The Good, The Bad, and Why didn't I wait - 4/11/2007

First the good - if you look at HSC between noon and a little after 1 pm, you will see what I thought was a nice head and shoulders bottom forming. The lead steel X was beginning to move again so I bought HSC at 46.70 and sold about 10 minutes later at 46.85 when it looked like it was finished. A very nice quick trade. I do think I should learn to hold on longer and break my sells up. I excepted a 20 cents move based on the pattern but only took 15 because I got nervous too quickly. I should have sold half and the rest at the target.



Next the Bad - this is one of my favorite patterns to trade. Why I did not jump all over it I do not know. I like to bottom fish earning warnings. If I played this correctly, I would have tried buying in premarket at 18.35 soon after 8 am and would have been stopped out hopefully at even 30 minutes later. I would go in again at the next sign of a bottom at 18.15. If then on the open, the stock does not take the low out and starts showing green bars, I know I should have a winner. I would then try to add to the position. The stock gave a great entry point of 18.25. I would take half off at plus 50 cents and guess the other half would have been plus 35-40 cents. This is how I should have played it. Instead - I took a couple of ten cent moves out of it when it was in the 18.20 to 18.50 range not trusting it was a better setup.




Now - why didn't I wait? I love it when big mouth recommends CHTR (or BRCD or LVLT). It is a fun stock to short. My plan was to try building a short position of about 6k shares with a cost if possible of 3.05. I had orders in at 3.03 thru 3.08. I did not get filled at 8 am (top tick was 3.02). So I waited for a minute or so and hit a bid at 3.01 for 1000 shares. Saw a bid at 3.00 for 5000 shares but was greedy and wanted my higher offers to be filled. They never did so instead of building a position at 2.99 to 3.00 I got bored with it and dumped the 1000 at 2.99 about an hour later. Reloaded my previous order hoping for a 9:30 spike and did not get it and stupidly did not short a bunch at 2.98. If I was only patient and waited, it could have been a good trade blowing it out at 2.92 once a bottom formed. Overall it was an okay day and again I traded a lot more shares than I usually do. I am beginning to believe it will be more profitable to go for a lot of smaller trades than a few bigger trades.