Greenleaf's Journal

I am currently long in ALKS, MVL, GNSS, GRP.

There were a lot more red candles in tonight's scan than in the last week or so, indicating to me that the upward momentum is definitely weakening.

REGN remains an 80 as a long.

TIVO, AQNT, SEPR, PDLI, CELG, OSIP, AMLN, and IDCC have been scored 70 as long candidates.

MCDT was scored an 80 as a short candidate after its precipitous fall today.

MANH is a 70 as a short.

I scored WFR a 70 as well, but I don't know whether it should be a long or short candidate. We'll see where it starts moving to make that assessment.


-- DG
 
The first chart tonight is WFR. I feel like if it can break through the resistance shown at the the green line on the chart, it's a good long candidate. If it can't, it's a good short candidate. Knowing my low tolerance for risky setups, I'll probably stay away. But it's one I'll be watching nonetheless.
 

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Next is TIVO.

It's only pulled back for two days, but it held the same low for the last two days. I usually like to look for at least three pullback days. But, the high on 7/7 was almost like a pullback day, as the entire day was spent in a downtrend.

I guess we'll find out tomorrow.
 

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MCDT is a good short candidate. I've rarely seen huge drops like the one today immediately reverse.

And the good news is I checked the IB site and they actually have it to borrow. So many times I get ready to short and hit the button and it says "none for you". So I finally started checking here before I get my hopes up.
 

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The toughest journal entries to write are the ones where you have to write out your losses. Everyone wants to win every day, but today I am getting my ass handed to me, so to speak.

I have done one thing wrong, but a couple of things I am happy with, so it is not a complete loss.

I made one of the worst trades in recent memory by shorting MANH two minutes into the session. I usually stay away from the first 10-15 minutes, but today I thought I had the market beat when MANH started tanking right off the bat. I wanted in so bad I actually sent a market order to short 200 shares. Needless to say, I got filled 45 cents under where I put in the order, putting me an immediate $90 in the hole. Then the stock proceeded to rise... up... up... up... to $29. (I got my fill at $27.66). It's been holding here and I am still under my 2% risk and I still think the pattern is okay for a small downtrend, so I am watching it closely. Any rise from here and I will spend a precious daytrade to close it. Another lesson learned.

In better news (not monetarily, but discipline-wise), I closed GRP and GNSS when they broke through support to the downside. No hesitation. So I'm okay with the losses (-$200 on GRP and -$76 on GNSS).

-- DG
 
Okay... I closed out the MANH and moved on. I also closed ALKS when it broke the low of the last two days.

I went short MCDT and VRSN. VRSN is looking like it may be a good trade.

MVL is hovering near the low of the day, but still hasn't broken yesterday's low, so I am holding it for now.

So, I have three positions right now:

300 MVL
-200 VRSN
-300 MCDT

-- DG
 
Today the market experienced a transition from bullish to bearish. Actually, the two days before this were clues when the market was both down and up. Unfortunately, my transition game could use some work as I took a hit moving from long to short.

I spent all of tonight thinking about what to do about this, since I have been hit with it almost every time the market turns.

The answer, until I am PDT-free, and unless someone has a better suggestion, is to open new positions only toward the end of the trading day.

I feel like you can tell more times than not what the market is going to do the next day (barring news events, of course, which would affect me anyway) based on what it does the day before toward the close. In order to minimize risk, which is what this is all about, I will look for tomorrow's plays toward the end of the current day's trading.

We will see how this works for a while.

I'll discuss my executions and account next.
 
As much as I enjoy reading your thoughts greenie, I hope your dedication to the journal is not interfering with your concentration during the trading day.

After all, other than the bus fare I loaned you the other day, I'm not paying you much for this privilege.

:)
 
As I mentioned, I moved from long to short today. Aside from the one dumb daytrade I did today (MANH), it was not too bad considering today's sell-off.

I sold GNSS and GRP when they broke down through support. ALKS I sold when it broke yesterday's low. Same with MVL. I just didn't get the sense that the market is going to go back up tomorrow, so I felt there wasn't much upside to holding onto these when I could potentially make more money being short in other equities. I lost $462 on these.

I should've waiting for actual breakouts in ALKS, GRP and MVL rather than anticipating them. That's the lesson with them.

I don't feel I did anything wrong with GNSS. It looked like it was going up, and started to go up, but the market weakness took it down.

I liked the charts for ADIC, CY, WDC, VRSN, and MCDT for short positions. As I discussed in a different thread, I decided to go short in all of them with slightly smaller positions instead of full positions in just two or three of them. I need to get better at going short and need to enter my orders better. I got bad fills on three of the five of them (through no fault of IBs), which combined is probably $40-$50 I have to make up.

They all look good so far (except WDC is trying to fight off the downtrend).

I'll post charts of these guys tonight instead of charts to watch since I am fully invested and don't intend on taking on any more positions tomorrow.
 

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Quote from inandlong:

As much as I enjoy reading your thoughts greenie, I hope your dedication to the journal is not interfering with your concentration during the trading day.

After all, other than the bus fare I loaned you the other day, I'm not paying you much for this privilege.
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Very funny!

Keeping a journal is great for my trading as I have to answer to everything I do now. It's not between me and my IB account anymore. I am accountable! My pride is on the line as I don't want to look too stupid by holding on too long or doing other dumb things on the record.

Besides, my eyes get buggy looking at the red and green tickers all day. Watching the daily fights on ET is a welcome diversion.

Thanks for reading...
 
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