Greenleaf's Journal

So here is my account today. It looks like they clear out the realized PNL column at some point late at night. That's a good thing because it was not pretty!

I'm still up 10.3% from when I started the journal 8 days ago, so it could be worse.
 

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I am currently short CY. The weekly chart showed a precipitous drop culminating last October, sideways movement until February, and a rise from there.

We've got a bit of an evening doji star going on this guy. Let's hope it follows through.
 

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I'm also short MCDT. I'm hoping to get to where the previous support was (green line on the chart), or, more optimally, fill in that gap from the beginning of June.
 

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VRSN looks like a good short right now, especially with the gap down today. I entered when it broke through the bottom of the bar from two days ago. I'll move my mental stop to break even tomorrow morning so as not to let it turn into a loser and hope it continues to fall.
 

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Finally, ADIC.

I like the looks of the chart and am glad I'm short. Another evening doji star (if you can call that bar from yesterday a doji).

I know I certainly wouldn't feel good being long in this one right now.
 

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Still enjoying the journal :)

I'm beginning to see the downside to Ameritrade. I opened a corporate account and couldn't get margin for some reason - I'm guessing because my corporation has no credit history. Which leaves me with a cash account. If you're not familiar with cash accounts - they suck! I can't do anything. I have to wait 3 days for the transactions to clear before I can use the money to buy new stocks with. The worst thing is that I can't short stocks. That's a big disadvantage on days like today. And those $22 round trips sure add up quick.

So I took your advice and applied for a personal margin account at IB. Hopefully that works out.

I took a small position in GRP (80 @ 12.10 - all the cash I had available) on Wednasday as it looked like it was ready to break out of consolidation. Got stopped out at 11.70 this morning.

Guess I'll be on the sidelines until we go bull again or I get my IB account up and running.

Keep posting :)

- Scott
 
Quote from greenleaf:

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.
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greenleaf, do a search on 'l/s strategy system' or something of the sort....basically it is a system that relies on the fact that the public opens the market and the professionals close it. the rule is, if after 1pm on hourly bars, if price is above yesterday's high go long, if below yesterday's low, short. i think you've hit it right on the button -- open the positions in the afternoon, to reduce your risk. Good luck and never give up.
 
Quote from KramerTech:

Still enjoying the journal :)

I'm beginning to see the downside to Ameritrade. I opened a corporate account and couldn't get margin for some reason - I'm guessing because my corporation has no credit history. Which leaves me with a cash account. If you're not familiar with cash accounts - they suck! I can't do anything. I have to wait 3 days for the transactions to clear before I can use the money to buy new stocks with. The worst thing is that I can't short stocks. That's a big disadvantage on days like today. And those $22 round trips sure add up quick.

So I took your advice and applied for a personal margin account at IB. Hopefully that works out.

I took a small position in GRP (80 @ 12.10 - all the cash I had available) on Wednasday as it looked like it was ready to break out of consolidation. Got stopped out at 11.70 this morning.

Guess I'll be on the sidelines until we go bull again or I get my IB account up and running.

Keep posting :)

- Scott
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I had a corporate account with Ameritrade until they started classifying it as a professional account, meaning huge data access fees, etc. Did you run into that?

I feel horrible if you bought GRP based on what I posted here. It really did look good to me, and it did break out a bit Thursday, but, as I mentioned above, it was hard for any stocks to go up today. Sorry you lost your $$$ on it. I did too if it makes you feel better.
:)

Thanks again for reading and following this journal.
 
Quote from greenleaf:


I feel horrible if you bought GRP based on what I posted here. It really did look good to me, and it did break out a bit Thursday, but, as I mentioned above, it was hard for any stocks to go up today. Sorry you lost your $$$ on it. I did too if it makes you feel better.
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No no no - I didn't mean it like that. It looked like a good setup - and I thank you for posting your possible picks. I was just sharing how my most recent purchase turned out. I also bought AMSC on Tuesday (100 @ 5.10). Still holding that one.

- Scott
 
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