Thursday Trade Review

The details of the trades are on the charts. It was a pissy day for me. I felt like I lost a lot of money but only had 4 paper cuts. I missed the Big Mouth stocks - they did not pop at all on the open and only one about 10 minutes later.

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I am traveling tomorrow on family business and the next day I will trade will be Thursday. I do not think I will be posting until then. See you all when I get back.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross -110 net -123 shares traded 2400

Stock Futures: none

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

Thursday Mid Day Thoughts 9/27/2007

I have none. The market looks like it wants to roll over but the ranges are killing traders today. I have just had a couple of trades that I got stopped on. This is like watching paint dry. Things got so slow yesterday - I started cleaning windows.

Wednesday Trade Review 9/26/2007

Very frustrating when this happens. I had buy stop on 69.01 for 30 minutes before it was filled. I expected the stock to run to new highs but went sideways for 20 minutes or so. I gave up and sold for a small profit. Minutes later the run started and then with the BSC news - it took off. I wanted to rise about 15 cents figuring I could take maybe 30 to 100 cents out of it. Crap.
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That was the only trade worth talking about other than my post below. I had bought XHB as a swing trade but sold it because it was closing so weak.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -119 net -136 shares traded 3400
Stock Futures: none
Other futures: none
Forex: none

Stupid Rookie Mistake 9/26/2007

If you look at the two charts above, one daily, one interday, you will see the general idea for the trade. I wanted to buy into support at 37.00 and again at 36.50 with a stop a little lower. When the stock was getting to 37, the bid ask was crazy. I setup my first order and forgot to adjust my buy to 37.01 as IB defaults the ask as the buy price. I hit enter and found I bought the stock a lot higher (25 cents) than I wanted too. I freaked and sold the position quickly not thinking about why or how I was doing things. Support 37 held nicely and it could have been a good trade. I should have taken one breath and bought a little more at 37 and leave the trade on. Stupid me.

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 9/26/2007

Maybe it is just that I am an old-fart but little changes in certain routines throw me off. The wife bought a new coffee machine a couple of weeks ago. It is not that different then the old one but it just not the old one. We had the old one for about 5 years. You should just not mess with things I need to operate before the coffee takes effect.
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Today, I nearly kill myself in the kitchen. The wife waxed the wood cabinets and some of the wax got onto hardwood floors. We live in a Chinese house meaning you never wear shoes. Now I got to nearly kill myself each morning as I try to remember how to make coffee.
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Life at times is so unfair.

Who would you sleep with at CNBC?

Dinosaur Trader has a great new poll on his site. Check it out.

Tuesday Trade Review 9/25/2007

My best trade of the day was my previous post. I am really tired so I am going to make this short. I also spent 3 hours working on my computer trying to make everything play nice together. I would hate to buy another one. There was plenty of good trades out there even with the markets being so flat. I just could not get myself in the right place at the right time. The computer did not help and then I was so pissed. Only good is after I cleaned it - it seems to be working fine.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -45.41 net -59.41 shares traded 2800
Stock Futures: gross +80 net + 75 contracts 2
Other futures: none
Forex: none
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Regardless of these types of days - it is still much better than going to the office.

Mid Day Thoughts 9/25/2007

Each morning as I wait for the coffee to take effect, I watch the markets in the pre-pre-market. I have noticed that if there is a small decline on no news and the YM's start finding support at the same level over and over - it is a good place to buy and look for a rally in the 7-8:30 time frame. I never play this game after 8:30 or if news is causing the move.

Monday Trade Review 9/24/2007

After all was said and done, I made a big $15 today. Very frustrating and sad because I am so close. I guess this shows the small difference between being a good trader and an average trader.
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If you look at the trades above and the post below, I had 4 big misses in the stocks I was trying to trade. I believe between HAR, NILE, LMC and ZINC - I should have been able to make about $1500. Also late morning, MissedTrade pointed out a trade I should have taken in shorting the YM futures. This would have generated $300-600 depending if I sold one or two contracts. This should have been an easy day for me even thou I am not yet gifted in finding good quality trades on my own.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +5.50 Net -5.50 shares traded 1000
Stock Futures: Gross +30 net + 20.40 contracts 2
Other futures: none
Forex: none

Todays Frustration 9/24/2007

I keep missing the Big Mouth stocks by 10-25 cents. Today I missed ZINC by 1 penny and picked the top tick in LMC but did not get filled.

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Right stocks, right idea but no fills. I need to figure out how to get into these stocks with out getting hurt in a fast crazy market of Big Mouth stocks.

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So I assume that LMC would get to 13 and ZINC to 24-25. I am thinking I should then leg in LMC at 12.75 with 200, 12.85 with 400, 12.95 with 600, 13.05 with 800 and 13.15 with 1000 share orders. And do the same with ZINC.

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Frustrating game today.

Monday Morning Thoughts 9/24/2007

We had a huge run in the Naqdaq as it hit the new recovery high but after five minutes of big buying everything stopped. I have been trading around going both long and short today. Basically keeping my broker happy. Turning to figure out the sector of the day either up or down.

The Fed and Market views 9/23/2007

The above charts are Crude, Euro, TBond and Dow futures - 1 month/1 hour charts.

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I wanted to wait a couple of days to see how the markets reacted to the Fed cut and wanted to revisited my views that I believed the markets had a good chance of testing the recent lows or breaking them.

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This is how the markets have voted so far:
Crude Oil: the Fed is Dumb
Gold: the Fed are idiots
Dollar: how dumb can the Fed be?
Mortgage Rates: the Fed are morons
T-Bonds: the Fed is brain dead
Stock Markets: "Let's start partying like it is 1999"

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The bottom line: As long as there is not some crazy hidden problem out there, the stock market may have a problems with new highs but should work higher over the longer term. The Fed and other Central Banks do not want the markets to go down. The places to be are gold, oil, natural resources and dollar related plays.

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I think the Fed notes will say something like this "Here have another bottle of JD. You can always stop drinking tomorrow". I do not know about you but I am alarmed at the rate prices are going up for food and energy. Two things I have a hard time getting by without.

Trades I should have made 9/22/2007

Friday Trade Review 9/21/2007

I did not do much trading today. I chickened out too soon of a RIG trade again. Sat on my hands for a couple of GS trades until either my original stop or price target was hit (I can sit on my hands - amazing) and had one other in RDC.
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I am going to post an entry on a group of trades I should have made instead on going into the details of my own. I hope to do that later tonight or early tomorrow. I had more system problems today and it took me 2 hours to get my oil changed. Thanks God it was express service or who knows how long it would have taken me.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +24 net +16 shares traded 1400
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Friday Morning Thoughts 9/21/2007

I got up late today and I have been trying to catch up ever since. It shows in my trades - two blown ones so far. Got to run - later.

Thursday Trade Review 9/20/2007

This was my first trade of the day. I was going to build a swing position in XHB on its pull back from its recent highs. This is assuming they have bottomed and like the rate cut. I nearly caught the bottom of the first move down and quickly had a 25 cent profit. Once I heard that Uncle Ben and two of Bush's housing guys were going to speak (Larry, Mo and Curly), I got nervous. Quickly, the ETF and parts of the market began to sell off once they started talking. I said screw it and took the position off. The ETF flew for most of the rest of the day. I will look at this one again tomorrow.


My second trade of the day was RIG. This is my favorite driller. It gaped up and I wanted to buy a HOD which to my surprise slipped a tick into my favorite on the fill. It started moving up slowing and once I had a 30 cent profit - I moved my stop to break even. Two seconds after I did that, I got taken out. The stock dropped 75 cents in about 90 seconds. I should have left my stop at 50 cents and it could have been a great trade giving me a couple of places to add.


My third trade of the day was TIE. I was very frustrated at this point and took a setup that was not very good. I had just missed like 5 different trades on the steels stocks, all trying to catch a break out. I took 17 cents on this one. I would have tried to take more but the steels were pulling back by the time I got in.

MY fourth trade of the day was NOV. I bought a break out but it went no where so I got out with a small gain.

My last trade of the day was again NOV. Trying for another break out. This is were I started the position before the break out and was going to add on it. I got chicken with the market breaking and got out. This was not working fast enough for me.

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I felt good today. My ear infection is clearing up and I could focus more.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross +137 net +121 shares traded 2800

Stock Futures: none

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

What was most of the day? 9/20/2007

There was some action is some places but talk about a dull day for the major averages.

Mid Day Thoughts 9/20/2007

This is what I love about blogging. There are thousand of threads all over the place to laugh with, help out, give support when you are down. It is like a VF - Virtual Family.

It is funny - I found it very easy to trade when I didn't care and I had a small account. I took crazy risks and made money over a period of time. Suddenly, I had more money to trade with and I started thinking - I could really change my life for the better if I could only learn how to trade better. I tighten up. I tried to trade smarter, risking less. The results - I traded less and made less. Then I explored a couple of trading career ideas as my day job started falling apart. I found myself watching/trading the market more and more. One of my great fears of trading full time was being in the basement with no human contact. Bingo - the Internet and the blogger/chat room community solves that.

One day, I sat down and thought do I love truly the markets enough to leave my job? At that time a bunch of family/job/health stuff all happened at the same time. I went to a shrink to sort it all out. During a session - my shrink asked me - "if you don't try trading full time, are you going to be on your death bed thinking if I only....?" That was a great wake up call for me.

So I put a plan in action to get myself there with a few safety nets and a Black Swan back up plan. I finally got free of my former life and I find myself even tighter in my trading patterns. I have tried everything to ease up on myself - smaller positions, futures, many positions, one position, playing music, drinking lots of caffeine and so forth. Nothing has worked the way I want it to but I feel I am beginning to feel with time I will get out of the frozen zone.

A good friend said to me - if I did not make or lose any money for a year - would your world end? No, I said. He said make your goal to make $1 in the markets in one year and take the pressure off. A crazy idea but I see where he is coming from.

It is really a big mental challenge to mentally go from play money to make a living money.

Thursday Morning Thoughts 9/20/2007

My trading has not gone well since I decided to go full time. The wife is telling me I am putting too much pressure on myself which I agree. A lot of good discussion in going on the mind games of trading at Move The Markets. I say go check it out. I great bunch of traders there with many comments from many others.

Big Mouth is Back I hope 9/19/2007

The 3 charts above are all Big Mouth stocks. They finally looked like they were going to wake up after he stated the bull is back. Very few of his buys have worked as shorts this summer. It happened the same way last year.

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I had orders in for all 3 but only got filled on one. I need to dust my brain off on how to game these again. There was no pop in 2 of them that caused me to missed them. I think I need to be more aggressive again and place maybe at 1/4 position on an open trade and fill it the position out if there is a pop.

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I did caught a part of GLS but it was not the true open. I noticed after getting filled, the spreads were crazy so a little voice in my head told me to take a small profit and get out. After the real open pop, I chased the stock down but did not get filled. I totally forgot there is no uptick rule anymore. Damn.

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The numbers:

Stock: Gross +144 Net +121 shares traded 4300

Stock Futures: none

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

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I made more trades today than in a while. I have been fighting a bad ear inflection since I came back from the shore. Most have gotten it from Charlie the Starkist Tuna. It is hard to trade every time you move your head and the room spins.

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 9/19/2007

This market is nuts or is driving me nuts. I am firing off trades left and right in many different accounts trying to rebalance myself. The Big Mouth stocks would have worked this morning but I did not game them correctly. I hate this rate cut because it pushes the pain off again.
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I am just not taking advantage of this the way I would like - nuts.

Tuesday Trade Review 9/18/2007

Days like this prove to me, I have a lot to learn. After many hours of boredom, once the Fed hit, I just could not react or think in any manner to do anything. I lost a little on trying to pick a top in the YM's early this morning and then minutes after the Fed announcement, I tried getting short. The short would have worked for about 50 Dow points but it would not fill. After that, I just watched things, like a dumb dog watching a kid eating an ice cream cone.


I believe LVS should stop soon. I took at couple of shots at it and lost $75. I will be looking at it again tomorrow.
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I am right now dieing of a 1000 paper cuts. My head is just not working well with this market. Very painful process. I am only down about $300 this month but I guess because I am now trading fulltime - it feels more like being down $5000.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross -71 net -75 shares traded 200
Stock Futures: Gross -60 net -64 contracts 2
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Time to place your bets 9/18/2007

Tuesday Morning Thoughs 9/18/2007

Just waiting - like everyone else.
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I am getting pissed at a lot of friends and family. Too many people keep asking me "How is the day trading vacation working out?". I am not on vacation. I am making a career switch. If this does not work out, I may try something else.
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Also everybody thinks I should be happy everyday. I am in theory just down in the basement playing around on the Internet and making a trade or two. How hard can that be? Give me a break. The only people who seem to understand me are the ones who are self employed.

Monday Trade Review

My first swing trade is this account for a long while. Playing a double bottom in the Home Builders thinking it would rally into the Fed meeting. It rally but not as much as I thought it was going to. I was hoping for a 1 to 1 1/2 points on the trade and took 1/2.


My favorite steel was showing support at 40 so I bought with a tight stop and got stopped. Thank God because it fell for a long time afterwords.


It looked like the Ag-chemicals were going to pull it together earlier in the day, so I went long AGU on a break above 49.10 to HOD but after seeing the general market and other Ag-chemicals fail at that time, I chickened out. It could have been a good trade.


Last trade, I tried to buy a pull back. I just really screwed it up as I stated on the chart. After this trade, I had not been feeling good today or all weekend long so a took a long afternoon nap.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +202 net +182 shares traded 4000
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Monday Morning Thoughts 9/17/2007

This market is very frustrating or maybe we are just at one of those points. There are so many ways of looking at this market right now. We are at the top of the 2 plus trading range. We went from the bottom to the top of that range way too fast. It should have failed. Now we are kind of hanging out at the top. The longer we are here the greater the chance we will break out of the top of the range and retest the previous high.
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We are waiting for the Fed right now. It seems like every thing they could or could not do, will let the market down. A classic buy the rumor, sell the fact type of market.
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What happens if we combine the two, the Fed move causes the market to break out of it ranges for a day then fails - do we hit the bottom of the range or retest the low?
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When the market falls into this type of scenario, a trader must be very flexible. They can not put too many lines in the sand or stick to one idea. Markets that are just trending up or down, you can sell or buy the rallies and then sell or buy the declines - a lot fewer questions.
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This lesson I learned too many times the hard way and I am still learning. Keep an open mind.

My Rock 9/16/2007

I am having a hard time concentrating on my market home work tonight. Tomorrow is the day my lady and I like to celebrate. It is the 14th anniversary of our first date. I do not think I would have even tried to be a full time trader with out her pushing me. It has been a dream of mine for so many years but I kept on coming up with the reasons not to.
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She is a great gal. We became friends as first before we became more. She is the only woman I had dated in my life that allowed me to be me. I can be a little strange at times, my humor is a little off color and I always love being a class clown. But she puts up with all my stuff and how I look at things. She lets me love her the way I want to love someone and I love the way she loves me back.
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Our relationship has grown to a point where I know any problem I have, I can lean on her and she can do the same thing. I look at her as being my rock where I always know my back is covered.
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We spend a lot of time together, even to the point where I just like goofing around with her at a Walmart or Home Depot on a Saturday afternoon - yet we are too very independent people. I know that if I am gone - she can take care of herself just fine and if she is gone, I can do just fine by myself too. Although the laundry might not get done as often but that is a whole another story.
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It is great to have a partner in life that believes in so many of the same things in life as I do and will support me in so many ways as I would want to support her. I am truly blessed.
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I love Miss Pookie - you are my one and only - you are my Rock.

Monthly Review 9/16/2007

My monthly numbers:
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Wins: 33 Losses: 14
Avg Win: 41.47 Avg Loss: -120.57
Gross Trading: -319.50
Commissions: -197.46
Net Trading: -516.98
Biggest Win: 200.00 Biggest Loss: -800.00
Data Fees: -34.50
Interest: 250.31
Account Net: -301.17
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As you can see, I did not have a good month. I took two very large losses (-800.00 and -500.00) this month which killed me. I try to kept my loss on a trade most of the time under $500 right now.
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Even though I had two large losses, I also need to allow more of my trades more room and time to move. Out of 47 trades, 34 were gains or losses of $50 or less. If a trade does not start working for me with in 10 minutes, I usually get out. I found a lot of trades this month would have worked out better if I had just given them more time. Also many of my trades would have worked, if I gave them just a little more room to go against me.
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All in all, I continue to like the fact, I really do not allow myself ever to blow up. It has been a very long time since, I am have taken a 2% percent or more hit on any trade.

Friday Trade Review 9/14/2007

Did not do much today. Cable guy was here and killed about half of the trading day. He found nothing wrong but replaced a bunch of cables and connections any way. I spent the morning trying to pick a top in the YM futures with no luck.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross -85 net -93 contracts 4
Other Futures: none
Forex: none
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I do have a swing trade on in my day trading accounts. I am picking a double bottom in the housing ETF - XHB. I plan to review my monthly numbers this weekend. I bit late but hey I was at the beach.

Friday Morning Thoughts 9/14/2007

Two thoughts - I am watching a lot of postings on one service go back and forward on the subject of the remove of the Uptick rule. It is really funny that so many people want to rig the market in flavor of the bulls. They want the uptick rule back but think you should be able to even margin more. It seems like a lot of people in DC even wants to do this.
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Second thought - you got to be flexible. The market had a trend day up until late in the day. The market is getting to major levels of resistance where one should think about shorting - if not short already. The V bottom just should not work here without some type of pull back.

Missed Opps 9/13/2007

Sometimes if you let it, trading can be very simple. As I have stated before, I like to get up early and see if I can take advantage of the overnite ranges in the futures. I typed my trading plan on the chart and I missed it. The risk on two contracts would only have been about $150.


Again you can make trading very simple. As the ER2 was moving down big but the YM and ES were holding up, I thought the ER2 would be good for a trade (bounce). Each leg down had a little less force to it and others were not falling apart. I was such a sharp down trend, the setup would be only risking $200 (new lows).

Thursday Trade Review 9/13/2007

Not a good day mentally. I had computer problems earlier and that put me in a fowl mood. I added my bad mood by quickly putting on a trade that made little sense hearing other traders shorting the market. I was stopped out quickly. The chart below is it.

The steels kept moving up during the day and I was following NUE. I did an initial poke and lost a small amount. When it finally broke out, I just had entered my buy stop which was missed.

With NUE, I was also watching my favorite steel AKS. It was giving me many buy signals. I missed one by two cents. Finally late in the day, I entered around 39.53. AKS has a history of finding support at 0.00 and 0.50 levels. I got stopped quickly.

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On top of that, the bond future trade I chicken out a few days ago of really worked today. MT made good money shorting the market late in the day and I was waiting for higher prices.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross -62 net -69 shares 1400

Stock Futures: gross -100 net -105 contracts 2

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

Mental Problems 9/13/2007

All morning long my Internet connection has behaved but then I had computer problems followed by problems with QT. I had to reboot a couple of times. Once I got everything cleared up I jump on a YM trade for no good reason and lost a quick $100. Now I am trying to clear my head and think. Maybe lunch would be good now.

Thursday Morning Thoughts 9/13/2007

A lot of frustration right now. My Internet connection is really flaky right now and the tech guy is not going to show until tomorrow. The people of the phone think it is my modem but I checked with my neighbors and they had problems also.
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Frustration number 2 is I printed my IB monthly statement. I print all my monthly statements and go through all the trades compiling my stats. I also do a mental review of the trades and if anything hits me weird - I go back to the chart and try to figure out what went wrong. The frustration is they changed their format and columns on the report and it is even harder to figure out now.
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Frustration number 3 today is I got up early today. Many times the market seems to start a trend somewhere between 7 and 8 am EST. There was a lot of support at 13300 and the market was trading between 13305 and 13315. I was planning to buy one contract at 13305 and another at 13300 with a stop at 13290. The market did not trade under 13310 and then took off without me.
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Time to got more coffee.

A Review of a MT trade 9/12/2007

One of Missed Trades trades stuck in my head today for the reason a couple of other traders were going long it as Missed Trades was shorting it. The chart above in the daily of FSLR. It got an upgrade today and was higher in premarket. The problem was it did not look like it was going to get a large pop. It first needed to clear yesterdays high and then it had a brick wall of 3 day highs around 109. Many times MT legs into trades which works great for him.

Once the open pop was done, the retest of the daily high looked like to place to begin to leg into the trade. The first legs were 106.50 and 108.00. I believe there may had been one more. Both were filled quickly but very soon the market was not racing forward and FSLR lost it steam from the upgrade. MT cover 1/2 around 106.40 and the rest at 106.05 but he stated if the stock spent anytime under 105.00, it could really break. Boy did it.
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This trade shows two things I believe - you need to look at the daily chart to see where a day trade should be made and once you are done with a trade, you are done with a trade. You can't cry over money left on the table. You just go onto the next opportunity.
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Hopefully me typing makes sense for I am really tired right now but I want to say - everyone should come and join us at MT's chat room. A week trial is only $25. And as the little thing on the right of this site states, they allow me to cut you a deal on the service.
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You can join and just follow MT trades but the real beauty of the site is he helps you think for yourself to become a better trader. That is why I am a member.