Chart Porn 05/30/2012 the impatient edition

Both trades were in market I thought were ready to break hard. If I just sat with both longer - I could have made decent money but instead 2 losers.

Chart Porn 05/21/2012 - FB unliked version

I wanted to swing FB.  I assumed a second day bounce that did not happened.  Dummy me for not being quicker on the exit.

Back to the same old problem

Now fear has taken over my trading and I am being a dumb ass with my trades.

Wednesday Trade Review 10/17/2007

For some reason, I can't upload charts to my blog today. I tried to get long the YM futures. The gap up convinced me that market may go on a tear. I was hoping for a pull back and I got it. I bought at 14045 on the test of the last morning low. Bought again in the 14020's and sold in the 14030's to keep a couple of points. Bought another contract at 14020 and was looking to add at 14000. By the time we got to 14000, I did not like market action. I got stopped out at 13995 after watching the action there.
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I switched to sell mode and missed the first YM breakdown because I was playing with stocks. I sold the second breakdown but by then the market was too oversold to fall. I got stopped with a small gain.
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I did screw around with a couple of stocks but my head was not in the right place after my losses in the YM. I need to look at them as separate things like I do with my trading account verses my retirement funds.
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I also started a 1/2 swing position in XHB.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +41 net +25 shares traded 2960
Stock Futures: gross -265 net -325 contract traded 12
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

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

Ouch 8/8/2007

What can I say? I was a bloodied today. I shorted the ER2 at 790 and had a stop above the first high. Looking at it and market in hindsight, it was not a good trade. I walked into a buzz saw of bulliness.



Why did I get into the trade? Look at this chart. For a couple of days, the 790 area played a major role in the ups and down of the market. I was assuming it was a good place to pause and the other futures were not as strong.
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Ouch - but thinking about it, I was going to stay in a trade come hell or high water until I made money or hit my stop. This trade needed a lot of room so I gave it. In a weird way, I feel good about this because I held it for so long. One of my major problems as a trader right now. It also pointed out to myself that I missed a couple of good long stock trades. Those trades would have made up for the loss in the futures. The lesson learned is I can't stay focused on just one thing at a time.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross -800 Net -805 contracts traded 2
Forex: none

Damn Dryer 6/13/2007

Not a fun day. Just as I was seeing if my on the open orders were going to get filled, the doorbell rang. The new dryer from Sears had arrived. They said between 9:30 and 11:30 so I was expecting them to show around 1 but guess what, they were right on time. I canceled all my orders and started to help. They had it in fast but after they left, I noticed that the dryer was just an 1/2 inch bigger than what it had replaced. It took me the next hour to adjust things to make it fit right to get the damn doors back on. The dryer, and washer for that fact, are in a closet. I had to have it setup just right for the wife.
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After cleaning up, I went to lunch with the wife and went to work. Quickly I finished the task I wanted to and started looking at the market. As I had been screaming to so many traders in the chat rooms, you must follow your plan. What did I do? I didn't. I bought a breakout when I have said over and over that I would stop doing that. The breakouts I find fail for me about 50% of time. I break even 20% of the time and make money 30% of the time. Instead, buying pullbacks for me seem to work about 50% of the time. Break even 30% of the time and lose 20% of the time. Much better odds.
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Well - the bottom line is my 9 day winning streak is gone. Time to start a new one.
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The numbers - gross -91.52 net -133.52 shares traded 2000

INCOMING!!! 5/9/2007

My plan coming into the day was to do battle with the big mouth stocks and go long the steels after the opening. One of the stocks was PAL. It was up a big amount and had never seen that type of gap before. I was hoping to short in the 11.00-11.20 range. It started trading very early. I was aggressive and got short 2000 shares at a cost of 10.97. It spent the rest of the premarket trading between 10.75 and 10.95. I thought I had a big winner. Problem was that the decline stopped around 8:30 and the stock started slowly moving up. The plan for these stocks is short at 8, cover after a decline or 9-9:15, go long if conditions look right, sell long into the opening pop and then go short once the speed of the pop dies.
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I didn't follow the plan. I thought the pop was going to be minor. Most of the big mouths stocks had not popped a lot recently. Boy I was wrong and to add to that, I had orders in to double my position just above the premarket price. Suddenly with in about 3 minutes, I had a position that was $2000 in the red. I wanted to add more to the position but never add to a loser unless it is part of the plan. So I sat seeing the big Mo was slowing and the stock started rolling over. I covered 3/4s of the position on the first dive down only pennies over my cost but I was stupid and held on to a quarter. I covered the rest at a much higher level fearing the highs would be retested. I nearly picked the top tick of the morning. All in all, I felt okay. I did not panic. Was able to reduce my loss a lot. The bad thing was paying so much attention to one stock, I missed beautiful buy signals in the steels. If I took them would have covered the loss easily.
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By time time I could think again - my trading mind was shot. Most important I walked away without a big hit. The lesson is do not predict the market but follow it.
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The numbers - Gross - 435 net - 485 shares traded 8000

Fool me once shame on you ....... - 4/19/2007

Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me a thousand times - while I am F. A really sick joke comes to mind but I will not share it because of the sad events at "VT". I may be sick but I am not that sick. This is painful. I thought or one of my goals of doing a blog is to become more discipline. Just writing adds more structure. Being a part of the "VO" is more revealing. It is one thing to lose money and no one knowing. Its another to lose money and have your wife know. But it is really something else to lose money and a bunch of the world knows and then finds out you did it because you didn't follow your own advice and you are doing the same mistakes over and over.

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Above are two examples of how I should not trade. Everyone of my trades today would fall into the category of this is how I know I should not trade. DSL is a recommendation by the big mouth on TV. It was up a lot in after hours and popped up in the premarket. I knew it was going to be a very thought trade but the though ones are usually the one that work. I shorted 200 shares near 8 am at 68.88. Got filled on 3/4's at 68.91 and the rest at 68.88 10 minutes later. Good so far. Now I should be looking to add to the position. The position should be 500 to 1000 shares. I did not. Started getting chicken but did not cover. The trade started going in my favor and bingo - I hit a bid at 68.50. Why - I do not know? There was no reason yet. Before I could even see my fill the stock was still falling. 40 cents on a lousy 200 shares. Lots of Happy Meals. I try holding on to shorts in the morning until 9:15 because that is when you should go long for the big mouth opening pop. A little risky with this stock but the open did not take out the morning high and lost power quickly - short the sucker again but did not. Stupid.

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The second is becoming my favorite stock - AKS. What have I wrote about in the past? What have I told myself a 1000 times before? How have I lost money over and over? Do not buy breakouts on the steels or slower moving stocks. They seldom work. AKS breakout to new daily highs 5 times and only the last one worked. 3 of the 4 other times the pullbacks were far enough to stop me out even though I traded this stock only once today. I had a buy stop at 26.51 - got slipped to 26.54 around 10:30 and stopped out minutes later.

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Three things I did wrong today. I did not fill out a position. I did not sit on my hands when a trade was going in my favor. I did not buy a pullback instead bought a breakout. Someone please hit me.

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The Numbers - gross -293, net -325, shares traded 5400

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.

How to throw a lot of easy money away 4/3/2007

The above chart is CEGE - a biotech. With all the action in DNDN, I expected some movements out of CEGE. I did not have to wait long. When I first looked this morning, CEGE was trading just before 7:00 AM up about 10%. After watching the volume grow, I thought this was ripe for a good pop up. Many times if there is good volume before 8:00 when most of the main stream Brokers allow trading, a stock will run. I started fishing around 4.80 area and got filled on 100 shares. Got myself a cup of coffee and should have started building a position of 2-5k but I did not. Why? God only knows and he did not tell me. I expected a move of 50 to 100 cents which happened right on time and I got out of my - haha - big 100 shares with a 65 cent pr0fit. I saw my target was right and the stock did nothing for the rest of the morning. CEGE then did not move up on the Open at all. The bell rang again - short the crap out of it. I did not. Why again God only knows and he's not talking. I would have/should have covered the position with the break of the trendline at about 11:20 AM. Then if one would have followed the stock for the rest of the day, it put in a perfect head and shoulders bottom giving a very pretty and simple entry point just before 1:00 PM. Did I do this ? No but this time I know why. I had to go to work. This type of action is most fustrating for me because with my knowledge this trade should have been very easy money.


This is one of my trade setups I like. A downgrade on a stock I do not think has anything wrong with it. I noticed that the 71.50 was holding good in the premarket. If I was not mentally stuck today, I would have put on a half position at 71.50 and then added if it held the open, sell a half at 72.25 and maybe holding on to the other half most of the day.


This chart of the USD/JPY which I did trade but poorly. The USD/JPY had been hitting a brick wall at about 118.40 many times during the last few weeks. The fib number of 50% was sitting at about 118.65 meaning in my mind if it could get thru 118.40, it would go to 118.65. If it could get through there, maybe 119.50 would be in the cards. The trade setup should have been buy at 117.90 looking for 118.40. Buy another at 118.40 looking for 118.65 and buy another at 118.65 looking for 119.50 with selling two of them at 119.00 and the other at 119.50 using about a 35 pip stop. I did not go this aggressive. I waited without orders for the break of 118.40 which happened in the middle of the night so I spent the rest of the day trying to get into this run. I got in at 118.75 on a breakout of the 3 hours of sideways action. I decided to get out at 118.90 because I assumed there would be a pull back first from the 119.00 area. So far I am right and looking to get in maybe back at the 118.65 area.

Bottom line of the day - a couple of trades - a lack of aggressiveness - and only $150 to show for a the work.