I'll Take It

There was a lot of movement in individual names today even if the indexes all closed close to flat.

Tha Latin American stocks like, ITU, UBB, CPA and CPL all had good gains. The steels and other metal stocks took hits. The Agriculture names like, DE, TNH, CNH and AG all moved well.

So, there was a good amount of opportunity out there today. And thus, I had some good winners. Unfortunately, I also had some decent sized losers.

My big winner was TNH. I caught a nice smooth long between 94 and 97. After the morning correction and squeeze, the stock ran up into the mid 94s, only pennies away from the high of the morning. I assumed that many people short the stock in the morning and were hoping that TNH wouldn't see 95. However, TNH being TNH, of course he'd see 95 again... he hates shorts.



With that in mind, I started buying in the low 94s expecting him to bust through 95. This went according to plan. My mistake was not letting the winner run more. I covered most by 95.5 and the rest by 96.5. While it was frustrating to see it run a couple of points higher, I was happy with the win anyway.

Another good trade I had was a short in SPG. After a hard and fast drop in the early morning, the stock trading back up to the 100 area. I figured this might serve as resistance because of the psychological impact of the even number 100 and also because it was testing the morning's opening price on a day that the REITS were downgraded. They've been weak now for the last week. And a glance at the daily chart of SPG shows a deteriorating technical situation (although here I've posted the 5-min).



Anyway, I ran into my normal mistake of taking losses by shorting strong names early. Thus, I suffered substantial squeezes in DE and MTW. I covered DE at *THE* high of the day... this added insult to injury because immediately after I covered, the stock dropped hard for almost 3 points. Sigh...



Despite making this mistake again, i.e., shorting strong stocks while they are still acting strong, I stuck to my new 3-trade rule and didn't get stubborn. So my worst of the day was a $441 loser in MTW. Bad? Yes. Debilitating? No.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $367
Best, TNH, $839
Worst, MTW, -$442

shares traded, 42,200
stocks traded, 23, 13 winners, 10 losers
total trades, 276