I Just Missed It

POT was my worst stock of the day. Here are my trades in it:

11:03:42 Short 200 @ 204.75 (-200)
11:09:56 Short 100 @ 204.74 (-300)
11:13:35 Buy 100 @ 205.25 (-200)
11:23:46 Buy 200 @ 205.61 (flat)
13:21:18 Short 200 @ 202.55 (-200)
14:01:01 Buy 100 @ 202.82 (-100)
14:44:16 Buy 100 @ 202.24 (flat)

The reason why I am posting my trades in POT and not my best stock of the day, AMR, is because the POT trade really marked the turning point of the day.

I had a good, easy morning, low stress trades and no significant losers. I looked at POT and saw that it was still up over 4 points on the day and that the market was acting weak and TNH had already reversed. So, I sold short and placed my stops about 75 cents away. In any normal stock I keep them much closer, but since POT is so expensive, 75 cents is really not much of a move.

As you can see, I sold a little too early. He hit my stops and filled me only about 20 cents from the top. Once he made that move, he reversed quickly and decisively and never really gave me an opportunity for a solid reentry. So, I missed the 4 point move. Instead of making over $1000 on the trade, I lost $250. More importantly, I lost my morning momentum. I really barely traded after my loss in POT because I didn't want to churn the rest of my profits away.

That's really where I am right now. If I have a good morning I'm just trying to hold the profits. I'm not going to be too aggressive because there have been too many times recently where I'm over-trading and churning profits away.

I am now up a few hundred dollars on the month with only 2 days to go. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Other trades of note were good shorts in SPG and CPT after the morning run and long AMR because of the weakness in oil prices.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $680
Best, AMR, $652
Worst, POT, -$226

shares traded, 23,200
stocks traded, 7, 4 positive, 3 negative
total trades, 99