Well, as I wrote in my last post, holding HIG and PRU short was not a good idea. HIG was spiking in the pre session today. I did have a strong feeling that all the financials will gap and crap (and they exactly did that), I could not risk holding 1500 shares of HIG short.
So I got out in pre-market at average price of around 7.47$ for total loss of 1600$! Ouch! I swear to God, I won’t hold any financials overnight OR over the weekend. As GS in chatroom correctly put, market is running on emotions right now and it’s simply stupid to hold these things overnight or over the weekend. I also got out of PRU in pre at 19.10 for around 340$ loss.
So you can imagine how tough it would have been to trade on a day when I am already down by 1900$ even before the market opens.
None the less, I decided to put things behind and decided to take a fresh look at some of the opportunities. After my successful trades with FAZ on Fri, I decided to try my hand at FAZ again. I was mostly playing FAZ for a dollar move, 50 cents move or some times move worth 10 cents. Overall, I made 1521$ from FAZ (paid 132$ in commissions!) I would have at least made 800$ more but I did a mistake in order entry with FAZ. [went long 1000 shares at 76.487, I don't know how IB allowed me to take a position worth 76,487$, I got a panic attack and tried to get out quickly, sold my position at 75.6 for 887$ loss 
]
You wanna see my FAZ trades? Here’s a sample:
FAZ Trades - 22nd Feb
Yes, IB with 1$ commission rocks! I will put up another post about how I traded FAZ as I think it might be useful to someone.
Overall, if I combine my trades for Fri and today, I am still up a little bit in my trading account. Now, I need to learn not to break my rules and avoid stupid mistake in order entry.
After being successful with FAZ, tried to play FAS but couldn’t really do it, only did one trade and closed it for a small loss of 14$.
I also called the CAB fade from HOD, short at 8.5, covered at 8.2 for 75$ gain after commissions. [played small position because I wasn't familiar with the stock.]
Trade well,
RJ
Status as of end of Feb 23rd:
Positions closed for Gain: FAZ (1521$), CAB (75$)
Positions closed for Loss: HIG (-1600$), PRU (-340$), FAS (-14$)
Open Positions: None
3 responses so far ↓
1 sj // Feb 24, 2009 at 3:30 am
pretty amazing….u pretty much did relentless buying/selling on FAZ….
i am thinking of switchin to IB lately…do they normally have all the short available ?
is it always 1$/trade ?
2 RJ // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:34 am
sj,
Yes, I was able to trade FAZ better so I didn’t bother with other stocks.
And if you are not using IB, you are missing out BIG time. They don’t charge 1$ for commissions, they charge 0.005 per share. Because I was only trading 100 shares of FAZ, commission was only 1$. And I don’t think you can find a broker who has better shorts availability than IB. There are very few instances where they won’t have borrows for a stock. If you are serious about trading, you need IB, period.
RJ
3 pavtrader // Feb 24, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Lol 1000 FAZ that’s crazy… Nice trading
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