***Use smaller size on the open to allow you to absorb the wiggles ... HDI was a good trade, since an opening gap fill strategy has positive expectancy***
It was hardly a heavy position, just 500 shares, and this is part of the losing streak syndrome as he went 25 cents against me immediately, and came right back in before I could even react and cut losses, I was dead grateful that he gave me a chance to go flat and at the sight of a first uptick I covered. It is part of a slump.
***OSX gapped up... better to wait for first half hour on index gap ups before going long on its constituents... buy the break to the high after the first half hour... no break means no BUY***
Actually my open strategy involves buying stuff that are not up nearly as much as other stocks in the same sector. At the time both were up less than a quarter when everything was up 75 cents or more, and the open print in every oil stock was very significant, it was as low risk of a trade as you can get.
***Good you finally realised that gap ups tend to fill and went for a gap and trap bullet... trade smaller size off the open to allow you to absorb snapbacks without being stopped out ***
The problem with the OSX on Friday was that the buy side volume was not strong enough to push the stocks into new high's but just enough to keep most of the stocks above water, I got nothing to show with the HP bullet and TDW squeezed into an intraday high (granted it was still a little bit below 3 day high resistance), and I covered simply because I just covered the HP position. This is the problem of trading multiple stocks in the same sector, if you believe one is no good you tend to cover the other.
***I would have waited for half an hour for a gap fill and breakout to the upside or for a confirmation of weakness***
First 30 minutes is a golden time to make money and CRA went up on no volume whatsoever, BTK was down and the stock was up 30 cents on a clear downtrend, tape said short and I did.
***Fair enough***
DNA did go up 1 point from where I got in but again I didn't have a strong conviction of where the thing should be going, judging by tape it looked strong at the moment but the stock burnt me quite a few times in 2002 as opposed to a serious money maker in 2001.
***Have convinction to stay with the index... make an appropriate trade-off for conflicts between tape action in an index constituent and overpowering strength of the actual index (XAL)***
The actual index was not THAT strong and the broad market was weak, then you have the raising oil price which usually is bad news for airlines, he hit me for 20 cents and I made back a quarter from him and that was that.
***NSM not a bad trade, if you used the low of day as your stop loss... ***
The way I trade I never use the low of the day as my stop loss, specialists always blow it and by the time it is actually hit you will lose 10-20 cents on top of your stop out.
***DOX was a dangerous play however, since it was tanking hard, even at 10am***
Seller gave up some pressure and I got into the bounce right before the sell-off, I actually made 5-10 cents off him as I saw that there were simply too many sellers in him for the bounce to trigger a double bottom breakout (I always anticipate those).
***Reasonable trade, you bought near support and took your cues from the index ... however, bear in mind that this was a low reward:risk set-up since you entered very near to prior day high resistance, without having broken through it***
I ALWAYS take anticipation trades and I pare out at least half at breakout points, even a stock does breakout I still pare out half and look to buy on a retrace (every breakout has a retrace on those days which made the breakout fading strategy I described far more successful than it should be).
***RLX gap filled, found prior day resistance and couldn't break out ... this was a bearish signal... what you termed an RLX pop should have therefore been regarded as a downtrend correction, and not as a pop***
FD had support even on 30 minute chart and I just couldn't see it break down on me when the RLX was going up and every RLX stock going up.
***Better than a loss***
The loss of the CEX index is evident on this one, the correlation between chemical stocks are greatly weakened. Also the sector had some news with DOW and PPG/EMN all hit hard and yesterday was more or less a consolidation day for those stocks, as soon as I realized that I just bailed for flat.
***Don't underestimate volume blow-off entries... volume blow-offs are the only intraday bottom-picking trade I would consider... pity you didnt ride the squeeze... this was an excellent trade, even though you only took 10 cents***
The problem with this kind of trades is that I always misjudge the blow-off print, what I thought would be a HUGE print often has an even bigger print right after. Honestly if I was up on the day I would have held, but I was just too afraid that I could lose half a point on this in a print or two. Actually in hind sight it was such a golden set-up as no matter how liquid TYC is, 5 million print is big for any stock on this planet, and it turned out to be Goldman buying the stock right there and then. Not to mention the stock hit the figure twice and could not break it, and I got into the second bounce when he printed .10 again, very few specialists create a double bottom on the tape but that was a huge buy signal, call it lack of confidence . . .
The biggest problem with this type of trades is that you never know whether the seller is done for real or not as too many times I see a stock bounce hard only to close on a lower low. Hence I rarely if ever get it right AND hold on to it for a substantial profit. Hence risk/reward wise it was never good for me as if I am wrong I may catch the final blown-off and lose half a point to a point when I am right I often take just half a point . . .
***By your 2pm entry, the biotech index BTK had already dumped for an hour... why enter your shorts so late?***
ABI squeezed not down nearly as much as other BTK's and I shorted into the squeeze when I saw that BTK made another new low and sellers were taking over on the tape, stock actually went down another half but in my head there was a "late to the party and about to get squeezed hard" fear so I covered as soon as he hit the offer at the figure with size only to get filled on a downtick and watch the stock go down more.
[in a context of years,growth] Interesting ,took 5, 10 years for two of those top traders to make profit.....................................
