You're trading what you think, not what you see. All your large losses have been the result of this common trading mindset error. You believe that you, Neke, know better than the vast majority of market participants who are scrambling to buy shares.
You, a lone retail day trader, believe that you know when price is too high and is due to reverse. This is the Lone Hero ego-fulfilling dream. David conquering the Goliath. The Bruce Willis "Die Hard" fantasy.
If you had statistical evidence that the price action scenario presented by CRAY offers a higher probability of profiting by shorting rather than buying, then it would make sense to have shorted. But you don't have that evidence because it doesn't exist. The price action scenario presented by CRAY is a high conviction long trade.
Stocks that gap open at new highs or multi-year highs (CRAY opened at a new 10-year high) and do not immediately fall or do not break the opening 5-min low with conviction, tend to make new highs all day way more often than not. They tend to have a very shallow pullback period during the east coast "lunch period" and they tend to resume the move up during the hour or so leading into the close.
This is a gap and go scenario I've posted to your journal when you've tried to counter the the same price action environments in the past.
April 9, 2011:
I have to agree with VRUS being a shorting disaster...the technical price action was pure long signal. Priced gapped up in pre-market from the previous day which closed near all-time highs, then price ran from the open without a single tick of hesitation and consolidated in a narrow range at the opening range high. Buying anywhere in that narrow range, or buying the break out of the range with a buy stop was a very high probability trade based on that opening action. Everybody long VRUS was profitable and the price target is now $104. There is no fundamental reason whatsoever for price to drop, and technically there was no short signal the entire day.
When I see stocks hitting the hi ticker over and over again in the opening half hour, I take that as a long signal and I'd be looking to buy any pullback pivot or a break through a previous high.
February 26, 2012:
FIRE opened with a huge gap into all-new-high territory. That means no one's in pain except shorts (and there were a helluva lot of them because the short interest going into earnings was 20%).
That alone doesn't mean the price will continue to rise. As a gap trader, the standard rule of thumb is to watch the reaction to the gap at the market open. As I recall when I looked at the chart for that day, the opening bar was pure green. That's known as a gap-and-go (as opposed to a gap-and-crap) and it's a signal to trade in the direction of the gap.
If FIRE had spiked a bit and retraced the entire opening bar, that could indeed be a fader's short signal, always with an advance risk management plan, though.
Study how to play those gaps, Neke, they can be really profitable, but you need to wait a bit for the opening emotions to give you a clue to what the majority of market participants are thinking.
Gaps are a specialty among professional retail traders (those who trade for a living). There are precise rules for trading gaps technically and if you learn to trade them technically instead of based on what you believe should happen, you'll have 5-figure intraday gains more often than losses.
