The Day Trading Experiment: Stops

Monday, September 27, 2010

End of Day Journal (9-27-10)

Summary:

Paper traded 200 shares today:

Tight stops... that is what I like to see. This kept me in the positive even though I ran a 36% profitable trades today. Check out the RIG chart for an example of what happens with tight stops, no momo, and a persistent trader.

Largest stops:

Looks like I had 2 stops at $0.25/share; one on BIDU and one on HSP.

Largest gains:

$0.83/share on EDU.

Today was marked by some logistical problems this morning. Over the weekend I un-installed NT and re-installed, setting up completely new everything (database, workspace, templates, etc.). I have been having the occasional snafu (well more than the occasional) and I thought this might help. I didn't have hotkeys setup and it took me awhile to remember how to do it. Anyhoo, I missed several entries.

Another thing that I decided to do today was to limit the entries to 'large movement' stocks. I set up horizontal grid lines on the $1.00 mark which offers a very quick visual on how much a stock has recently moved: the more grid lines, the more movement. This had me being much more selective with my entries. If the chart only had one grid line I usually passed (I missed a few). Check out ISRG for a chart with a lot of grid lines. I almost feel like I am getting some 'feelings' about stocks - heh. Maybe another way to say that is to say that I am beginning to feel like some trades are more probable than others - I think this is the first time that I have actually been able to trust - or been given the choice to trust - my experience; or better said, 'my gut'. Milestone? I don't know, but it is a new feeling.

It just seems easier to make money on bigger moving stocks. pfft. Go figure.

Trade well.

Details:

ANSS

This wasn't a mover - noted by the lack of grid lines. For some reason I still traded it:

APOL

This wasn't moving as nicely as ESI - ESI would move and I expected APOL to follow suit, but not much happened:

BID

Out on the even dollar - without the strong move into the even dollar. Not sure how important that is, but I left quite a bit of money on the table today on several stocks using this approach. When it stops right on the even or hesitates, I get a little jumpy. In this case the market seemed to be sputtering as well :

BIDU

What a beast. I was actually debating on entering on the 3:15, but I thought the stop was too far away:

CHKP

Not a very big mover:

EDU

Another even dollar exit. Plenty of room below, but I don't see a clear exit. For that matter, it wouldn't have been bad to hold till EOD:

ESI

First came to my attention on the 11:35 mark. I thought that I had missed it by too much:

GBX

HSP

This was the day's fast mover. I actually timed the 2:25 short just below the top, but the order didn't fill (blame NT's sim engine, it was a market offer). When I canceled and tried again, it was much lower and the stop was triggered. I was using the 'momo' stop of $0.06 - you can see where things didn't quite work as well as intended. Notice the even dollar lines. I had a $58.00 limit on the 2:55 long, but it missed it by $0.04:

ISLN

I sat on the big volume exit - watching it the entire time. I thought about it, I really did:

ISRG

I didn't trade this monster because of the spread, but I thought I would post it to share the grid spacing idea. I have my grids set up in $1 increments. This allows me to get a quick visual on how much the stock has moved recently; more horizontal grid lines == more movement. ISRG has moved a lot recently. This visual kept me out of several setups today:

ITC

This was another mover, but I didn't like the price action - I can't recall why, just didn't seem right. I caught it on the 11:55. The high got to within $0.05 of the even dollar:

JNPR

This kept coming up on the new High/Low scanner list, I added it sometime around the 12:30 mark, but I didn't draw an arrow for some reason. Pretty. at least until you get to my trade arrows: