Today is my third RED day (lost 100$) in a row. I played RF, FITB, ANX and ARNA.
1. RF – Decent enough trade, made 100$. Though I did not trade as per my plan, I bought only 1000 shares instead of 2000 shares.
2. FITB – 110$ loss. Unlike other financials, FITB tanked BIG time after initial climb up and it could never recover from it.
3. ANX – Bad trade. I was down by 400$ on FITB so I was looking for some other opportunities to make money. Muddy alerted ANX hitting HOD in the chatroom. I entered and exited at 0.20, losing money in commissions.
4. ARNA – Another trade which I shouldn’t have entered. ARNA was a Tim Alert and he had covered his short. So the stock went from 6.35 to 6.90. While it was moving up, I shorted 500 shares at 6.70, thinking that it will not go beyond this. Bad idea! It continued it’s upward march and went from 6.70 to 6.90. I covered at 6.80 for 65$ loss. Just after I covered, it went to 6.70. I am getting the same feeling as Yng, it feels like someone is out there to get me!
And yes, I didn’t play DRYS and it tanked by almost a dollar! 
Not only that, I ignored another financial XL, which moved up by almost 2$!
Anyway, I am not sure what to do next. I don’t know why I am always trading the stocks which doesn’t move much OR moves in completely opposite direction as soon as I enter.
I think one solution could be the Scottrade HOD list. As Yng discusses on his blog, by using HOD list you can make sure that you are trading those stocks which are on the move. Hopefully, I will be able to ride the move without getting hurt.
I also ordered Brian’s book on Technical Analysis to learn more about how to read the charts and price/volume action.
And the most important thing I need to do is, study lots of charts. Especially the charts of the dayrangers for the running week.
Once I get back home, I will also post analysis of the trades I did, I would like your inputs on where I went wrong.
Trade well,
RJ.
Status as of end of Feb 10th:
Positions closed for Gain: RF (100$)
Positions closed for Loss: FITB (-110$), ANX (-25$), ARNA (-65$)
Open Positions: None
4 responses so far ↓
1 Yngvai // Feb 11, 2009 at 8:47 pm
XL was a preleader in combination with a positive earnings report. Preleaders that have positive earnings reports OR positive drug news are often good runners.
2 Charlie G. // Feb 11, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Hey RJ,
I tried longing RF and shorting ARNA and took paper losses on them. The main thing about today was it was a chopfest/range day – whatever you want to call it. At beginning of the day, you don’t know that so it’s hard to know when to time your shorts and longs at the top or bottom of the channel. I’m still learning, but I’m trying to learn how to adapt so I can respond to days like yesterday with a very stark trend versus a day like this.
3 RJ // Feb 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Yng,
Actually, I did not pay much attention to pre leaders today. I saw that almost all financials were up in pre so I assumed that my two watches, RF and FITB, will also go up. Well, it didn’t exactly work that way. But yes, had I analyzed each and every stock in pre leaders for news, I could have spotted XL.
Charlie,
Yes, the biggest challenge is identifying in the morning itself whether we will have a trending day or channeling day.
RJ
4 Bryan // Feb 12, 2009 at 4:57 am
Hey Buddy,
Today was a tough one only a few stocks were really in play imo. XL prime example it lit up the hod list. Don’t beat yourself up over losses. As I write on my blog it will affect your trading. You kept your losses small and that is the most important thing. We are all going to be wrong plenty of times just cutting them small will keep you in the game and be successful which I have no doubt you will be. Yes definitely chart all the day ranger charts for the week as you will see most continue to hit the same scans so after a while you get used to their patterns and how they move. Combo scan is great too, plays both long and short everyday off those two lists.
Bmon
Leave a Comment