End of Day Journal (4-29-2010)

Another tough paper trading day.

I had some great entries this morning, but I had data stall problems and ended up chatting with NT customer support quite a bit. I also had the commission too high, so for the afternoon, feeling pretty confident, I re-set the account DB.

Here is how the afternoon session went (started a little early):

118 trades! NT counts a partial fill as a complete trade, so I am not exactly sure how many trades that is. Very poor performance. Pretty much chipped to death and no big winners. Let's see what I did.

I have been using TDA to screen all stocks based on a 7 day EMA (daily high - daily low) > $1.5, daily volume > 1 mil, and day's close >$5, <$50. I use these to populate NT's market analyzer (MA) for the day's tracking. I then try to trade off of new high/low.

I traded in 1000 share lots today and used the 1 minute Heiken-Ashi to track. I kept stop loss fairly tight, entering at $0.12 and then dragging the trigger on the chart to an appropriate graphical S/R level. Then followed the price.

The first trade was a new low on ANR. Stopped out, and tried again on the way back down, tightened the stop, and stopped out again - one more reverse would have seen part of a ~$0.50 move. Later in the day entered on another new low (entry a little late), stopped, reversed, stopped, and reversed again, only to meet the stop at 12:26. I reversed again and when it looked like it was stalling, exited (note - all of the arrows are reflective of the partial fills, I wish NT had a way to clear that). Should have reversed again (-$442):

OC came up with a new high (entry a little late) which stopped out. I reversed and followed it down, but stopped out on the sharp spike (small gain realized). I reversed and followed it up and stopped out again as the stop came up. I went long again on the new high at 11:16, but it fizzled. I should have kept watching (~$1 move!!) (+$95):

Entered EQT on the new low and and lost half the gain on the spike and moving stop. Part of the ~$0.20 uptrend would have been nice  (+$5):

A new high on JEC. This one I watched and after the stall and indecisive market, tried a short. Stopped out and did not reverse which may have captured part of the ~$0.20 move (-$38):

New high on AFL, stalled, so I tightened the stop which it bumped into at 11:07. The move up was about $0.30 (-$50):

EDZ was registering a new low (the line on the chart is a new low for the Heiken) which stalled. I reversed on the sudden uptick (coinciding with some green on the market) but stopped out with no stop movement (-$160):

 USG was creepping up on a new high, so I went a little early on the long. Stopped out on the long red (tightened). I bought back in later in the day on the long green and as it appeared to stall exited. Tried to enter again but got shook out. Reversed and stopped again (-$93):

Failed new high on AGCO, tight stop (-$46):

Failed new high on DHI, exited on the consecutive dojiis. The next hour saw some drop, but it is only about $0.15 (-$20):

Tried to short the new high on BVN (market was long red), stopped out, reversed, stopped out. Entered the short and exited with a small gain (-$61):

ESV was coming up as a new low on the MA for some reason, regardless, it looked like a good entry. Later I tried to get in on a bounce (-$38):

New high on CRI which I tried to short as well (more red on the market @ 11:47). Stopped (-$52):

Long on POZN's new high. Tightened stop. A reverse may have caught part of ~ $0.40 (-$20):

Failed new low on PFCB, did not tighten the stop and opportunity for ~$0.20 on the reverse (-$180):

Tried to reverse a late entry on a new high on NUS with QQQQ showing some downward movement, stopped out. Not much to capture on a reverse (-$60):

Strong bars and an SD alert on DCTH convinced me to jump into DCTH. Ended up being near the high. Stopped out (-$82):

So what did I do wrong today? I lost $1222 paper trading dollars.

There were several opportunities for reversing yet again. Let's say I would have captured 80% of the move: ~$2.95 * 0.8 total at 1000 shares = $2360 gross; maybe $2300 after commission. This would have put me positive $1100.

But - I am not sure that is justified; I made the decision, for whatever reason, not to reverse. Looking at the three biggest misses (ANR, OC, and POZN), the market trend offered no support for another reversal on ANR or POZN. Well with a little bit of imagination I could of drummed up a little support:

Probably not enough.

Checking out the 2 minute Heiken though:

On ANR:

And OC:

And POZN:

Definitely (moves are highlighted). This might be a better trade tracking chart to work with. Looking at the 2 minute ANR, I can't say that I would have traded the new low much differently, and I may have just been tired of getting it wrong and still opted out. OC, on either the 1 or 2 minute, I just should have been watching. POZN shows some strength.

Other than that, I had a few entries that I probably shouldn't have done - well they are not in FNG's 'The Finger' strategy. There were some big moves today, just not many going into and away from the new high/lows. ANR is the biggest loss, and probably due to not letting the move play out.

Maybe my MA list was bad for the day, but the list has not varied that much from day to day. And I am running an SD alert watching for big moves and only 21 alerts triggered. Most days it is well over 50. Tomorrow I will try the 2 minute HA for tracking.

Anyhoo - good end of day exercise.