Trade Journal 10-29 and 10-30

10/29/09

1. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Early strength in EEM
Long/Short: Long
Time: 6:31
Entry: 38.50
Size: 1000 Shares
Exit(s): 1/2 at 38.66, 1/2 at 38.70
Time in Trade: 1 minute, 4 minutes
SPY, Q's, and IWM confirmed strength shortly after entry, but EEM was far and away the leader. SPY was testing 105.30's before sliding back down to test the 105 fig. This was my sign to exit the 2nd half. Should have paid more attn to SPY at 105, since that has been a major battleground number.

2. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Base and break setup
Long/Short: Long
Time: 7:00
Entry: 38.70
Size: 1000 Shares
Exit(s): 600 at 38.85, 400 at 39.00
Time in Trade: 4 minutes, 21 minutes
SPY, IWM, Q's all near HOD when I entered EEM. Took quick profits on first half and held the other half for fig, since we had strength in all indices.













Best Practices:
1. Ability to identify momentum via change % from open (ch%O) on the EEM, SPY, IWM, and Q's. EEM was strongest off open, while the others chopped slightly. When the others picked up buying I entered EEM and caught a quick move.
2. Allowing position to go for T2

10/30/09

1. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Early weakness in EEM
Long/Short: Short
Time: 6:31
Entry: 39.03
Size: 1000 Shares
Exit(s): 1/2 at 38.93, 1/2 at 38.94
Time in Trade: 3 minutes, 3 minutes
Early weakness with IWM=EEM < SPY < Q's. Exited as SPY picked up strength. UUP was also moving up fractionally.

2. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Early weakness and a sudden pop that didn't look sustainable (SPY popped .60, but EEM/IWM remained relatively weak)
Long/Short: Short
Time: 6:45
Entry: 38.90
Size: 1000 Shares
Exit(s): 1/2 at 38.74, 1/2 at 38.46
Time in Trade: 6 minutes, 47 minutes













Best Practice(s): Identifying weakness, Staying with position through pullbacks to 20 sma (very difficult for me)

Worst Practice(s): Not adding when EEM pulled back up to 20 sma in the 38.80 area. These are rare since I usually only trade the first 30 minutes, so this is something I should def. watch for in the future.

Trade Journal 10-28-09

I was anticipating a rally since we had sold off so hard the past couple of days, but right from the open the bulls were not able to show any strength. The selling began with weakness in EEM, which was followed by IWM, then SPY and Q's.

1. Symbol: BTU
Reason: Support buy triggered near open
Time: 6:32
Entry: 41.00
Size: 500 Shares
Exit: Stopped out 40.91
Time in Trade: 8 minutes
It almost ran to T1 (41.41), but missed by pennies due to selloff in indices. Chart on bottom.

2. Symbol: WLT
Reason: Support buy triggered near the open
Time: 6:34
Entry: 60.00
Size: 300 Shares
Exit: 59.82
Time in Trade: 8 minutes
Got stopped out after not being able to hold above 60.30. A second try on this name would have yielded better results, but due to the big spreads (.10 at times) I decided to look elsewhere.













3. Symbol: SU
Reason: Support buy triggered near the open
Time: 6:42, 6:45
Entry: 34.04, 34.31
Size: 600, 600
Exit: Closed it out at break even as the indices sold off
Time in Trade: 5 min / 2 min
Added second position as it crossed early high of day. SU could not hold above high of day, so I closed it out.













4. Symbol: BTU
Reason: Short on resistance at target number after not being able to stay above it twice before.
Time: 6:52
Entry: 40.97
Size: 1000 Shares
Exits: 500 at T1 of 70.72
200 at 70.72 (prior to 7am housing report)
300 at 70.50 (right after housing report)
Time in Trade: 2 min / 7 min / 8 min













Best practice today: 2nd add on SU even though it didn't work out. It was aggressive and the risk/reward was good. Also glad that I cut it at break even.

Worst practice today: Not scratching WLT and BTU after they failed to hold in positive territory and the indices were showing weakness as well. Stops were in place and kept the losses minimal, but I should have closed them out after not holding above resistance numbers. These trades are to be somewhat quick scalps off support.

Trade Journal 10/27/09

Trades:

1. Symbol: MON
Reason: Support buy triggered on the open
Time: 6:30
Entry: 70.25
Size: 250 Shares
Exits: 1/2 at T1 of 70.95
1/2 at 70.50 as indices dumped off
Time in Trade: 6 minutes, 11 minutes













2. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Weakness after two strong up bars
Time: 6:52
Entry: 40.18
Size: 1,000
Exit: Scratch
Time in Trade: 1 minute

3. Symbol: EEM
Reason: Strong selling after touching 20 sma
Time: 6:55
Entry: 40.18
Size: 1,000
Exit: 1/2 at 40.09
1/2 at 40.10
Time in Trade: 3 minutes, 4 minutes













Best practices for today: Being decisive and catching MON on the open. Scratching EEM when risk/reward area near 20 sma had not been reached yet.

Worst practice for today: Not taking partial profits on EEM and holding the other half with stop at break even. Despite the housing report at 7am, I have to see if my initial assessment would play out fully.

Trade Journal 10/13/09

Recap of early session: Indices gapped down slightly and ran up for first 15 minutes with Q's > SPY > IWM. Sudden selloff at 6:55am with all indices near LOD.

Trade 1- RIMM
6:54am
300 shares (short)
68.30 w/ stop at 68.50 and T1 of 67.62
Entered on double top in the stock and with indices basing before the 6:55am selloff.


Trade 2- RIMM
7:05am
300 shares (short)
67.95 w/ stop at 68.18 and same T1 as above.
RIMM traded quickly down to 67.70 before reversing sharply and stopping out this trade and stopping out the other trade at BE.

Since I added to the position and since I was trading against the longer term trend, I should have tightened up the targets and taken profits more quickly. I followed correct sizing and was able to identify short term momentum.

The Roller Coaster Continues

Another roller coaster week comes and goes. I'm still dearly searching for some consistency in my trading.

The most important thing that I learned this week was that I need to find my own trading style. Over the past month and a half, I have been trying to read the tape off of the open on stocks with fundamental news. This has only led to frustration and some damage to the account. I do not possess the mental processing skills to see what games the specialist is trying to play.

My specialty and background comes from chart based trading. Although I will agree with my mentor that the tape will always lead the chart, it is my preferred way to find entries and exits. I recently subscribed to the High Chart Patterns Group newsletter. Their site can be found here.

Their methods are clear (identifying possible breakout/breakdown price levels on momentum stocks and trading it with clear objectices). I will focus on their focus list stocks as well as add my own. I will be keeping a list of momentum stocks that may show clear intraday base and break patterns and will trade them according to the HCPG system.

Here is a trade I made on LVS. The setup was a clear ascending triangle at the $114 level. I was able to hop on for a quick point and a half.


The 3 things that I listed last week as things to work on were not as clear as they should have been. The 3 things were patience, persistence, and mentally resetting myself after large ups/downs.

In terms of patience, I meant that I need to have an exit strategy that gives my position more wiggle room. I will start using the HCPG method of 0.3% stops, since the stocks that we trade should give us an immediate move.

Most days I trade only a handful of stocks and some of them I will go back and forth in several times before giving up on a particular stock only to watch it blast off or crater soon afterwards. I will give each stock 3 chances to make its move and if it strikes out then I will leave it alone for the rest of the session. This is enough persistence and will clarify in my head the point of execution that I am striving for.

Mentally resetting is pretty simple. I can always play a few songs that I listen to prior to market open and do my breathing exercises again. This will bring me back to a calm and collected mental state where I am ready for anything.

Dow -360 WOW

This week has been WILD. Monday was my best day up to that point. Tuesday my WORST and today my new best.

Monday I owned AIG back and forth up and down. It felt great. Traded with the 2-min / 20 ema most of the time. Tuesday started off with getting chopped back and forth on MS around the 20 ema. I would go long, get stopped out, go short, get stopped out. After about 4-5 times I decided to give up. Of course MS drops a point in the next minute. This really got me mentally. Missing moves is a real fucking killer to the psyche. Add on top of that that I was down and quickly racking up commission made for a killer day to the downside. I couldn't even get the balls to enter moves that I saw throughout the day. Rough...REALLY ROUGH.

I will become the mentally toughest mofo that I know after a couple years of this.

Today I caught some DAMN NICE moves right off the open. PL provided the first (100 shares and caught about 1.20 points) and BBG provided the second, which was also my new most profitable single trade. Here are the charts:




Things to work on:

Patience

Persistence

Mentally resetting myself after being up or down a lot. Taking a few minutes and going through some breathing/visualization exercises.