End of Day Journal (5-25-2010)

Summary:

Choppy messy day today. And I traded it very poorly. The account is down $1308.66 for the day. Here is the summary:

The biggest losers were LEA and TNA. LEA was a gross error. TNA was the usual.

I went thru the day realizing it was a chop fest, I suppose I am gaining some perspective. But I still traded it: my thinking was that if I traded it well things would work out. And I went thru the day thinking that I had traded it well.

I broke the grading up into entry and stop placement today, and a brief word on the grading scale: I judge the entry as either good or bad dependent upon the behavior of the stock prior to entry (probable direction) and price point. The stops were judged either good or bad dependent upon good support and good placement. The 'goodness' of the stop is of course subject to entry, but it was possible to have a poor entry and a good stop despite the poor entry.

But, much to my chagrin, after a review of the trades I realized that I did not trade well at all. I came away with 16/33 on the entries and 17/33 on the stops. This number needs to be upwards of 90% or I shouldn't be trading.

The day was choppy, no doubt about it. But despite the chop, there were some excellent trades to be had - so easy to say end of day. Nearly all of the stocks traded today followed the EOD market buy frenzy. How to recognize the potential here? I need to be able to identify these during trading hours. Towards this end I tried to come up with a common theme as I was doing the review. I started noticing that prior to most of the big moves/trends there seemed to be some support area. 3 candles seemed to be a theme, so I started highlighting all of the 3 or more consecutive candles with fairly tight highs/lows (within 5 ticks). This is a hit and miss - some don't pan out at all, but these are usually associated with lots of variance.

Per FNG's post today it looks like he hits these on the way out: e.g., a candle closes on or near the momo support. The next candle opens flush, reverses and breaks thru. He trades on the break with the stop on the support. That of course is probably the ideal trade - after reviewing I couldn't find one stock that I traded do this today. However, if looked at in terms of resistance, I found quite a few. ANR is a decent example:

Ideally the buy would be close to the s/r. After looking at the lines I drew, this could probably be interpreted a little differently, maybe better to bump the resistance up a few ticks. Crossing the fast EMA seems to be significant as well - check out CVC:

Regardless - it is hard to quantify this approach, but something to think about.

I am surprised at how poorly I traded today - I thought I was beyond this. I didn't feel stressed as far as trading was concerned, but I was not well rested and exercised, maybe this all came into play without me realizing it.

So I spent a lot of time on this post - for my own benefit. The day was expensive and I don't want it to be in vain. If you can benefit thru my mistakes - and perhaps touch on something that I am missing - feel free to share. It is imperative that I start trading well.

Tomorrow is a new day - trade well!

Details:

Short on ANR on the 9:20 candle change (0:01) (1/1). The stop was violated by 3 ticks (1/1), but I was slow in bringing it down and it worked out. The exit was for an 9 tick scalp given the day's market. This was following the immediate market move, and I should of stayed in. Short on the 11:40 price point (0:58) (2/2) after it failed to break thru the high. The stop was placed at the previous high (6 ticks) (2/2). (-$4.81):

Long on APC at the 9:25 candle change (0:03) (3/3) with the stop placed below the previous candle low (6 ticks) (3/3). Did not capitalize on the 20 tick potential and went short after it stopped. With the lack of market support I should have exited on the candle change.  I reversed after the stop, (3/4) with no support for the new stop (3/4).I exited for a small loss after it was evident the trade was a poor choice (-$39.50):

Short on BIDU on the 7:50 price point (0:09) (4/5). The stop was poorly placed and broke thru regardless (3/5) (-$59.82):

CVC was one of the few trending stocks today. I noticed it on the 10:00 o'clock high and rationalized that the  failed high and longish red was a good entry point as it stalled (0:21) (5/6). The stop had some support on the previous low and it got hit with slip (4/6) (10 ticks). I tried this a total of 6 times and got stopped every time. The 7th time would of nailed it, but I may have been stopped out again. The 11:00 15 minute candle would have been green - and offered a stronger signal for the turn around, but stocks don't always wait for this. All of the losses were under $50, and 4 of them were under $30. I read this completely wrong and not sure what to do about it. The fast EMA may have lent some additional insight. This stock was just in trend mode and I was looking for a quick reverse per the rest of the market. All of this work for what would have amounted to as 40 to 50 ticks at best. I am going to call the rest of the entries and stops good as well (10/11 - entries) (9/11 - stops) (-$206.96):

Short on DNDN for the 8:15 price point (11/12) for 8 ticks max unrealized. The market support was fine for the wait and with the doji I decided to. The stop lacked clear support and I used the high on the green candle prior to the first doji as it didn't seem too bad at 10 ticks (9/12) (-$47.55):

Short on FTI on the 11:20 price point (12/13 - entries), and I was lax in bringing the stop down. It shot up on the last 5 seconds of the candle and as I was bringing the stop down - not a good combination (10/13 - stops). I then shorted on the 11:25 price point (0:18) (13/14) with a well placed stop that got tagged (4 ticks above prior high for a 8 tick stop) (11/14). I came in with a late and somewhat desperate short on the 11:55 candle (0:20) (13/15). The stop was on the previous high and was never touched (12/15) but I exited on the retrace. Shorted again on the next candle (0:20) (12/16) with no clear support for the stop (12/16) and exited as it fizzled (-$63.52):

Long on JOYG on the 10:55 price point (13/17 - entries) with good support on the stop - but I used a couple of ticks below the last red close rather than the wick, and I was pushing it at 10 ticks (12/17). This was probably the one really good entry today,  a limit with a better price point probably would have been the way to go. I circled a stretch of price action that may have been tempting to play as it unfolded, but the variance is pretty wide. The tail end of it is marked by a failed breakout to the upside and a brief down trend that fizzled into the great swing up (-$47.85):

A short on LEA turned into a major burn. I came in late as it dropped and ended up chasing for the entry - I bought the low (0:46) (13/18). The volume spike should have been the flag to reverse - how did I miss it? Regardless, the spread was something like between 4 and 20 ticks and it shot way out of control before I could get the stop in (12/18). Finally just closed (-$397.78):

Chased the new low on POT (3:51) (13/19) with mediocre support on the stop which was breached (12/19).  Short on the 11:30 candle change (0:06) (14/20) and closed on 31 ticks with the stop placed on the prior high (13/19). Later shorted the 11:40 candle change with a loose stop on the prior high (13/20 - entries) (13/20 - stop). Then shorted the 11:50 candle change  - and chased it down (13/21). Stopped with no support for the stop (13/21). I went long on the same candle (13/22 - entries) (13/22 - stops) and scalped something like 2 ticks. Sold on the 12:55 candle change (0:00) (14/23) with stop on prior high (14/23) and came away with 10 ticks. Quite a bit of variance on some of the supported entries, and for the most part probably not very good calls (-$7.88):

Long on SLB as it broke the new high (2:40) (14/24) , with the stop place on the new high (15/24). This stock is sketchy on supported reversals, but I thought I would highlight what I saw (-$33.10):

Long on TNA as I chased the new high (2:41) (14/25 - entries) (15/25 - stop). This would have been a good trade if the entry had been timed for price point. Later long on the market's ramp up and TNA's seeming lag (1:23) (14/26) with a poor stop placement (15/26). I reversed after the stop and was stopped again (14/27 - entries) (15/27 - stop). TNA has several supported stop opportunities, most with quite a bit of variance - none of them look like very good candidates, pretty representative of the day (-$203.30):

Short on UNP on the 9:10 candle change (0:00) (15/28) with good support for the stop (16/28). Later shorted for something like 5 ticks (15/29) (16/29). Lots of stop support - but again, wide variance and overall a very choppy stock. I had no business trading it. Not sure why I did (-$14.45):

Short on VXX on the 12:20 candle change (0:04) (16/30) with mediocre stop support (17/30). Spooked exit. Later an attempt at a long (16/31) and stopped (17/31). Another horrible entry going long and stopped (16/32) (17/32). A direct line to my bank account would probably be less stressful (-$99.14):

Short on XEC (0:17) (16/33) with no stop support (17/33). Mixed bag on the stop supports (-$83.26):