Last night I did not get sufficient sleep (went to bed at 1:30AM) and fatigue definitely took its toll on me this morning. I have to make a hard rule for myself that I shall not go to bed later than midnight before games.
I was too slow off the open and went with a pathetic long biase until 10:15, by then I already missed most of the morning move and I was in the same boat of "do I put up bullets when the market is already down 150 points?".
Fortunately I barely avoided a back-to-back loss to start the month but quite honestly, I choked this one. There was absolutely no excuse for the inability to execute and every bullet I had they went down at least 1 point from where I had them. The mental block was the fact that I knew I was late to the party and the best I could hope for was make myself a cold sandwich with the left over's.
Instead of 30 minute charts I linked a daily chart to my 5 minute so I can take a quick look at the overall trend. The 30 minute chart was more or less a failed experiment for me, just too slow for my taste, but the daily's seems to be a little bit more helpful.
17600 shares on 5 of 8 shooting, +536 before commissions, +37.21 after, 2 bullets + 1 shared.
Pre-Market: TYC got destroyed, and the market could not hold up under that kind of pressure, too bad it took me 45 minutes to figure that out.
9:30: GE gapped down and I went long looked for a gap-fill and after 3 failed attempts even with just 300-500 share a pop it turned out to be my worst loser of the day as I lost 10 cents or so each attempt. My brain literally paralyzed for 15 minutes as I did not go for any bullets and watched the sell-off.
9:50: Went long in LEN and it was the weakest stock in the strongest sector, what else, home builders, really tempted to bullet those but glad I passed. Churned a lot of LEN and pulled just $50 out. Tried a little SPF and left 70 cents on the table. Futures tanked hard and I got out without total disregard to the tape.
10:15: Way too slow as I identified TER as a gap and trap but didn't put up the bullet until now. He went into a little range and I knew I was chasing so I had absolutely no endurance for his nasty shake out's. Besides I knew SOX was strong in the morning so I had no conviction. Not a bad bullet, but I just felt uncomfortable with it the second it went up. Stock closed 1 point lower from where I had the bullet and I ended up down $156 after commissions after churning more than 2500 shares each way. Same thing with LM, although his shakeout's were a lot less forgiving I made just $50 when the stock fell 75 cents from where I had the bullet after churning 4500 shares each way. He even had nice offer's just not enough sellers to push it down fast and it turned out to be a grind-it-down hold which is a huge weakness in my game as I can never hold through something that just slowly trends without showing BID/ASK's. Again, if I was up in the morning I would have milked those so much better. Given that I was already down I had no endurance.
10:30: Got the CCU bullet from a friend and milked 5200 shares each way to score $270 after commissions. The daily looked incredible, the stock felt weak, but I could not hold that thing all the way through like what I must do if I want to be a legit contender. Chemicals did a quick rally and I went long FMC and stopped out for 5 cents loss.
2:30: Other than milking morning bullets all I did was a bottom pick in COF which I got barely 10 cents out. For me to be milking a bullet I need to see offers, and sometimes the specialist just won't give you nice offers to lean on. So many times I swore CCU was weak and will go down another quarter yet I only had 300 shares or so because I could not go for 1000 when he had no offer's. That said I will make sure that any time I get a good winner going, whether long or short, I will milk it rest of the game. CAL saved my day on Friday thanks to proper milking, and CCU carried my day today.
I have been playing very defensive, there is a lack of confidence and I need to pick up the pace. As of today I am finally leading my team in YTD P&L, and that's a disturbing thing given the way I have played. I have no idea what the future will bring, but I will give it my 100% effort.
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Seriously, I think bullets are definitely more a factor when trading listed, as the rules are different. Listed requires either an uptick, or same-tick after an uptick, so the specialist can easily prevent normal shorting by simply not upticking. In the Nas you don't need an uptick, simply an upbid (whether or not a print goes thru) which is a lot easier to get. In either case, and bullet or no bullet, there still has to be a buyer that you can sell (short) to.