Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Trade Update & Watchlist for Wednesday 2/10/2010

Bought some GNXP right before the market close as it was flirting with a breakout



WATCHLIST

Nothing on the short side

BREAKOUT WATCH

AENY....I wish I had played this one near the market close rather than GNXP....but 5.59 is the 52-week high so it could still be a good long on the break of that



MITI is still on watch



APPA creeping up towards 52s



CPE....52 week high is 3.15



HEK.....barely hit a 52-week high today then pulled back a little bit....but hung near the HODs nicely



GNXP....I'm currently long



The Sogotrade account was activated today.  Now it's just a matter of getting it funded.

Disclosure:  Long 1000 shares GNXP.  No other positions.

Trade Recap Tuesday 2/9/2010

Not much to talk about today....small profit off a small position on the preleader CLWT, and a break even on JOEZ when it couldn't follow through with the breakout




P/L:  $35.06

Probably won't do any more trades today.  I've got no day trades in my IB account, and I would risk a day trade margin call in my TOS account if I were to enter another position and have to exit it today for some reason.  And my new Sogo account isn't funded yet....which is too bad because there are some nice OTCBB plays today.

The only way I'll enter a new trade today is right near the market close if there is a good opportunity.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Trade Recap & Watchlist for 2/9/2010

It's the wife's birthday tonight so no time to make a detailed post or post charts.

Took a loss on 2 failed afternoon breakouts today




Still holding JOEZ

P/L:  $-147

I'm opening a Sogotrade account and moving some of my Interactive Brokers funds there.  I'm pissed that I missed the gimme short on NXTH today, and Sogo had borrows.  Of course I never bothered to check Thinkorswim and apparently they had shares.

This will give me 2 accounts under Genesis....my Cy group account (where I can short stocks under $3, but can't play OTCBB's) and the Sogo account (where I can play OTCBB's and can access the web trader from work, but I can't short stocks under $3).

Overall this will give me 4 trading accounts:  IB, TOS, Sogo, and Cy Group.

I'm debating whether to move the Cy account to SogoElite.  It's a tradeoff.  I can freely day trade with Cy, and it's direct access so executions are lightning fast, but I pay around $100/month in data fees.  Plus I have to pay ECN fees.  We'll see....it will also depend whether I can have a Sogo account and SogoElite account simultaneously.

WATCHLIST

Short:  JYHW

Long:  AENY MITI SFN APPA CPE GNXP JOEZ

Disclosure:  Long 1400 shares JOEZ.  No other positions.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Watchlist for 2/8/2010

Sorry that I didn't have a detailed post this weekend regarding trading strategies or statistics.  I wanted to post one but I've just been swamped this weekend, and of course I had to watch the Super Bowl as well.

I also apologize for not posting any charts tonight.

SHORT:  NXTH (a known pump & dump)
LONG:  AENY MITI SFN

Friday, February 5, 2010

Trade Recap February 5th

Not much to talk about today


I eventually sold NDN at $15.45 but it's not on the trades above because I had set an OMS stop in Laser when I went to work.  My stop got hit when I was at work, and you can't get back into Laser after 3 PM PST.

You might be wondering why I didn't take profits when NDN was around $16.  I've been analyzing a lot of the breakouts that I've played, and it turns out that I'm not letting them run enough.  The vast majority have gone significantly further than the point where I sold.  A perfect example is ISCO, where I was in at $1.23, and sold at $1.27, only to see it go to the $1.80's.  Or when I was in LUNA in the $3.20's and sold in the 3.60 - 3.90 range, only to see it go to near $5.  So I've decided to hold onto breakouts longer, putting a break-even stop at my entry when I'm up about 5% or 50 cents on a $10+ stock, and at least holding the stock overnight. 

P/L:  $-14.32

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Trade Recap, & Watchlist for Friday 2/5/2010

More breaking rules today....I played JOEZ premarket when I never play things premarket....luckily I kept my positions small so it didn't hurt me too bad.

PCYC broke out nicely today off of yesterday's watchlist but I wasn't keeping an eye on it, and I was at work so I didn't have my StrategyDesk alerts.  Man I get ticked when I have a stock on my watchlist that moves and I miss it.

No time to post charts tonight....I'm really tired right now....

Total P/L:  $-91.84



WATCHES

SHORT:  NXTH

BREAKOUT:  JOEZ NDN

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Trade Recap, and Watchlist for Thursday 2/4/10

My day was similar to Reaper's







Total P/L:  $-602.33

What went wrong?  Lots of things.  Overtrading, chasing breakouts rather than waiting for consolidation, and blindly following IL and Tim Sykes even though the trades they made didn't fit with my style and were not trades I would have made on my own.

90% of the trades that I made today in my Cy account are trades that shouldn't have been made.  If I had made the trades I should've made, it would've been a small gain today....but instead it was a big loss.

I also shouldn't have made the ACLS trade in my TOS account....there was no clear consolidation before the breakout.
That's the biggest thing I need to work on when going long....making sure I only buy breakouts off of intraday consolidation.  I sometimes chase if an alert goes off and I see the breakout on the day chart, without ensuring that there was some type of basing or consolidation on the intraday chart.  I will write a future post about this.

CRWG made up almost half of my losses today.  I don't regret playing it....it was breaking off consolidation with some volume.  It just failed to have a strong breakout.  My stop was a bit wide but it had to be because of the spread and liquidity.


WATCHLIST

Nothing looks good for a short.

CNLG might be a good bounce play if shorts cover on red-to-green.



PCYC is consolidating...potential breakout.