A gift of an open as I saved my best performance for the last game of the month. In what should have been an incredibly difficult game in a choppy choppy broad market, I lucked out with Goldman Sachs upgrading half a dozen home builders this morning. While I could have easily had my first $2000 day in six months, I wasn't aggressive enough with my size and did not take enough pullbacks. Still, with this lucky, lucky news event (as I made a combined $30 in everything else), I was able to secure my second appearence on firm's top 30 list (Number 23). If I can make that list once every week like I did last two weeks, I will know that my game truly is at another level.
10900 shares on 7 of 11 shooting, +1625 before commissions, +1380 after, pulled out $800 this week and closed the month with $7000, hopefully December will be better, this past week was absolutely brutal for me and without this lucky finish I would have had my first down week in a while. Stay tuned for the December journal.
Pre-Market: Home builder upgrades, I quickly put together a list of all home builders with decent volume, wish I was a little more forgiving with the volume (300K a day), as those 100K a day stocks moved multiple points today with excellent volume and did not gap up much. Great news on HD.
9:30: A few home builders opened up more than 1 point on excellent open print volume. PHM opened down and I did not take it immediately. Open print was 37.25 and then offer actually stepped down, but it was just 200 shares and I should have bought 500 immediately (with another 500 ready to go depend on the fill), instead I waited a little, 400 shares later then he printed 37.45 as I put my market in, he filled me at 37.9! I pared out half immediately for a small loss but he eventually printed 38.5 where I got out of the rest. Should have made so much more there had I been a little more confident. Every homebuilder that gapped up had excellent open print and just kept on running, so I took some LEN at 36.65, pyramided into 700 and pared out 200-200-300 every quarter up. Had DHI at 26.74, bought more at 26.94 for 700, scored 70 cents there. All of this happend with futures going straight down, and I had that DNA flashback on Tuesday so I could not go in with 1000 and hold (what an awesome game that would have been). RLX was going up with strength and I had S at 45.65, stopped out for 10 cents and it went up half a point more.
10:00: Took DHI again on a pullback at 27, made 50 cents, wish I did the same thing for other home builders that pulled back as futures squeezed and they all made new high's. Didn't grab DOX/TER on that squeeze, there is a definite lack of aggression on my part when I saw my P&L at +1500, yet I don't stop shooting when I am down $1500, I guess I need to get used to bigger numbers until $1500 feels boring to me, then I can take it higher. Took CVS at 27 for a 15 cents scalp.
10:30: Very bad trade, took FMC at 53 and out for flat, it was an easy point I should have scored. I was playing scared, as I wanted to add to my P&L but afraid to lose it. Churned some SGY (this guy has been getting a tendency to go up at end of the day lately but do nothing during the day, going to definitely watchin him around 3PM now), tried to bottom pick EOG and churned, and missed the bottom when the seller finally finished. Time to go to the gym, with a 1500 day I felt I was stronger with weights too, even when I had a light flu.
2:00: I wanted to hold on to my 1500 but I also wanted to see if I could have added more to it. I kept my size small and tried CA when futures ripped, and the guy went down 30 cents! I held because there was no offer and managed to pull out for a 10 cents loss (as I bought a little more down there, very similar to the DNA trade, except this time there was no real volume and the futures was going up, and CA is nowhere near as volatile as DNA).
3:00: Thought futures had one more leg left, took some LEN/PHM/LXK, churned all three as like the way bears got ambushed at 3:30 yesterday, the bulls got killed with a sudden collapse on futures. In the end it was a big squeeze and I tried GE hoped for a last second bounce, no luck there and I am happy I only gave up $120 in the afternoon, acceptable loss given the potential to make more.
