NoDoji's Day Trading Log

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Stopped out GEOY with major slippage (damn those thinly traded stocks) -$204

I saw NVAX back below $2.00 and was glad to have taken the $5000+ when the news was hot!

Booked 3 days of diving so far, also planning to tour ruins, zoo, caves.

Rented bikes and traveled the entire Caye in about 15 minutes. Felt like a kid again with a big old clunky bike and a basket in front, barefooted, racing down the dirt roads.

The food's all about meat, cheese and deep frying. So we're living on beans/rice, cereal, and fruit out the wazoo. (Bob, enjoy those salads for me, because the veggies are really limited here!)

Internet too slow to day trade, schedule booked up now, so no more trades until I'm back. Mad, Geez, go ahead and make bets, I won't cave!

Best of trading to everyone!
 
Greetings from Caye Caulker, Belize!

Yesterday morning hopped aboard the SKF right after the opening bell and headed out to Turneffe Atoll for a day of diving.

It was a wild ride, chop, chop, up, down, up, down, but once the target was reached, it was worth it. Now I know how the folks aboard Noah's ARCA felt.

Three dives in crazy surface chop, but fantastic down below - sharks, rays, turtles, tropical fish of every kind, slipper lobsters, just awesome!

The 2-hour trip back was a blast, more SKF action on the high seas. The SUN was HOT, the rays sparkling like GLD across the WTR.

Came back end of day and wolfed down some leftover PZZA.

XXXOOO

ISLD Girl
 
(Hermit, yes, we had to get up very ORLY. Thank you!)

+$8

Don’t laugh - it all started rather innocently. We were taking a day off, sitting in the air conditioned room after breakfast recovering from yesterday’s sunburn and diving efforts, so I decided to fire up the laptop and visit the chat room.

Well, you know how it goes:

Trader + Laptop + Anything Vaguely Resembling an Internet Connection = Attempts to Trade No Matter How Futile.

What can I say, I love my job.

I figured with no direct access trading platform and a very iffy connection that allowed me to refresh charts and quotes every 20-30 seconds or so, I was safe with a nice slow mover. So I shorted GEOY @ 27.60 on pull back from failure to make a new high, stop 27.80, target 27.10. Move stop to 27.50 when it dropped to the .20’s. Came within .05 of target before spiking to take me out for a $8 net gain. So my expensive dinner money became my cheap island lunch money. Geez, you can yell at me for moving GEOY stop; it never came close to my original stop and broke down right through my target later on.

Lost internet connection a couple times, but then the connection seemed fast enough to take a couple setups.

Offered 43.96 PRU on pullback from slightly higher HOD, but by the time my order went through it had dropped to 43.26 without me.

Then later offered 28.55 TIF on pull back from lower high and same thing, order missed and it fell off a cliff.

Offered 28.36 UNH on pullback from lower high and even though again that was the Ask, by the time my order went through it was down to 28.22.

I realized that the 20-30 seconds between refreshes was killing my entry attempts. Then all further hope of trading was abolished by the failure of my “platform” (read “rickety footbridge”) to work at all.

This was the confirmation signal to go get lunch overlooking the sea. I decided that an $8 gain today was plenty in a place where $8 buys a great lunch for two.

I was pleased to find that I got my “trader muscles” back; despite an inability to actually put on nearly all my trades, every one of them moved nicely in my favor without any heat whatsoever. I look forward to getting my direct access platform next week!

Tomorrow we’re off to our cave tubing adventures on the mainland. Have a great trading Friday, folks!
 
Mad..care to go double or nothing she tries to get the pilot on the plane to call in a stop limit order for her when shes flying back?
 
Geez, I tried but was informed it was Sunday and the market was closed :p

+ $145

Short small WHR position @ 48.11, it bounced hard off 47.32, so set target just above @ 47.37 and it looked really weak as it approached target, and I was in the process of moving the target lower and it filled before I had the chance for a net $138 gain. It has a spread and was very jumpy; wish I’d gotten target moved in time because it dropped nicely all morning, but I didn’t want to chase a re-entry.

Short GEOY @ 27.50, looking for retest of lows, expecting possible small selloff pre-earnings, but it stagnated and got “that look”, so I was about to exit near b/e when 27.60 stop was triggered and filled at 27.55 for a net loss of $20. Some day I’ll have the balls to go long when the L2 gets “that look” even though the stock is trading near 52-week highs. GEOY broke out hard from there. Same thing with HANS today. Was watching for lower high to short, but at one point the chart had the break out look and sure enough it broke to new 52-week highs.

Offered 28.25 TIF as it ran up to overbought near previous resistance and although that price lifted someone’s order, it was not mine, and it dropped too quickly for me to jump in.

Short HANS @ 43.69 failure to make a new high, .10 cent stop moved to b/e. Covered @ 43.62 for a net $28 gain when it didn’t make the quick move I expected, and it settled in at a higher low, and it and the market reached oversold condition.

Severely under-traded today, but with less than 5 hours sleep after getting home very late last night, that is probably just as well.
 

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- $63

On open, placed an “oh shit” offer on HANS @ 44.25 and 44.00 was hard resistance as it dropped over .70 cents from there.

9:52 a.m.: Shorted @ 43.71, overbought, pull back from lower high, stop just above the HOD. Rallied to 44.00 again and sold off hard. Moved stop to b/e then covered @ 43.50 (43.55 with major slippage) for a $68 net gain, when it was oversold and at that round number that bounces so well. The setup I took was solid, but my major critique of this trade was not doubling the position at the second test of 44.00 and keeping the 44.10 stop in place. That would’ve only risked an additional $50, but the gain would’ve been significantly more.

10:52 a.m.: Watched HANS retest 44.00 and touch pennies above. Just as I was placing the short order @ 44.00, it dropped out from under me .20 cents. Missed a nice scalp there.

11:17 a.m.: Short STEC @ 13.65 where it had consolidated for quite some time, stop @ 13.75, eventually hit for a net loss of $55.

12:18 p.m.: Short HANS @ 43.51, based on it just looking plain weak after failing to break through 43.63 a couple times. Covered @ 43.32 oversold near LOD for a net gain of $86. Afternoons it’s better to wait for test of LOD which almost always occurs. Earlier in the day you generally get a bounce higher. Left a lot of money on this one.

2:19 p.m.: Short WINN @ 14.46, overbought intraday and 30-day, large gap. Stopped out @ 14.76 for a $163 net loss. Then I failed to short again on the significant run above 15.00, best short of the day.

3:42 p.m.: Short HANS @ 43.59 When it dropped down through the intraday MAs. It milled around after that, ranging less than a dime either side, holding overnight.

My biggest critique of today’s trading was lack of patience and focus, and only taking a small number of my setups, which is my usual ongoing problem.
 

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+ $186

Placed morning volatility target of 43.20 for HANS on open, filled for a $186 net gain. Target based on sequence of higher lows each day and yesterday’s low being around 42.90.

Later watching HANS and although it was way “oversold”, it was looking really weak L2-wise stuck at 43.20 with no buying pressure at all. I planned to short it right after I grabbed a cup of tea. It was that critical mistake again of grabbing tea BEFORE putting on the trade, and I return to see that it’s fallen off a cliff without me.

Very end of day HANS pushing above 43.00, overbought and stalled. I was tempted to short it for another overnight play. Then I took time to think (“Bad day trader!”) and figured it wasn’t an ideal price level, and it dropped .30 cents before the close while I was thinking. I have to learn that when I “tempted” to do something, just do it. I announced this potential trade in chat and I have assigned Mr. R.W. the task of telling me to “trade up or shut up” when I say I’m contemplating a trade, and he was obviously too busy with his traitorous long positions to be of any help to me.

Spent the later part of the day learning how to use IB’s DOM by demo trading my new account. Decided to trade POT exclusively, grabbing pieces of moves to the long and short side. It was all very different and I was blinded by the DOM action on that volatile POT, but I'm good at reading the action and started very nicely under the tutelage of Mr. NoD, who’s been using it for a couple months now. I quickly scalped my way to a gain of $128 with 200-share lots. Then, left alone to my own devices, I screwed up my buy/sell orders and placement of stops, then I didn’t notice partial fills, which caused me to reverse partial positions instead of exiting entire ones, eventually drawing my account down $176 before I discovered the error of my ways. So I did what Gangof4 taught me to do via his intercoursingly educational daily P/L posts and revenge traded my way to a $63 net gain on the day with a 1000-share position. Ha! Take that!

I realized that I’ve been in trading hell all this time with my current platform. For one thing I’m charged flat rate commission per trade, so I can’t effectively scale in and out with small share lots, because the commissions would eat me. The other issue is have to place stops .10 cents away from the bid/ask, which means I can’t effectively scalp, which I enjoy doing when I’m bored, and it was so easy to do with IB.
 

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