Clearcut

My neighbors are removing a half acre of trees from their property so they can put in a fucking pool. Meanwhile, we live about a quarter mile from a secluded and beautiful bay beach.

Anyway, the point is that when they started in on the trees today, I just couldn't concentrate on the market, since I was so enraged, and decided to spend the day at the beach surfing, instead.

It was a good decision.

They have much more work to do unfortunately.

Anyway, here's a quick glance at the VO.

Denarii, $251 on 8000 shares traded.
Timmay, $202 on 3000 shares traded.
Tokyo, $180 on 3005 shares traded.
Me, -$59 on 7400 shares traded.

The Streak Comes To An End

I've spent more money pruning trees and raking leaves in the last 3 days than I have trading.

I've been looking for trades early, taking them if they're there and then heading outside at 11am or so. I do yardwork, as I attempt to limit the tick population around my house, and then come back around 2:30 to see if anything has set up for the afternoon.

So it's been slow. At the same time, it hasn't been a bad kind of slow, because I haven't wasted time staring at the monitors. I've been productive. It almost feels like a mini-vacation or something.

Anyway, the yard is pretty damn clean now, so I'm going to focus again on studying for and taking the Series 55. We're at a slow time here in the market. Volume seems to be on the wane and we're a few weeks away from earnings season. People want to be outside, the beach weather has returned... thoughts are drifting away from Wall Street.

Seems like a good time to trade less and study more...

This morning I forced trades and paid the price. My worst was in WG, which I bought at $46.10 hoping for a run to $47. The problem with this trade wasn't really my entry (although I was later than I had to be), it was my exit and position size.

I wanted to buy at $46, but looked away for a moment. The next thing I know, it was trading $46.10. I bought 500 there, kind of in a panic. What I should have done, since the stock was already past my buy point, was reduce my size. 500 is about my max right now... I should have gone with 300 after I missed my ideal fill spot.



So I bought and the stock immediately reversed. I was slow to sell. I waited until it traded below $45.85 and received the bulk of my shares around $46.75. So I lost 35 cents on 500 shares. It was totally avoidable, and it's the reason why I finished in the red today.

Too bad since it broke my recent winning streak. I had 9 green days in a row there... can't remember the last time that happened. Despite today's loss, I feel that I'm on the right path. In addition to my recent string of green days, I haven't lost more than $100 in a trading day in almost a month (last time was May 19th). That means that even if I'm only pulling $100 or $200 a day from the market, it's adding up.

It's only a matter of time before I have a nice $500+ day again... and since I'm keeping the losses small, it will really count.

Looking forward to it. However, I'm keeping my patience. The market feels kind of crappy right now for trading and I'm not going to force anything.

I want to make one more point about my day. I screwed up the WG and let it effect a couple of other trades I made. I had an excellent entry on CF at one point, got scared, and took 5 cents only to watch it run 2 dollars more from my entry... so I wrote the following down. I'm including it among my "stock trading rules" tag, even if it's more psychological than anything else...

"View each trade as a separate event. Do not let one bad move (or good move) influence your next decision."

Anyway, the worst part about my loss is that it means I must post bad music tonight...

Here's the stats:
P&L, -$89
Best, MON, $65
Worst, WG, -$73

4000 shares traded.
5 stocks traded, 2 winners, 3 losers.

One That Got Away

I still really need to work on becoming a more patient trader. Take a look at my trade in XTO. I was watching for a run to $69 at least. When the stock rose out of its base (where I bought) there was no volume, and I got caught in a choppy move that cost me $100.



10 minutes later, volume came in and the stock made a nice, easy 80 cent move.

Note to self: trade only when volume comes into a stock.

Study Your Trades

I went through each of my trades on Friday. While I made money, it was only because of the "Gasparino Lottery" at the end of the day and not because of any legitimate trading skill. Here's what I learned.

• I’m still adding to positions wrong. It’s okay to add to a position when it’s going in my favor. However, adding after a position corrects back close to my entry is a losing strategy even if that position is technically still a winner. 
• Don’t trade thin stocks in the hybrid market. The odds are too stacked against you with the spreads and illiquidity being what they are.
• Unless a trade looks perfect, a major news story breaks, or there is excellent volume in the market, DO NOT TRADE between 12 and 2. This is free time. Move away from the monitors and read a book or something… seriously…
• In a choppy market environment, don’t short the first breakdown or breakout. Often the stock will chop back up to your entry. If the level holds the second time, then enter the trade. Of course, in a market with good momentum and volume, this rule would change.
• Short failed breakouts. If a stock attempts to break out of a base and then stalls, heads back into the base and breaks that base, short it. It’s been working well in this environment.
• Know the bigger picture. I wasted $250 on Friday trying to short DV for a break of $44. Each time I tried it, I lost 25 or 30 cents. Meanwhile, a quick glance at a 15 minute graph would have showed that even if he broke $44, he most likely would have found support at $43.40. So I was risking 25 cents for a possible gain of 60 cents… that’s just not enough incentive…

So, more of the same... trading and hopefully evolving.  Working hard to keep a positive outlook but it's been a brutal month.  I'm working for a strong close this week. We'll see.

Drawing Trendlines

Nice video from Option Addict on drawing trendlines. Useful for beginners. Though I have to say, even though I'm no longer a beginner, I had never thought about "emptiness" before... good stuff.

The #1 Rule Of Stock Trading

It's not, "Cut your losses short" or "Let your winners run."

No, the #1 rule of stock trading is simply this...

THINGS CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.

Ominous, yes... but true. Very, very true.

What I Learned Today

Okay, well a lot of this will sound obvious or perhaps repetitive. I've read these same things many times before. I am writing this post mostly, for myself.

As far as I can tell there were 3 main factors to my "blowup" today.

1. Amazingly poor trading in AG, my second worst stock of the day. I made 10 unprofitable trades in the stock, 1 profitable trade.

2. CF. I played the "anticipation" game and lost. Meaning that instead of waiting for him to break a downtrend line to purchase, I continually anticipated the break and it never broke the line.

3. "Pyramiding" incorrectly. I was adding to my positions in stocks too late, or sometimes, too quickly. Pyramiding may work in a strongly trending market, but in a choppy trendless market, it is not a good strategy. On days where there is no clear trend or strong movement, it probably is best to buy (or short) once instead of aggressively adding to the position.

In short, I made lots of bad decisions today.

Here are some "rules" I've written down so that maybe in time I will remember them.

* Don't try and pick tops. At least wait for a pullback and a failed test of the high. Anything else is insanity. ESPECIALLY at the open.

* If a stock doesn't drop below your entry don't needlessly second guess your position. Winners sometimes develop slowly. Give them time and let them run.

* Don't trade trendless, low volume stocks.

* If you trade a stock 3 times in a row unprofitably, you're churning it. Leave it alone.

* Unless you're trading with levels from the previous day, or unless a stock is breaking some pre-determined level on it's daily chart trade the open with half size.

* Pay strong attention to the levels set in the first half hour of trading.

3 Daytrading Rules

After going through my trades today, I've distilled what I learned into 3 well-known trading rules.

1. Don't add to losing positions.

My big losers today came when I added to positions that I should have exited because they were going against me.

2. Add to winning positions and have the patience to let them run.

I had some great trades that I failed to capitalize on fully because I never added to my initial position. When you have a position move in your favor, you need to "pyramid" into it in order to maximize your profits on your winning trades. Too often today when a stock moved in my favor I "locked in gains" instead of adding to the position at a smart place and "letting it run."

3. Analyze past trades.

Most importantly, today I remembered how important it is to analyze past trades. I hate doing it because it's boring, but if you want to trade full-time and expect to make money doing it, there's no better way to learn from your mistakes.

"Mindfucked" By DSL

I hit my limit today, right before the market bounced hard from the bottom. It's 3:07 right now and I'm just watching everything go straight up.

I'm pissed.

Here's a good trading rule to abide by:

If you're losing money trading 300 share lots, you'll lose 10x as much trading 3000 share lots.

That's where discipline comes in.

What happened today is that I came into the day all out of sorts because DSL was gapping down and I was long 300 in my swing account.



I'm out of my position at a loss of $1800+. That smarts.

So that more or less fucked with my head. I felt like I had to "make it back." Instead, all I did was dig myself deeper. I lost another $600 daytrading DSL. So for the day, swing and daytrading accounts combined, my grand total loss in this stock was $2400.

This is the first time that I've taken a big loss in my swing account and let it bleed over into my daytrading. I need to keep those two accounts mentally separated. I think that's very important.

Besides DSL, the rest of my day was awful too. Because I was trying to "make it back" all day, I was overtrading and trying to manufacture gains where there were none to be had.

In short, I sucked today. Plus I have some weird neck injury. And now, a phantom limb problem... despite the fact that I'm not an amputee.

I'm going right back into slump mode. Since Thursday of last week I've dropped about 4 grand. So for the rest of the week I'm going to follow trading rules very tightly and practice patience. I'm still up for the month, so I don't want to get myself too mindfucked right before earnings season begins. I can still have a very good month if I isolate the stupidity to the last few days.

Also, Judy taught her first (regularly scheduled) yoga class for kids today. Right when she left (when I went into babysitter mode) I built a few short positions in the shippers which promptly reversed. I just wasn't able to be attentive enough to get out of the positions in time and they pushed me over the edge.

Now the market is going straight up... I bet it closes positive. Shoot me... a reversal day and I'm watching from the sidelines. Meanwhile, volume is pathetic, especially for a reversal day. That's just odd.

Tonight I'm going to do something I don't normally do... drink beer and watch the Islanders beat up on the Rangers. Perhaps if I drink beer and watch sports it will get me in the proper mindset for trading...

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$1206
Best, ANW $289
Worst, DSL -$596

41,800 shares traded.
15 stocks traded, 5 winners, 10 losers.
156 trades.

UPDATE: The market mostly topped out when I was writing this post. Since I really felt it was going "unched" it tells you how off I was today. Thank goodness I stuck to my loss limits.

"Smart Money Is Buying This Market" - Maria Bartiromo

I figured it was a good idea to post that weekly graph of the futures. As you can see, we're just about where we were on January 1st, 2007.

It's a different story for the Dow. It's still up a few hundred points for the year.

Anyway, it was a wild day for stock trading yet again. With Hurricane Dean looming in the Caribbean and huge companies like CFC having serious trouble, this volatility shows no sign of ending. I'll say that at least in my mind, it feels like our entire financial system is about to collapse. So far, I don't think stocks have fully priced in that type of fear. I think it will take that type of fear induced capitulation plus some financial companies opening up their books and letting people know how deep the sub-slime is to hit some type of bottom... that, or some type of FED bailout in the form of a deep rate cut. But whatever, I'm a trader.

Here's my best stock of the day, UBB.



Ironically enough, I missed the short that melted the stock from 2pm into the close. I made my money on the long side, between 9:45 and 10:00. I actually think that's a really good thing because it tells me that I'm very open-minded about the market right now. I got crippled for a couple of months after the February panic because I could only see shorts. So I'm happy that while the tone of the market is overwhelmingly bearish right now I managed to pull good money from the long side.

At the same time that I caught the UBB long, I also made good money on corresponding longs in AB and CNS. It was all about the financials rallying at that point of the day due to some Fed action. Again, I'm not an economist so I really don't know what they did. But, I don't care. As a trader my job is to react to movement in the market, not to necessarily understand what's causing the movement.

In fact, often the more you know as a trader, the worse off you can be. Because when you know too much, you can start telling yourself stories. And when you start believing your stories you can get stuck in bad trades. The only story you pay attention to is the price and volume action.

Another thing I didn't understand was the movement in AMG today. And wow, my timing was also awful in this stock. Basically, it was spiking up and down a point at the time as you can see on the 5-minute graph below.



I really got sucked into him today and made bad trades over and over. All of them were on the short side. The stock was just choppy today and I shouldn't have been trading it. I think I was watching it because it's my best stock on the month. However, I need to remember that the past is gone forever. Just because I made money in him a week ago means nothing about my ability to make money in him today, or tomorrow.

Anyway, the futures are down a bit again overnight. FXY is trading $86... it doesn't look like we're close to going down just yet. However, I'd expect some type of little rally attempt soon.

Here's the stats:
P&L, $2509
Best, UBB, $1131
Worst, AMG, -$998

shares traded, 39,600
27 stocks traded, 20 winners, 7 losers
193 trades

The Wild East

Don't let anyone tell you that there isn't good action in the stock market right now.

Days like yesterday and today are what you pray for if you are an equities trader.

Here are a few examples of stocks that were great to trade today.






In fact, looking at graphs like these objectively at the end of the day, it's a wonder I only made money on the long side in them. Imagine if I was smart enough to be short... but that's why I posted the Wizard of Oz video before.

Anyway, there are countless examples of graphs like that today. The best news is, WE BARELY BOUNCED. Like I said in the Virtual Office post, there is so much fear in the market right now that no one knows which way is up. This is great for trading stocks.

My day went something like this. I made good money between 9:30 and 10:15 and then gave most, if not all of it back between 10:30 and 2pm trying to "pick bottoms" on a number of stocks, mainly DE and UBB.

Yesterday, it worked when you bought stocks as they traded down to the 50-day moving averages. Today, the market didn't give a damn about technicals... at least initially.

Once the "buyers" moved in at 3pm (or so) stocks that have been strong recently bounced very nicely. This is when I made all my money today. Ironic, because on a day where the Dow is down over 300 points, I made my good trades on the long side.

Unfortunately, I was very skittish when the "real bottom" was made today and so I didn't size into most of my positions as I should have. And the one stock I really did size into, MOS, I got out of too early to really profit. My quotes went all screwy for a little while and so I got nervous and sold a lot before I should have.

I traded a shitload of shares today. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I did a lot of "churning" between 11:00 and 2:00 pm... a time I normally don't trade much. I should have kept to that rule today, but when the market is down 400 points, you expect there to be movement. And there was, I was just trading on the wrong side. The other reason my shares bumped so much is that I've increased my position size again. When I was struggling I was trading with 200 share positions. I'm back to starting with 500-1500 share positions and adding as I find necessary.

Do I wish I hadn't churned so much in the middle of the day? Absolutely. However, trading that much did help me to get a feel for the bottom when it was made... there's no doubt about that.

Anyway, more fun on tap for tomorrow and probably even next week. At some point soon the market will have to take a breath and we'll have to adjust our trading styles accordingly. For now, enjoy this volatility and milk it for what it's worth.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $5265
Best, DRYS, $1281
Worst, CF, -$548

shares traded, 113,800
34 stocks traded, 23 winners, 11 losers
521 trades

Trading Collars

So, after I lost money again yesterday, I called my company's friendly risk manager and kindly asked them why the heck they keep letting me blow up all over the place.

It may be hard for you to believe, since I began this blog when I began my steepest decline as a trader, but there was a time when I was pretty damn successful. And these guys remember that and I think they basically figured I could work my own shit out. Wrong. This time feels different and I need "a little help from my friends".

I had an email conversation with Scalper a while back (hey, where the heck are you anyway? Send me an update!). He stopped trading each day if he was down $500. And, he did it on his own. He'd close his stuff and come back to fight another day. Great discipline there. That's the kind of discipline I've slowly let drift away from me.

So this is what I asked them to do for me. If I go down $400, the system will shut me out from putting on new trades for an hour. This will let me regain my composure and also let me know that I'm pursuing the wrong strategy for the day. After an hour the system will let me initiate new positions again, but if I lose another $400 (or $800 total net loss for the day) they'll turn me off for the day.

It feels kind of draconian to me but it's been a long time since I strung together a few strong days ($500+ net). I keep having weak up days followed by large down days. This will at least help me to stop the bleeding.

I'm not over the fact that I haven't made money since February. Because of this, my trading has been turned around. I hope when I should be fearful and vice versa. I'm holding out for "big trades" so I'm not selling when something goes in my favor (because I'm hoping it keeps running instead of taking what the market gives me) and I'm holding and adding when positions turn against me (hoping that they'll rebound and give me a large winner).

We'll see if this helps. I'm hopeful it will.

I Hate Toddlers... Not Really

I'm just in a bad mood from my crappy trading today and would rather vent right now then be peed upon by some potty-training, whining kid. I love kids though. Really.

Anyway, here's what happened today. I simply didn't know what to do!

The whole thing is that I was to trade with more patience. So when I was largely short at 10:00am, and in the money in most of my positions, (MOS, AGU, DE, MLM, GWW, LNN) I was ambivalent about covering and taking the gains. I wanted to take the money, but at the same time, I didn't want to take the money and then see them break to new lows thereby proving that I was trading impulsively, without thought and without a "plan".

So, I held and I lost money.

Not a lot at that point. I lost about $70 in AGU, $70 in MLM, $80 in DE and $200 in GWW. Not a good start, but not a disaster either. I had 100 shares overnight of LNN still and that was up a couple of points to offset some of those losses.

However, because I knew I had losses in my shorts, I made a related mistake and quickly covered my gain in LNN to "lock in" at least those gains... I sold my LNN around 41. It closed at 44.50 off the highs at 46.50, so I left a lot of easy money on the table there.

So now I'm down on the day a little and watching the market spike up. After the sell-off into the close yesterday and then the weak opening I was bearish. I was not aware of this bias however but it is clear now looking back on my trades from the day that this bias messed with my head.

I kept getting short during each pullback and kept buying my shares back at higher prices...

My big ugly loser of the day was in.... TNH! My old buddy, what happened?



Well, take a look at that chart. How could you lose money in TNH today? You could be short. I was short and that, in a word, was STUPID.

No trading system can save you from yourself.

I lost $828 in TNH so it made up the lion's share of my losses today. Not going to over-analyze it. It's obvious the mistake I made... I was shorting a stock that closed up over 10 points on the day!

Anyway, I'm going to keep my chin up. I made some mistakes today trading with my new style. I also learned that if the market isn't trending cleanly that it is much more difficult to hold stocks.

Actually, I also made some churny trades... I will continue to work on my discipline to stop making those trades...

Looking forward to the Russell Rebalancing tomorrow. Should be interesting at least. That's all you can ask for on the first official Friday of the summer!

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$1302
Best, VNO, $394
Worst, TNH, -$828

shares traded, 28,800
stocks traded, 11, 3 positive, 8 negative
total trades, 130 (way too many)

Experiment, Part 3

(Again, please forgive the sloppy post. I will clean it when I have more time.)

So, what am I going to do? I have to change. And I know of no better way of doing that right now that taking my "experiment" from today and applying it to real life tomorrow.

So, I am going to go into trades with the idea of buying or shorting them for THE DAY. If by 4pm I am still in a position I will re-evaluate and see whether or not I should hold it another day.

I will have to increase my loss limits a bit. I can't expect to buy a stock and have it trade in my favor right away anymore. Normally, I don't like to lose more than $100 on a bad trade. This assumes a position size of 400-500 shares. That's my average. So I was looking to keep my risk to .25. That just rarely happens anymore.

Not one of my trades today that would have made me money had I bought (or sold) and held to the end of the day went more than 50 cents against me (except TNH, but he's a freak). The losers all moved more than a half point from my entry.

Also, that first half hour accounted for some of the wildest swings in the stocks. In the past, I loved wild swings... not anymore. Straight up and down with no easy way to get out of positions is not a recipe for making money. So, for the first 15 minutes of the day I will not enter positions and I will be very careful to enter any position before 10:00am.

I will buy or sell stocks and give them 50 cents from my entry. If I am correct in my entry, and in a good position I shouldn't have to endure much more pain than that.

I know many people use percentages and stuff to identify loss levels. I may get there, but for now I'm sticking to what I'm used to, and that's identifying loss levels based on real dollar amounts. But I'm open to suggestions.

After the first hour or two of trading, when I have entered a bunch of positions I'm just going to set my stops and leave. I need to break the habit of trading in and out. I think I can only really do it in this way, cold turkey, by walking away. My wife, who used to be a trader, is going to watch them (just in case anything crazy happens) and call me if necessary.

We'll see what happens. It's an experiment. I'll try this tomorrow and modify it as I go along.

It's just like starting over!

Smoked

The worst part is, I saw it coming.

My first short order went into JCI this morning at 110.70, or about 5 points from the top. No, I didn't see the news that it was upgraded until later... rookie mistake... also a consequence of not trading in an office.

Why do I trade like that? Because I knew at *some point* the stock would turn tail as it did after 10:30 and drop. The problem, naturally, is figuring out when that point comes without having to lose thousands of dollars first.

I'm getting better at trading the hybrid market. But I realized something else today that is different. In the past, back when people respected me and the market "traded normal", if I was trying to "pick a top" like this, I'd put my buy stop a little above the last high of the day. If I was early, the stock would trade my stop and then fill me (30 or 40 seconds later) 20 to 40 cents higher. Clearly I'm generalizing here, but that's what it used to feel like. Even when you were getting squeezed, it happened slower and it was less violent.

With instantaneous fills (really, the speed still amazes me... I know you Nasdaq traders are used to it) the speed at which you can get squeezed (or clipped) is stunning.

It causes my eyes to literally glaze over because I can't even follow the quote action... the screen just kind of blurs, I see large green bars moving ever higher against my short position and my mind goes kind of quiet... and then something weird happens.

I imagine, for a brief second, being poor. I'm mowing a lawn on some estate... there is a repugnant man there... he is throwing an empty fluorescent green can at me and calling me a "Mexican" even though I'm Italian. I reach down and pick up the can... "Monster Energy Drink"... what the?

Anyway, The big spike today in JCI happened so quickly, that I just had that deer-in-headlights thing happen. And I felt it. It's a helpless feeling, but I can identify it now. The thing I need to train myself to do in the future, when I feel it happen, is just to cover and wait for the stock to settle down.

The opportunity will come, it always does. I just need to be more patient.

Despite today's smackdown, my spirits are still in good shape. I feel I turned some corner in May and that things are looking up. Thankfully, it's still early in the month.

This is a good reminder that I can't let big losses pile. I'm going to try a new rule... and I'm going to call it something gay like the 3-trade rule. If I trade a stock 3 times in a row and lose on each trade then I won't trade that stock again for an hour. Something like that would have prevented my JCI disaster today.

Without my blowup in JCI I would have made money today... so it goes.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, -$1726
Best, TNH, $768
Worst, JCI, -$2188

shares traded, 35,800
stocks traded, 13, 5 positive, 8 negative
total trades, 199

Only add to winning positions

I made that rule the title of today's post because it's the reason why today was the first day I made money all week. Also, after today, I feel I've learned that my constant violating of that rule is also a major reason why I have been in such a slump for so long.

I'm not saying that I've completely isolated my problem that easily and quickly, but today, simply because I was conscious of adding shares only to winning positions things went much smoother for me.

First and foremost, this rule prevented what could have easily turned into a disaster for me in BTU in the early morning.



I bought 200 shares of this stock near the open at 45.35. I bought it because it had pulled back for the last 2 days on light volume after a strong run-up on strong volume. Anyway, it went up and so I bought 100 more shares at 45.48 a couple of minutes later. I decided to take some profits right away because it broke above .50 and the market (at that time) was acting jumpy. I sold 200 at 45.59 and stopped 100 at the low. I was stopped out of that 100 shares seconds later at 45.27. So, it was a small winner.

The stock bounced off a trend line that I had drawn on a 60-minute graph that had held since last week. So, I bought again and was filled at 45.40. Less than 10 seconds later the stock came down and took my stop out at 45.25.

I bought again, this time at 45.33. Again, the stock broke the low of the day and stopped me out seconds later at 45.17.

The key here is that I only lost $41 in the stock even after getting all choppped up. That happened because I only added to my position once, and that was on the trade off the open that I made money on. On every losing trade in BTU I kept my losses small because I never added to the losing positions.

Most important, because I wasn't adding to losing trades, I never felt like I was "fighting the market". I was losing, yes, but I was accepting the losses and moving on, not building bad positions and getting caught up mentally in them.

Of course, if you check that graph I was basically stopped out near the lows of the day and then the stock ripped 80 cents. Frustrating? Yes, but not debilitating.

I don't like to lose more than 20-30 cents in a trade. It means I get stopped out a lot, but as long as I can keep the losses small, I can make money.

Anyway, so here's my good trade.



I was watching RAS today because I saw he was close to breaking the downtrend line, that has been in place since late March, on a 60-minute graph . When MTG, another stock that I feel is loosely related, began to rally despite a poor earnings report, I bought a couple hundred shares of RAS at 26.21 and then 100 more at 26.23. This was right around 10:05.

This was clearly an example of me anticipating a trade, a topic that Michelle B. tackled today over at Trader Mike's site. The trend line that I was hoping to see RAS break was still a quarter-point away, so I figured this would be a safe place to initiate a position. Even if he didn't break the line I would be able to get out with a small gain or, in a worst case scenario, break-even. And I figured with the market looking stronger and with other stocks in it's sector rallying that it was worth trying to buy RAS a bit "early" in anticipation of a break.

Anyway, it worked. A few minutes later, RAS ran up to 26.50, breaking the trend line and stopping me into 100 more shares at 26.52 so I had 400 shares of a stock that was acting how I wanted it to. When he traded below 26.50 for a couple of minutes without breaking it's uptrend line for the day, I took the opportunity to buy 200 more shares. So now, I had 600 shares and the stock was breaking the 60-minute downtrend line. I felt pretty good about it.

When the stock advanced to 26.67 but then slowed, I sold 400 shares at 26.61, taking some profits. But I kept my eye on the stock. When it broke 26.67 I added again to my position at 26.70 and again at 26.78 bringing it back up to 400 shares. I held through a base between 11:30 and 1:00 and once the stock broke out of that base, I was in the clear. I sold towards the end of the day at prices ranging from 27.30 to 27.47. All told, it was the best "feeling" trade I've made in a long time.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

P&L, $543

stocks traded, 16: 8 positive, 8 negative
total trades, 172
volume, 15,000 shares

Caveman Trader?

So I wrote this down in my notebook this morning... the words I use are getting smaller, the sentences are getting shorter. I'm trying to simplify as much as possible.

Trading, so easy a caveman.... ah, forget it!

No clear trend means no clear buy
No clear buy means no clear sell

I wrote them here now so I don't forget. Perhaps it will help.

(p.s. check out "Fake Empire" by The National (song #20) over on the Forkcast... this is the one I can't stop listening to nowadays)

Trade well, DT