It was bullet day and I had two silver bullets that went down 1.5 points a piece smooth as silk, yet for whatever the reason I could not make any money in them. Snapped my 6 games winning streak today as I opened the second pay period in the red. An abysmal performance and I must fight back tommorrow. This CAN NOT grow into a losing streak, I must stand my ground tommorrow in a tough Friday game.
10000 shares on 4 of 9 shooting, +125 before commissions, -235.75 after, 2 bullets.
Pre-Market: Massive energy upgrades, home construction up (but home builders were choppy in the morning as the market sold off) . . .
9:30: Instead of a massive rally I saw a massive sell-off in energy sector. It was actually a silky smooth sell-off if you only look at the chart. On the tape however, I opened the day with a horrendous trade in WFT, OSX sold off stock opened slightly up, 63K shares at 39.74 open print which is quite a big block, my bullet was up and the BID was at 39.50, sold 1000 shares and got filled at 39.20. Ouch. I was lazy, always do a limit buy/sell with maximum amount of slippage you are willing to pay instead of a pure market order, when it comes to enter trades like this. I should have limit sold 39.50 instead. Immediate squeeze and I unloaded half of my shares for a 25 cents loss. The stock went down a lot and I was able to cover the other half for a profit actually. Yet it was the trade that broke my rthyme and from there I just didn't get the shooting touch. I put up another bullet in NE and sold some shares at 31.25. Again, very poor execution. A big part of my bullet game is to sell shares when a offer shows up, and those two stocks seemed to got my numbers today, every time an offer shows up, I sell some more, offer gets smacked and stock squeezes 10-20 cents, forcing me to light up a little. When the stock actually tanked, there was no offer. Horrific experience as I churned with the stock tanking smoothly off the chart. This was a good example of focusing on the chart would have been better, because after the upgrade a lot of day traders got sucked into buying those dips and while they didn't drove the stock up, they sure as hell created mini-squeezes which ruined my pyramid game. I churned and churned and churned those two bullets and just could not get my bullet cost back. Every other trade broke even, and those two trades were the ones that should have sealed a solid day.
9:59: Bought EPG on XNG squeeze for a 30 cents gain, little did I know I would not hit another shot until the afternoon.
10:46: Dumb dumb trade, took COO a very thin stock because I saw a volume print and lost 25 cents.
12:00: Churned those two bullets a little more.
1:21: Because the energies were upgraded I took KMG on OIX reverse head and shoulder intraday pattern and solid tape action. No volume, I got out at 62.72 for a 15 cents profit, missed almost 1 point. Same story with NBL, got out flat and missed 50 cents.
2:22: Took CLS a decent bottom pattern on Nasdaq/SOX rip and got hit for 20 cents. Took CRA and got hit for 35 cents on a spread, bought it back at the bottom print of the day but got out too early, futures made one more leg and it shot up 1 point.
3:00: Took ENE at yesterday's low for a 25 cents bounce. Churned WFT some more, game over . . .
Bonus Coverage: Small Caps Shotgun Trading
There are not many day traders that are up more than one million YTD. But after talking to a student of one of our top 5 traders I certainly see the potential of this strategy. His mentor finished last year with 2 million and YTD is up more than one million YTD. While his performance is on par with mine YTD, this strategy is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Every single day, his mentor would take at least 40 positions off the open, super thin stocks, nothing that trades more than 1 million shares a day. Some of those stocks trades under 100000 shares a day, as low as 20000! While he does news plays, the majority of his research is done on daily charts. He takes almost all of his positions off the open, long and short (bullet), anywhere between 1000-1500 shares each. That's right, 40 positions of some truly obscure stocks that no one trades. He pyramids into his biggest winners and cut his losers, at the end of day he would be flat in 35 out of 40 stocks (small winners and losers), and ends up with just a few 4 digit trades after extensive pyramiding. He holds his stocks with a lot of wiggle room and focuses on his best positions.
Advantages:
Super diversified, the stocks he trade are not impacted by futures/indexes, so it is very hard for him not make one or two big shots that make up for everything else, even harder to get totally destroyed (however, the KEY is to recognize his winning position early and PYRAMID). Since very few day traders trade those on a daily basis, the specialists in those stocks are mostly amatuers, which low shake outs and true supply demand information printed on the tape.
Disadvantages:
Requires a tons of macro management AND micro management, requires a tons of capital (although I have 14 positions and I suspect I can do it, to be truly successful you need even more than that). Good pyramiding is the key, so is patience as many of those stocks make one print every few minutes. Requires incredible daily chart work and a good mix of longs and shorts every single day.
Definitely not a strategy for everyone, but a very very potent approach when executed properly. Anyone intraday trade with daily charts and can give me some "bread-and-butter" setups? I can see myself experimenting with 10 positions 100 shares each . . .
