Mike mentioned JUHL as a prehit in his chatroom. It was right around the market open, and I tried to pull up the chart on Thinkorswim, but the chart wasn't coming up. I looked at some charts for some other stocks, and then kept coming back to check JUHL....still long delays in trying to pull up the charts (and I was getting delays in pulling up other charts as well).
F'ING THINKORSWIM!
I was pissed. I kept cussing at my computer as to why the charts were so slow at pulling up. I gave up and decided to look at some other stocks. JUHL opened at $4.10 and went as high as $5.40. If I had done a 1000 share buy order, I would've made at least $1000 on the trade.
AAARRRGGHHH!!!!!
LESSON LEARNED: When pulling up charts in Thinkorswim, detach the chart as a separate window so that you don't have to keep pulling up a new chart when you look at others
Another prehit that started off slightly in the negative was The Finish Line or FINL. They reported earnings today. I didn't get in on this one. Too bad I didn't, because this one went from $7.61 to almost $9. Another missed profit.
I did try my hand at shorting PMCS. I was looking for it to break $7.84 support, which it did. I shorted 500 shares at $7.7901. $7.50 was the next support level, so I got out at $7.5488 for a $106 profit.
Even though I profited, it really wasn't the best trade for me to enter. A 2.8% profit on a trade sucks. I should only be entering trades that I have the potential to make at least a 10% profit on my position. I really need to conserve my trades because of the utterly and ridiculously retarded SEC pattern day trader rule. This rule is so retarded that I've written the SEC twice about it now. If you have an account less than $25,000, the SEC only lets you do 3 day-trades (buying and selling a stock in the same day) every 5 business days. This is SOOOO retarded, because you basically get penalized for exiting trades quickly (like a good trader should). Talk about crapping on the small guys. I've been really paranoid this week about my account getting flagged for a day trade margin call.
Anyway, not a good choice of a trade despite the profit.
Then, I tried my hand in shorting Wamu. WM has a horribly bearish chart, and it was hovering just around $5. I figured if it broke $5, it would be a good short.
It did break $5 on some big sell orders, but I jumped in too fast. I should've waited for the bounce. I got in for 1000 shares at $4.92, only to see it head back towards $5. I got out quickly for $60 loss. It settled down, and I re-entered at $4.95. It teased me, looking like it might head lower, but then started moving towards $5 again. I got out at $4.96 for another $30 loss. Wamu did eventually hit a low of $4.65, which would've been a $300 profit for me, but I need to exit potential losers quickly.
Really, though, I should've only exited if it went back above $5 as that was the reason I got into the trade. But the more important thing is I shouldn't have gotten into this trade in the first place. I ended up wasting 2 day trades on it...I'm hoping that Thinkorswim doesn't flag my account for a day trade margin call They're pretty lax on it, but it sounds like they've been stiffening up lately. I do hear they're releasing software this weekend that will tell you how many day trades you have available to help prevent these calls.
I also shouldn't have done this trade because Wamu is not a smallcrap or microcrap, so it moves more slowly and is less predictable.
LESSON LEARNED: Stick with the smallcraps/microcraps!
In the last hour of the market close, there were breakouts/surges galore. I decided to buy 500 shares of TIV, which had a huge run today in response to news and oil being up.
Got my fill at $8.1052. It closed strong at $8.30. I'm looking for a gap-up on Monday to over $9 where I'll sell. There's obviously big-time resistance above that point so that will be a good point to get out. If it breaks out, I can always buy back in.
I kind of wish I hadn't put so much into TIV, because after I entered, I noticed BPG which was a strong breakout above 50 cents.
I had some buying power left, so I got 1500 shares at $.5479. This has a lot of room to run, and it's so cheap, I could've gotten more shares if I hadn't put so much into TIV. I'm looking for a gap-up on this one too. BPG closed at 56 cents and was up to 68 cents after hours, which is a good sign. Plus, TIV and BPG are both oil/gas/energy plays, which have been a hot sector lately and been regularly having big runs. So things look promising for a very nice profit on Monday.
Bottom line is, though, that I need to be more choosy about my trades.
Gutter Account Stats:
June 10th: $4823.46
Yesterday: $5073.93
Today: $5178.68
Today's overall gain: $104.75, or 2.06%
Gain since June 10th: $355.22, or 7.36%
Compare that to S&P 500 since June 10th: -5.9%
Positions traded for a gain:
PMCS: $105.65
Positions traded for a loss:
WM: -$59.90
WM: -$38.70
Positions held over the weekend:
BPG
TIV
Posts
2 comments:
On many sites, you might need to put in .ob (JUHL.OB), like even in Yahoo, Finviz.com, bigcharts.com, you don't get a chart or a quote if it is JUHL. Checkout with TOS.
I use TD Amer, but I got my chart, but didn't trade.
No, that's not the problem. In TOS, you don't need to put in .ob. There were just delays in the charts coming up. It's happened to me a few times in the past with TOS. I'll just pull up the charts before the market open and detach and leave them, rather than switching between charts.
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