Chop, Chop, Chop
Today was a very frustrating trading day. I think that I had some pretty good gains by 11:30 and gave almost all of it away by the end of the day. Worse yet, I feel like I was on the right side of the market (short) all afternoon and kept getting squeezed out of positions at awful prices.
I just wasn't sharp today, or the market was very choppy. Probably a little of both.
TNH was the highlight again for me though I probably gave back over $1000 in him. That's a stock I should have stopped trading at 11:00 am. Rookie mistake, inexcusable, really. I'm not going to post all my trades in this stock today like I did yesterday, just because I overtraded him. It would take me all afternoon to type all the trades in. I traded over 10,000 shares in TNH alone, mostly in 200 and 300 share lots. Churn and burn.
Another highlight was the SPY. I read on EvolutionTrader's blog yesterday that he has been dabbling in it and so have I. And it's perfect today. I feel I read the market correctly (weakening) and so I traded SPY well, but I was getting chopped up in individual stocks.
Volume was pretty high today on the NYSE versus recent sessions. I think we can expect more volatility in the next few weeks. Bad for investors probably, good for traders hopefully.
I'm glad I finished green today. I really had no idea when I opened my P&L at the close where I would be. I must have had an excellent morning, because the afternoon felt pretty awful.
Anyway, let's see if I can get another green day tomorrow.
The confidence level is slowly improving despite the blowup from Friday.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $230
Best, TNH, $429
Worst, AG, -$354
shares traded, 81,200
stocks traded, 22, 10 positive, 12 negative
total trades, 415
10 comments:
Hey DT,
I haven't traded DIA. What do you think about it?
Stumbled across your blog today and like what you are doing. I noticed you shorted TNH today (I tried to short too).
I do have a question though.......I've been using TradeStation for years now but I've noticed in the last few months that about 50% of the gappers that I want to short are not shortable through TradeSTation. Do you or other traders you know have trouble getting shares short of the gappers (GROW, TNH etc.)?............Very annoying.
Thanks for your response in advance.
ET,
I haven't traded it much either. I'm just starting to watch it. I'll probably dabble with it tomorrow and I'll shoot you an email.
-DT
JR,
TNH is a "Hard to Borrow" stock so I have to find locates each morning. Usually I can locate it, although there was a period about a week ago where it was impossible (actually turned out to be a good thing!).
I've never tried to locate GROW. The stock I haven't been able to locate for a couple of weeks is TSL. I would have liked to been able to locate that today.
I don't know why sometimes it's more difficult to locate stocks. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge of the intricacies of the process can fill us both in.
Good luck jr, and thanks for reading,
-DT
I use Interactive Brokers. Have never been able to short GROW. Shorted TSL before but haven't been able to get shares in the last few weeks. Shorted TNH after open yesterday and some time the day before without problems.
IB has a Reg-SHO list... TSL is on it.
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/ViewShortableStocks.php?cntry=regSHO&tag=Reg%20SHO&ib_entity=llc&ln=
Hey win and Glenn,
Here's a pretty basic and informative article on "borrowing stocks to trade.
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2006/1211/152.html
And I found the link to the NYSE list off of Glenn's link.
http://www.nyse.com/regulation/memberorganizations/Threshold_Securities.shtml?date=20070515
-DT
Thanks for everyone's "Short" input :)
I have been watching the QID the past two days. 1 cent spread and pretty good range. I lost 50 bucks trying the QID today though.
This may sound silly, but I get confused when I trade the QID and the SDS.
I'm long on my position monitor, but that means I'm short in reality... it's just too much for me to reconcile.
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