.

Second trade was at a higher level and after a failure to make the past day high.This broke even as as trade and was down the amount of the fees

Third trade later in the day there was a determined seller refreshing offers of around 3 -4 k and keeping the pressure on. Each time it skipped up 1 - 2 cents they would appear again and hold the up-move. Entered at market and got a fill at 1cent at the offer so happy with that and cut the trade on selling pressure drying up and bids increasing and holding

Really good trade 

last week ended up down a little but happy with progress on goals and habits that I need to change.

Goals for this coming week as follows,

No impulsive trades – there needs to be 3 key setups to trade along with market range bound or uptrend for long. Defined by SPY, IWM, QQQ and E minis

Long

Increased volume

Gap up for long

Support on 5 minute chart for level to be valid

Short

Break key levels

Slow death or event to drive it down

Exceptions

Steve S trades. Plan to enter his with 10 shares for purpose of leaning. Will try as many as possible and this is hard. I bailed on a trade last week where he shorted a strong up move as I just couldn’t bring myself to trade. It worked and it shows how much we are conditioned by what we think we know.

He makes money and I don’t so I need to copy trades till the patterns become my own

Stops – read an interesting interview in Hedge Fund Wizards and it talks about the point of pain for most people’s stops. This is the wrong place to put them and I have fallen into the habit of setting stops at a pain point and this is not the correct place as I get stopped out so often for a few cents.

Action

Stop level is to be worked out first based on past levels and then position size established to risk only what I want to lose if I am wrong.

I will keep at the other points as well, keeping stops in place, taking of part of positons at key levels, letting trades run.

If I see Conviction trades I will trade with a larger size