Friday trade - UAUA

This was my most profitable single trade so far. I'm not bragging, but not all trades work out this well so you have to celebrate the ones that do go according to plan. I got in at 14.95 on the break of the NR7 bar. All the other airlines were going down at this time so it looked like the only thing holding UAUA up was the psychological support at the even number 15. The pivot point was above my entry, all the moving averages were downsloping and evenly spaced, the overall market was going down at the time, oil was setting new highs, the 5 period SMA was pushing this stock down, basically everything lined up. My past exits have been too quick so I was consciously letting this one go a bit longer than usual. I covered at 14.278 when the S&P was hitting 1380 after a big spike down, the other airline stocks were printing hammers, and there was a volume spike on the 5 minute charts a little earlier in UAUA. So this was a nice 4R trade.

Another thing I liked about this trade was my psychology. I was very calm throughout this trade. Sometimes I get a surge of adrenaline when I cover, but I didn't even experience that this time. I think the more confident you are in a trade, the less fear and anxiety you experience. You get adrenaline rushes when you're in danger. So if you get a surge of adrenaline before a trade, maybe that is your subconscious telling you you're about to do something risky.

Friday trade - RIMM

I had a good trade with RIMM today. It could have been great, but like I said, I'm working on my exits. The trade started with a good entry at the break of the cup and handle. At the time I exited, the Nasdaq was slowing around the 2400 point. RIMM retraced pretty good around 11:15. You can see the inverted umbrella at my exit point. If I was only looking at 15 minute charts, I probably would have stayed with this trade (ignorance is bliss, right :)). Another factor was that we were nearing the lunch hour which is normally choppy and directionless. Another 25 minutes in this trade would have made a big difference.

Week in Review

This was my best week so far in trading. I managed to eke out a profit and the majority of my trades at least went my way long enough to move my stops to break even. My entries are getting much better and I'm getting a lot more "looks". My entry technique is more solidified and I'm working on my exits. I had a lot of opportunities to take 1.5R in partial profits this week. I may add this as an exit rule in choppy conditions. As far as the market goes, I think we had three good trading days this week, Monday, Thursday and Friday. The rest were pretty choppy. We never closed above the upper trendline in my previous post and now with the GE earnings as a forecast of what's to come (less solid companies will be reporting earnings soon), a cross below the 50 day moving average, it looks fairly downhill from here. My one reservation is that the VIX never exceeded 24 on Friday. Two reservations, the volume wasn't very high either. It as if the buyers just stepped aside to save their money for another day. So I'm short term cautiously bearish.

CF - cup and handle

This is another trade I was looking at, actually would have worked out better than my INTC trade. Hint: When you see patterns start to form in the market overall, go through your watchlist and see if you see the same patterns in your basket stocks.

Thursday trade - INTC

I don't normally trade Intel but this setup was too good to pass up. First there were a series of NRIBs, then the last one was an NR7 on lower volume. The Nasdaq was looking overextended at this point, so I was not going to hold this one for long. I saw the resistance on the daily chart at 22.45 and was looking for a lot of green on the tape and overall market momentum for me to stay in the trade. The tape really slowed down around 22.40, Apple started going down, TICK went negative, etc... so I exited almost at the high of the day. Only 1.42R, but better than a kick in the teeth.

Groundhog Day

I really felt in rhythm with the markets today. It was my most profitable day so far. I think this has something to do with the fact that the last 3 days have been nearly identical with touch and gos on the upper trend line. So it's long in the morning, short in the afternoon.

Friday Review

Today was the least choppy day compared to Wednesday and Thursday. I came close to trading WM as it broke 10.9 at 1:00 but all the other banking stocks and the market in general were going up at the time so I passed. We bounced off of the upper trend line around 1381 so chalk up another one for technical analysis.

Outlook for Friday - Bullish Setup

This is a very bullish looking setup. The majority is looking for a big rally tomorrow. We shall see. Breaking 1400 and taking out the two most recent highs would be very bullish.

More Chop

Choppy day number two. Today was even worse than yesterday with quick thrusts in one direction for ten or twenty minutes and then reversals. The volume is lighter than yesterday, so this makes sense. I have to coin a word for these days--I think StopBuster may work. If you have a method to cope with these choppy, directionless markets, please share. I think the best thing to do is do nothing on these days and preserve your capital. Things look quite bullish right now, with two narrow inside bars at the top of a wide ranging bar on declining volume. The market was able to shake off that bad employment news this morning also. But I'm still cautiously bullish until we break 1400 on high volume and make a higher high. If you look at the two past wide ranging bars in the S&P, the first resulted in a full retrace, the second in a 50% retrace and the current is around 38%.

Lost objectivity

I seem to lose objectivity when I make an actual trade compared to a paper trade. I enter to quick and force trades. I'm trying listening to relaxing music while trading to lower my pulse.

Choppy Consolidation

Just your average choppy consolidation day after the big move up yesterday. There looked to be some capitulation after the third attempt at breaking 1377 failed. But 2350 on the Nasdaq held, so I'm not reading too much into that. The S&P will be doing battle with the upper trend line and then 1400.

I set up a few trades but didn't execute any of them after not sleeping well last night. I was looking at WYNN break of ORH, DHI break of ORH after two NRIBs, and shorting WYNN at 115 after it peaked. These all would have worked out reasonably well, so oh well, oh well, oh well (White Stripes).

I'm using Trader Jamie's acronyms, so check out his page for the definitions.

Impressive Rally

That was one heck of a day! I was waiting all morning for a retrace that never came. I entered a trade in FSLR at 1:03 EST on the slight pullback in the indexes, but it turns out that sector was overheated. I keep asking myself if I would make the same trade again based on the data I had and I think that I would. The only thing I didn't like was the overhead resistance at 240.

[Edit: I emailed Jamie about his opinion on this trade and he pointed out that there was an R2 pivot point at 239.76 which would have prevented him from making this trade. I just discovered that my software does have Pivot Points! I often underestimate Scottrade Elite.]

It's nice to have a day where you don't switch between wanting to go long versus short every 20 minutes.

I'll be watching WYNN tomorrow if the bullish sentiment continues.