Very annoying game as I was up $650 first 10 minutes of the game only to close it with yet another blah. Once again, the horrendous short game on gap and trap days cost me a golden opportunity to cut the deficit in half. I am seriously considering to play just the long side and forget bullets altogether, as every bullet I had over the past three weeks really really hurted.
21200 shares roundtrip, +466 before commissions, +173 after, 1 bullet. Still a meaningful victory to start the week with an uptick, with 3 games left (unfortunately tommorrow is the dreaded Fed game and I have had very bad luck with those) and a $1000 deficit, it is like being down 5 points with 5 minute to go in the fourth quarter while you have trailed all game long.
Can I make a come back from this? Yes, absolutely. Do I need some fresh energy? Yes, absolutely.
Pre-Market: Positive comments on energy after 3 days rally indicated a potential trap and it was a big smooth profit taking day (and I missed it totally after anticipating the same thing in BJS on Friday).
9:30: SOX was up and MU gapped down half a point, easy 40 cents right there as I got a gap-fill. TYC gapped down, traded down a little then ripped a point and I caught BCR immediately for 30 cents. These two stocks work as a pair but unfortunately they follow each other literally tick for tick and it is really hard to take advantage on all but the biggest turning points. Home Builders continue to go up and I caught BZH for 30 cents. CCU was making a breakout and futures poped and I got 30 cents out of the first half of my shares.
9:40: That was about the only thing good that happened to me today. From there everything went downhill. I expected CCU to pull back to the figure then hopefully another leg and I pyramided only to get stopped out altogether. I took AGE long on XBD strength but I used the wrong limit order and the specialist filled me at the high of the day.
9:45: Futures crapping out, went bullet on DHI. Home Builders, unlike oils and chemicals, simply refuse to go down, this is a mini bubble and stocks like NVR (up 17 points?) are short killers. You can not do Tony Oz reversal's on stocks that go beyond conventional wisdom. Yes, I know there was the housing number, but so many times a stock ran up ahead of the news and crap out on point. I guess I am a really really bad gap and trap short side trader (I make my money from the long side laggers in those situations). Bullet short 35.85 he went to a new high at 36.10 where I stopped out. I immediately realized that it was bull crap and I sold bullet again, two prints after I stopped out I sold back into 35.95, gee, I just gave up 15 cents for nothing. He filled the gap and I was able to take back everything except bullet costs.
9:50: I should have known better, all day I tried to short him despite the leaders CTX/LEN were strong. I throw 200-300 shares to "try it out" every time he had an offer, of course the offer is hit and I am out 5-10 cents. Churn, churn, churn. What really hurted was not the damage this stock did to me (lost $250 but $190 of which was fees as I churned more in him than all of my other positions combined), it was the fact that I had a bearish biase on home builders despite of the fact that they were the strongest sector in the market as usual. I totally missed the rally. If you want to play breakout's, look at those stocks, I mean, I thought it was 1999 again, where you don't ask the question "is it up too much?". I mean, I rarely pick tops, but with futures crapping out I really thought they can't go up that much, I was wrong, thin stocks attract shorts then squeeze the crap out of them.
2:00: Before I knew it home builders were screaming longs. Still, I had the DHI bullet I was telling myself I don't want to chase it. Got scalps off TOL, MDC, BZH, when they all worked at least half a point. Very very poor execution, it was plain disgusting.
