Burnt Car Edition

My car caught on fire this weekend...awesome!

Updates to follow, I don't feel like posting the story quite yet.

Stopped out

The fed day volatility stopped me out on my TNA position after the decision.  I should have been smarter with my order placement, I left my stop on (which I wasn't upset about) rather, I should have gone with my instinct to put a limit price on the top side of my range before the fed announcement as well, just so I wouldn't guarantee myself getting stopped at a poor price.

Another lesson learned.  At least the market paid me back on this one!

+$123.40

Chart update, price targets

I am going to have to figure my game plan going forward.  Where I should set my stop since I am now in the green, but however last trade I ended up placing my stop way too close, and was tripped out in the volatility (before a very large move in the intended direction)  right now I am thinking of leaving the leash where is lies...I am expecing for a larger move positive with a bit more conviction before this counter rally finishes.

My biggest concern is that I am in the mindset that this longer term rally from march is over, with a broken trend line, and weekly divergences in momentum.  I just want to be able to hop in on that as well, and by the looks of it soon.

Long TNA

I am taking a bullish stance for the short term...I am bummed to have been on the sidelines this long while the market was bleeding downward, took a while to wait for a decent opportunity to enter in the market.  I found one with TNA, which was prime for a reversal, plus a pretty low risk entry as it was tracing back to some previous support levels.

Wouldn't you know it?  The market responded to my plan, and it looks like we may have some last remaining bullish sentiment to be shaken out.   My thought is to wait for a day or two up in TNA, and hopefully there will be a textbook H&S patters forming on the indices.

Long 85 shares @ 35.25
Stop under support @ 34.15

Hardest lesson to learn

So far, I think the hardest lesson to learn is when I make a good trading call, however play the trade poorly, and even though I made the correct call/assumption the way the trade was handled means I am either out at a loss or breakeven.  Take my BGZ long for example.  I was stopped out of that trade when I was on my way to work yesterday morning.

My thought on the trade was to place a stop in there to "at least protect my winnings" to make sure if the market made a re-test, I would still be in the green.  Well the market did make a re-test, however stopped me out, than continued exactly the direction I had anticipated.  Now I am stuck with a market going down, when I want to find a good entry with good risk to reward, which I am not sure when that will happen.

I would gladly take a loss simply because I was wrong over this type of mistake, now I am stuck wondering "what if" and I also am tempted to jump on board the impending drop in prices.  I will stay on the sidelines the best I can - I think the market can still surprise some weak bears and cause some short covering to leg the market back up a few bars.  I just hope I didn't miss my mid term entry short.

Playing with fire

I have recently been having more internet access/computer issues - mainly due to the fact that I need to make a new build.  The current computer I have is about 3 years old, and the motherboard, RAM, and CPU have all seen better days.  I will post as much as I can with the tech issues.  Now onto the trading:

I am again trying to hop on board a potential longer trend at its beginnings.  Right now, for evidence is the following on the SPY:

1. Declining volume for the past few months
2. Daily, and the beginnings of weekly momentum divergences.
3. Divergences on the RSI.
4. 20/50 EMA crossover on the hourly chart.

Also we'll have to keep an eye on the currency markets, right now the dollar is being destroyed in value, causing the stock market to trickle upwards as it has been doing.  A reversal in the dollar decline, perhaps coupled with a spike in the VIX and we'll have ourselves a ballgame.

Now lets all root for the Patriots in London!

Weak positions

After my last few trades where it seemed like I was running around with my head cut off, I realized I am trading very weak positions with really easily reached stops, and I have not been patient with the market and letting the proverbial boat pull you.  My thought now after the big drop yesterday was to play a longer term downturn, but I neet to wait for a good entry in the market - my stop will be above yesterday's - and the markets - yearly high. Here's my thoughts:

Wait till there is a favorable risk to reward ratio, right now it looks like the market is headed toards 105.41 at the trendline, the high yesterday was 110.31.  That currently is risking 1.95 points for a potential 2.98 gain...too much risk.

We'll see what the market says.

Silver and gold

There's no way to make or lose money unless you take some action.  The dollar is looking like it may turn, which would crush the run-up in precious metals.  The SLV chart looks more exhausted than the gold chart, and also there's a nice big gap in it just begging to be filled.  I have an open order to buy ZSL, ultra short silver ETF @ 4.78.  We'll see how the charts play out.

Interesting developments

I am watching a few different stocks/indices for some great oppertunities.  Of them, LIZ, SLV, GS and some others look interesting.  However, I came across the charts for the Nekkei and these are some pretty interesting developments:

Let the boat pull you!

Just got my internet connection back together - however my computer is still acting up.  I think the computer overheated a bit in the new desk we put it into recently, because ever since the change it has not run smoothly at all.  My best guess is the motherboard is messed up - still boots and runs, however the on board ethernet no longer works and the whole system has been very touchy.

That being said I also made a very aggressive play into my last trade, and did not have it pay off.  I have wiped out basically all of my earnings so far, and now back to square 1 at 5k.  It wasn't much to begin with, and I am not upset with my trade...just another realization that I need to look for trades in a different way than I have - maily because I do not have the precision to enter a trade on a given notice, it will have to be a predetermined trade.  Although again not a bad thing...the one trade I wasn't watching was the one I had the best entry on (my BRCD trade) - talk about an argument for doing my research and sticking to my guns.  The biggest drawback to this trade in hindsight was not holding it longer, since the upside turned out to being all the way up to 9.80, which could have netted 13%.

My new strategy is to look into non-correlating markets like commodity ETFs, currency ETFs, and different indices out there and spot potential set ups.  Now heres the change...to wait for the set ups to take shape!  When I was learning how to waterski when I was a kid, it was at a family lake and there was a neighbor who used to say in a funny accent "let the boat pull you!"  Now my family all laugh about it years later, but the guy had some dam good advice - you don't control the boat, the water, or your speed.  All you can do is brace yourself for the ride, and make sure you're in the best position to get out of the water.

Here's to making sure I am in the best position to getting out of the water going forward!

Like shooting a bee bee at a freight train

Long SMN into close on Friday:

150 shares @ 10.21

Will hold unless a real convincing new low sets in.

Deer in headlights

I have trying to find out some oppertunities this week in the market, and I haven't been able to pull the trigger on any of the setups that come up.  To my defense I was pretty late in catching these developments, and would only be a trade chasing the tail of the breakout that already happened.  

I will keep an eye on the charts yet again today, not much conviction in a direction however.  I do have a short term bullish bias now after seeing the strength to the rebound, and taking a look, it appears the long term trend line for the spy was never broken.  That being said, I think this rally is going to run out of steam soon, and will be looking to accumulate some short positions in advance when the chance comes up.

Perhaps today is a buy day for a short term swing?  Market is taking a breath for now - I'll update my positions page if I jump on anything, but the market is out of focus for me right now, I can't quite jump onto anything feeling this out of sync.

You might call it a blur:

Sold

Stock: SRS

10/06 Buy 300 shares @ 10.29
10/06 Sell 300 shares @ 10.26

Bad entries mean a whole lot of added stress on the trade - it could have been positive with a more controlled entry.

However it looks now with AA's earnings in that we are back into some solid bullish momentum.  I will be looking at some long chances with:  UMC, APT, DSX, TBSI, AZK, TLB, and WYN

Stewie has a good point, it looks like the market leaders are on their way up, and today's action definitely goes to the bulls.  Happy trading!

Introducing the GPA

I am going to use a new metric for tracking my trading, I have started a spreadsheet on google docs which capture my trades and equity curve.  (You can view it here)  One of the stats I am tracking is my trade grade, from which I will be keeping a running 5 trade average to help determine when to slash trade sizes and try to catch bad streaks as they come up, and also when to recognize I am trading well and to step on the gas.

I will be rating my trades and give them 1 point for the following:

1. (default score is 1)
2. If it is profitable +1
3. If the % gains is more than twice the stop loss %
4. If there is a favorable size to risk ratio (some leeway here)
5. If I made the correct call (market feel)
6. Good entry
7. Good exit

Rules

• When my GPA is below 4.5 I will be cutting my trading size from now on to 2k max.  
• When above 4.5 to 6 I have up to 4k.  
• When above 6 (not sure if this will happen) than all trades are to be maxed out.

Long SRS

I am long 300 shares SRS at 10.29 - daily chart looks interesting, and my bearish bias makes this one the best looking one for an early entry.

I wasn't necissarily planning on jumping short today, however the market failing to hold its highs showed a bit of weakness, and I think that's all the bears are waiting for to jump in.  It will be arduous holding this position through the beginning of earnings season, hopefully it works to my advantage.

Stop at 9.40

Week 2 Trade Breakdown

This was quite a losing week for me...while I anticipated a weak market, I onto into trouble with a number of key areas which I will need to learn from so I don't have anymore weeks of lost trades.

The bright side is that my capital stayed intact pretty well considering 3 shitty trades in a row, and managed only a loss of $154.66, however this should not happen again, since these were easy mistakes to correct in the future.

My first trade was a fantastic set up, and would have been some great quick gains, however poor on the execution.  The stock was YRCW, here are the charts I had made earlier:

My biggest mistake was't my bad order of stop limit, it was buying back in to try and chase the stock after the market had presented a gift of an oppertunity.  Followed shortly thereafter by the fact that  I gave a shit about a fancy entry that may have gotten .02 better price for the stock on what turned out to be an awesome rip of a short cover.  Of course I had not Idea this was going to happen, but the idea for a set up is planning out all options, hoping for the best and getting ready for the worst.

Loss of $45.52

The next trade I took was PCYC.  This was a tale of a penny stock which just simply failed to develop into the opportunity I thought I saw.  The idea behind the trade was that PCYC showed some strong volume a few days ago into some strong gains, which had tailed off in a pretty orderly fashion.  The stock also had a high short interest, so I figured it was a multi day bull flag formation, and would be buying into a big short covering opportunity, similar to YRCW.

The big lesson here is to not trade something with such pitiful volume.  After taking on this trade I figured the ticks in the chart happened very infrequently, and that it could go even 45 minutes before a trade.  No more of this B.S.

Here's a chart of my entry and exit:

Loss of $41.00

Finally was my BGU buy on support attempt.  Here is a chart of the price action (keep in mind my post about buying on the breakout the day before this move where I went completely against my analysis here)

 

Tight stop upon the market making my entry a foolish one.  I realize that as far as risk to reward goes, an entry on support is pretty hard to beat.  That being said, however I did one major thing wrong, I didn't wait for the price action to set up a reversal in price before entering.  The previous supports took an hour to 2 to finally exhaust themselves and reverse...I should have recognized this and used the information to my advantage.  Also I should realize that due to SEC regulations, I cannot trade more than 4 round trades within a 5 day period or else I would be considered a day trader and need 25k for capital, so I don't want to restrict my acct by over trading it - this also means I need to trade breakouts from longer term trends, so the breaks have some conviction to them, and because I don't have the ability to try to buy support, have it break thru my stop and flip the position.

Loss of $68.11

This is one week to remember, and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Somehow It's like I know what I'm doing

Today's trade was a mix of luck and good execution, and was a previous learning experience paying dividends now.  I leave for work around 9:30am which makes following the open (usually the best time to trade) damn near impossible.  BRCD came out with some important info and opened well above its multi day resistance.  It looked good to buy into, but where?  Fist off, here was my trade, a limit order to buy long 350 shares @ 8.47, it filled while I was driving to work, here is the execution in all its glory:

Given this was a limit order, even in hindsight knowing exactly where the stock would find support I may not get a better entry!  The real meat and bones for figuring this limit price came from looking at the premarket data, which paints a much more informative picture:

That's it for tonight, still looking for longer term shorting opportunities in a few days.

Today's Daytrade

Stock: BRCD

Buy 350 shares @ 8.48

Sold 350 shares @ 8.85

Gross gain: $129.50

I don't have a chance to post intraday updates at work, so this will have to do to track my progress.

The Plan!

Today's plan is to look for long breakout trades to either take as a day trade, or perhaps hold overnight if there's some strong follow through.  My feeling is the market will roubound off last weeks lows, and make an attempt at getting new highs, however it's clear that this rally is losing momentum.

I will be looking for these quick oppertunities to make a few bucks with a quick trade, then look to go short later when the market shows its hand.

Looking into ATLS, CLP, BRCD, PLCM, and RINO for set ups.

Waiting for VXX BGZ ERY FAZ to set up

I will post my trade recap from last week tomorrow AM - was a busy weekend with hiking.  Until then, enjoy some pics:

For those curious, this was a Mt. Kinsman, NH hike, we only bagged the North peak, since we got a late start.  Still was a workout at about 9mi trip.

Where is the heard headed?

Not trading tomorrow will give me a much needed day of observation to the overall market.  If the market continues to show weakness, perhaps we have finally arrived to the correction to this run up the past few months.   The bull market since march has been fantastic to my 401k, however its an incredible reaction to an economy which seemingly has many fundamental flaws left within it.

There have been no regulatory or policy changes within the financial industry.  And there are still very troubling companies out there which would not exist without the backing of some serious taxpayer cash.  If something doesn't work...and you don't fix it. don't you think that I will fail again?  I am sure you've heard the saying that goes something like "try something different and every time get the same thing is not crazy, what's crazy is repeatedly trying something the same way, and expecting something different." Have we learned nothing from Chrysler?  Don't get me wrong, I do think the fed's reaction to the situation kept the initial downturn from being much more catastrophic.  However the root of the problem in this downturn, in my small and humble opinion, lies in an American consumer who had run on empty with a negative savings rate, a banking system  with an obscene amount of leverage and low holding requirements.and an unregulated derivatives system driven by default swaps that absolutely dwarf the stock market in value (outstanding derivatives are estimated at 592 t. vs. the stock market's puny 36.6 t.)

So long story short, the problems are still there, the rules are unchanged, the players are essentially the same (the firms left standing are even more interwoven with the economy and 'too big to fail'...could you imagine what would happen if Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan went down now?).  And the market is still shedding jobs with a battered US consumer, the DOW his 14k high in '07 because investors were toking up and high on credit.  Well, the fumes have cleared, and I don't really see how this market in its current state could be worth 10k.

Does it mean that it can't?

Absolutely not, I have read that bull markets and bear markets have a tendency to continue long after they have exceeded all expectations.  And while I am a novice trader, I try to learn from the past as much as possible, its the only free advice out there.  My wife is a history major, is a big believer in that history is a study into the human experience, technology changes, however people don't.  Very profound words translated for stock trading - because what is trading but participating in human emotions.

One up, one down

The first week out of the gate I was trading in the positive, with a pretty good start - self admittedly not very good trades, however at least in the correct direction.

This week is plauged with bad decisions, poor timing, poor order entry totalling 3 losing trades for a total loss of $154.66, a 2.9% loss week over week.  Time to get my head in the game and right this ship.  The BGU trade I took on Thursday really chaps my ass because I made the correct call in my blog post earlier, however after reading one of the blogs out there I said "oh yeah, maybe there is significant buying out there, and I can buy on the support" when I should have trusted my own assessment and went with BGZ on the breakout.

It feels like now the market will turn short for a while, maybe at least until the SPY hits the rising 50 day EMA.  Good thing I am sitting out for now, I will look for some opportunities to hop on the ride if any present themselves.

Done tradin this week

I was stopped out of my BGU long position at 49.45 when the market chopped through the resistance trendline.
That leaves me long the PCYC shares, and to be honest, I am not too thrilled about the price action that is ahppening on that trade.  My stop for that is $1.94.

That makes 2 losing trades this week, and a TBD trade.  I am going to stop trading for this week, look over the chards since they aren't very directional right now, just very choppy, and that is probably lending to my lack of success.

A few comments about my entries this week.  They were very ill timed, this BGU trade was too early to determine that the resistance would hold out and there would be a reversal.  And my other trade was a much too late entry.  I will have to think more about the timing of my trades going forward, as much as I think about price.

Motivation Proclamation

Is anyone else out there just flat out lazy?  


I look through the trading blogs out there and each and every one is a story of a very driven and motivated individual.  While yes, I do have drive to succeed, and actually this blog and my current situation with work lends itself to getting up much earlier than I have been to be able to make comments.  But sometimes I just like sitting in and playing video games.  


Can someone make it in this business who has a tendency to be lazy?  I am aware of my motivation issues, however I'm no Matt Foley.

My hope is I will be able to stay attentive both to the markets, and this blog can be a tool to help keep me focused.   

Bears and Bulls tug-o-war

The market for the past few days has been the battlegrounds for deciding the future direction of the S&P 500.  The upward trendline since the middle of July is currently intact, however may be on its last legs.  Technically, the formation of today's price action in the SPY was bullish, and formed a bit of a bullish hammer candlestick...although candles are not my strong spot so I may be wrong.  Point is the market tried to fall lower, and was soundly rejected shortly thereafter.  Carl Futia wrote in his blog today that the reversal was a very bullish move, and I definitely respect that decision.  I still think the market will correct a degree in the near future, however I am not sure when this will happen. 

This leaves me to wonder what will be in store for the resulting price action as the 3 day triangle comes to a close.  There are a few scenarios that I can think of: 

Bearish breakdown
Bullish breakout
Bear/bull trap in either direction then continue in the opposite direction. 

For a trade play, I think the conclusion of this triangle, because of such violent price action within the trendlines, will continue for a few days after the market chooses a direction.  I may end up trading after the breakout in either direction on BGU or BGZ, with a stop under the trendline, plus a trigger to flip the position to the opposite side in case of a trap.  The reason I am so concerned about a trap is that the triangle is so damn obvious, that I think its pretty likely.  I will update this with a chart, and my intentions for this order tomorrow am.

Tuition paid $45.52 9.29

Yesterday did not work out so well for me.  I was eyeballing a sweet setup on the 10 day 15 min chart for YRCW, which was about to break a multi day trend line.  My thought on the trade was to enter into the a bit above where I would be chopped out on a false breakout, and to ensure I wasn't ripped off in price with a market order, I placed a buy stop limit, both at 4.54.

The set up was good, and sure enough the short squeeze caught fire, however I was left in the dust as my stop was hit, but I was left with an open limit order for 1000 shares at 4.54, and no execution as the stock ripped past my target price.  This really frustrated me that I took the time, found an awesome setup, and because I wasn't willing to dive into the melee I missed out on some awesome gains.

The second half of my mistakes today added inslult to injury, as I, even against my better judgement (I tried hard not to look at the chart again since the train had already left the building on the set-up I was watching) I traded YRCW hoping that a bull flag was emerging, and not at a breakout point, within the consollidation range.

Lo and behold I was stopped out shortly thereafter as the price could not hold those levels after such a wild run-up...WTF was I thinking???  Chalk this one up to the first tuition paid to the market for this trader.  Lesson learned, when buying into a short squeeze make damn sure I am ready to place a market order and hold on for the ride.  And do NOT trade a chart again after the set-up I was waiting for has come and gone.

Trade Recap

Stock - YRCW
9.29  Buy 500 shares @ 4.81
9.29  Sell 500 shares @ 4.75

Stock - PCYC
9.29 Buy 500 shares  @ 2.01

777

Taking a break to point out the sharpest point drop in Dow history happened 1 year ago today.  An insane 777.68 points in one day.  

Happy trading.

Risky Business

I need to address some of the risks and doubts out there that I am taking by participating in my test.  I definitely understand the many risks that I will be taking by borrowing money, from a retirement account no less, in supplement my trading activity.

The other day I made the announcement in one of my favorite non-trading sites out there www.reddit.com (this is a link to the comments section) that I will be undertaking a challenge of a lifetime.  I guess I was expecting some pretty positive feedback, since I was following a dream of mine to really put in the effort and test myself, I mean how many times have you read about business owners who got started taking out loans to get up an running?

Well the article wasn't as well received as I had thought, after more downvotes than upvotes (latest count 15 up, 20 down), and some concerned comments which I addressed - it was clear that this isn't a very popular move.  I certainly appreciate the feedback I received, because getting other opinions is very valuable to keep a fresh perspective.  I just took me by surprise...so I figured this would be a good time to write out the risks that I am taking, as I understand them.

Here are the risks I percieve to be taking by taking the plunge:

• Risk of total loss, or -$5,000.00
• Risk of delaying my retirement, having my 410k account go from 21k to 14k
• Risk that I will default on the loan, and have an early withdrawl 5k taxable event (plus 10% penalty) which amounts to roughly $3500 dollars in taxes, mind you this can only happen if I lose my job.
• Risk that the trading commissions will eat my returns alive, I am paying $8 dollars per trade, $16 for an round trade, thats .3% of my capital each trade.
• Risk that losses will make a recovery impossible without taking insane risks, again due to the size of the account.

I have read you should have an account worth roughly 25k to get started, because at this level I have to commit a large amount of my capital to each trade.  I never said it would be easy!  And to be honest, I planned on only being able to succeed after very careful trades, and some damn good luck.  As for as my background, I have traded before in a personal account, was about net neutral as far as my returns went, plus some earlier stupid calls on financial stocks as they were falling apart.  However, stupidity aside, I was always trading those accts knowing I needed to use the funds down the road for either a wedding or a house, so super tight stops and short day trades every so often.  I have done quite a bit more homework since then, and I am back for my final exam with this project.

Current watchlist

This week for short term quick momentum plays.  While I feel a bit embarrassed that the answer for today's lackluster volume was because of Yom Kippur (I should know the holiday's that affect volume a bit better) I am still not very confident in another longstanding run up, so I picked out a few setups that looked like they may be good.

LOCM, HEAT, CBAK, ACGY, NOG, RSO, and ZIOP are all on my radar.

Still waiting on favorable conditions to go long VXX or BGZ

A muted market

I didn't participate in the move at all today, the market made quite an impressive comeback from the 3 down days, and I was not quite ready for that type of move.  However the stocks that I was watching really didn't offer any good swing trade type entries, and I hated the volume on any bullish moves.

Where did all the volume go?

I have a feeling that we are pretty close to forming a short to mid term high soon, and that will be my bias until I see volume return to these bull days.  My understanding is that volume precedes price, and if today's lackluster volume continues we will see the market roll south once more.

However the relentless uptrend hasn't been bucket quite yet, and is the standing trend until proven otherwise.  Some stocks that I will be watching for swing entries in the next few days are BGZ (large cap bear 3x), VXX (VIX ETF), however I may play a quick trade on the bullish side since this run up hasn't exhausted itself completely...

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - The Great One

I would like to take some time to break down my goals for this experiment.  I initially started this blog to report my thoughts, the trades and progress along this trail, and weather it be for myself or the greater community, to take my shot.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough capital to start trading without taking a 401k loan, but the way I figure it, I am getting a guaranteed rate of return on my 401k now through my after tax loan payback (3.75%) and also contributing more to it as well.  It is also only temporary and I have the full ability to pay back the loan from my borrowings with whatever remains.  And I am investing it, playing both direction of the market, which you can only be bullish in the 401k, so hopefully the returns are better.

Onto the goals of Trader's Tuition:

Short term:

• Get more trading wins than losses (I will start a "batting average"of sorts)
• Get more weekly wins than losses.
• New post 5 days/week
• Read trading books, list is on the way
• Make my first $1000.00

Mid Term:

• Get a better annual return than the SPY.
• Get at least 100% return.
• After 15-20k, pay off 401k loan.

Long Term

• $100,000.00

The long term goal of 100k is my ticket to trading full time.  That is a mere 425% away or so (not including taxes).  An advantage that I have in this goal is that my wife has a job where she will be earning enough to support our lifestyle in a few years solely on her income, and creates a whole lot of flexibility to making this into a reality.

Week 1 Trade Breakdown

I have been giving some thought as to how I would review my trades, and I think I will start off with a weekly trade recap.  Each trade I want to use as a learning experience, as a part of my "tuition" for participating in the market.  Either gain or lose, I will at least be learning either something about the markets, or something about myself which will be invaluable and absolutely critical as I progress.  I also would like to create a scoring system, which grades each trade that take, so I can spot any bad streaks sooner and correct them.

Now onto the trades:

My first trade that I took was AMD.

This trade was a mistake that turned out positive for me.  I spotted a good developing opportunity, however entered in much to early, and mistook a breakout for a false one, and simply bought into resistance.  My biggest concern with this trade is the amount of risk there was during the next day, almost 5% risk.  The flat out truth is I cannot risk such heavy premiums for long without them catching up to me, and also stay in business at such a cost.

Also the buying activity at the top of the price move was silly.  I was trying to sell a piece and secure some good gains, then the chart looked like it was developing into a bull flag at the 5 minute interval.   Should have sold out the 300 shares, and held the rest long without buying back in unless it was a much more obvious opportunity.

This trade was helpful in that there were plenty of mistakes to look at and learn from, but I also made some good gains from it.

The second trade of the week was long BGZ:

There was a very long term downtrend intact on BGZ since March, and this buy was simply playing a short term pullback.  I do expect the market to move higher once more before a much bigger pullback (no evidence on this I feel the market is over corrected bullishly however).

Number 1 concern on this trade was the lack of preparation for the trade.  I knew it was a fed announcement day, which usually carries a choppy trading day afterwards, with the SPY being so close to its highs, it was very likely that another test was coming.  It turns out that it was good that I didn't have a bullish bias, but I did hop aboard this trade a bit late in the day.  There was also another opportunity to add to my position had I been quick the next morning, again I was not expecting such quick and thorough follow through.

My sell out turned out to be a bit too early, however I was getting the right feel from the market...It looked like there was an "all too obvious" set up for an upside breakout, and when it finally did, I would have liked to see more volume to continue the tend.  As it turns out I sold just before the false breakout, but enough to save most of the gains.

I will spend most of today looking for set-ups, nothing is on my radar at this time, we had a busy weekend and I have not had a chance to get prepared for this trading week.  I will hang low unless I spot some good looking charts.

Sold Out - Trade Recap

Stock - BGZ
9.23 - Buy 75 shares @ 21.09
9.25 - Sell 75 shares @ 22.18


Net for trade +$65.70

Museings

I wanted to take a moment to give credit where credit is due.  First off I want to give my wife all the credit in the world for supporting me in this experiment and blog.  She is amazing, and I can't say enough about her.

I also want to give credit to all the blogs out there that have been daily reading for me for the past 2 years while getting familiar with and outright fascinated by stock trading.  In no specific order:

Afraid to Trade
Trader Stewie
Dr. Brett
Don Miller
The Bondad Blog
Zero hedge
Carl Futia

I visit others occasionally, however these are the daily's for me.

Support

It looks to me like the SPY took a breather right at the support line of an shorter term uptrend that has been intact since July 9th.  I need to keep in mind that we are still in a strong bull market, and any pullback is exactly that, a short term pullback.  BUT if the SPY should manage to close below that trend line, we should see a pretty significant pullback, maybe to the 50 EMA at 101.25. 

I have a few decisions with my outstanding position, I could either put in a stop and ride it out, I could sell it when there seems to be running into that trend line (perhaps near yesterday's high), or I could wait on it, and take a stronger short position on any bullish pullback. 

Right now I am leaning towards riding it out and seeing if the bears can follow through on their selling efforts, it is a pretty small position, and sometimes you just gotta go for the home run!  I'll keep an eye on the charts today, and update here if I make any changes.

Update

Will spend today trying to figure out where to place stops/add to position.

Waiting Game

I will be looking around today for other opportunities...we'll see where the spy heads today.  I am thinking if it is either unchanged or lower then there my be some follow through from yesterday - we'll see.

Long BGZ

The one thing regarding these charts that is encouaging...even though they have been relentlessly down, is the big momentum divergences, and also the high volume from today.  Stop will be just past the lows.

 

All Aboard!

The one thing I really want to establish and get into the habit of for this blog, and my trading, is to go into a trade with a clear head, a good established theory on price action, and smooth entry.

Today, my second trade in this account, comprised of none of those factors.

There was pretty low volume before the 2:15 fed announcement, and after, there seemed to be a strong move to the upside.  I figured that was pretty typical, I was out of the market lazily looking for possibilities for another trade to take.  Then between work and everything else, I checked the market and damn!  There was some serious selling going on.  I threw out the clean entry strategy and just tried to hop aboard at the end of the day, buy a small 75 shares of BGZ @ 21.09 ...with some much follow through on the rejection of new highs, I figured this has to be the start of a couple of day downtrend.  Which leads me to the conclusion that I came into today very under prepared, and will try to have some plays in mind before they explode in front of me.

The bears have been getting smoked every time since March, now I am one of 'em - I plan on only being a temporary passenger on the short bus.

Trade Breakdown

Stock - AMD
9.17 - Buy 600 shares @ 5.68
9.22 - Sell 300 shares @ 6.22
9.22 - Buy 400 shares @ 6.21
9.22 - Sell 700 shares @ 6.09

Net for trade $204.84

"Even the sun shines on a dog's asshole occasionally"

A friend once said that to me during an unusually lucky stretch the night before leaving on a Colorado ski trip, I won a ski weekend vacation at a local bar. But then on the trip I managed to lose my fiancé’s digital camera on the last run of the last day...at lift closing time. So there went an entire week of vacation pictures like that. I also managed to have my goggles stolen and ski helmet crushed, however it was still one of the best vacations I've had.

That scenario made me think of my first trade on this blog. I closed out my AMD trades today...why you may ask? I decided to wrap up that position because I really made piss poor trades on both ends of the game, my entry was poorly times with a really loose stop, and my exit was stopped out because I was waiting for a follow through on the early up move. So even when I made a poor showing on my trading, I still finished the trade in the positive, up almost $205 net commissions.

Somehow it just so happened that AMD was the tech sector leader and I was along for the ride. While I expected my trip to be rife with luck if I were to ever succeed, I didn't imagine I would start off on that foot. However where luck is present, when you're a dog's asshole, you gotta expect some shit. I realized last night right after posting my internet connection to my home computer went down.

Anyone know what a blinking light means on a router?

Now I am a bit of a computer guy, I built the one I use at home, and the best I can figure, the Ethernet port on my motherboard must have shit the bed. And I was thinking about how to fix it, which after testing wires, and figuring out the wireless still works, leads me to believe it must be a problem with the computer motherboard. Here's where my (now wife) taught me a lesson which I could really learn from in trading going forward.

I was telling her my theory, and explained to replace the motherboard, since it is dated, would also require a CPU change, and the RAM that goes along with it. I am the cheap one in the relationship, so I am always looking for ways to get by, and she comes back with "does the computer have wireless? Why not just get wireless for it?" Genius!  I can easily pick up a wireless adapter from newegg for a few bucks.

I quickly realized that I was not thinking out of the box, and when you approach a problem from an outside perspective, you will usually see different solutions. As a trader, this should always be something I need to remember, since it is simply a game against everyone else that I am playing, maybe they missed something?

Due to the computer issues, I will do my best to post the trade pics, unfortunately no promises though.

First Trade - AMD

So here is my first trade...it is currently still open.

My position is long AMD 600 shares @ 5.69.

I looked in a stock screener www.finviz.com (awesome site, btw) for stocks with above average volume, near their highs, and with some pretty good short interest out there to add some fuel.  AMD came up and looked like a promising bull flag opportunity.  Unfortunately a good thought mixed with poor timing and entry will leave something to be desired.

The stock did not break out as I bought it (unfortunately I had to place a buy stop order because I can not get my entry 100% due to work obligations) which leads me to think I should wait for a break in short term trend, or try to buy in at the lower trend line to get a better price with a smaller stop loss.  I left the position open as it was running against me because the lower trend line had not been violated and let the price make one more attempt at my target.

Right now I am stuck weather to sell out at 5.94 as price approaches resistance and re-buy it on an upside break, to let it ride some more and tighten my stop, which is currently at 5.74 because I also do want to keep my trading commissions paid for at least.

I will give it some thought overnight...right now I am leaning towards lowering my stop to reduce the risk of getting stopped out on morning chops.....

Number one!

Not much in the way of that "I am number one", although I would love to believe that, this is the first post of my blog!  I think I will spend some time to go over the whys, the whats, and certainly the wtf's of this blog.  As I mentioned my profile I am 25 years old.  I don't have any background in finance or economics, I do however have a B.A. in Journalism, however this focus was more so on the television journalism rather than the typed stuff, so I will be learning quite a bit here in all respects.  I do work in finance however, and have my series 7 and 66 licenses.  While I have always had a deep down itch and curiosity about the stock market and trading, it never became fully realized until I was immersed in it.

My plan for this blog number one to be flexible.  After all, I do have a vague journalistic background and however things develop, I want to report things as straightforward as possible.  I want to post my trades, gains, losses and thoughts on them afterwards.  I don't have the time or skill to try to pretend to be an economist so I will try to keep the market commentery to a minimum.  This is more going to be a record of my journey.  Speaking of my journey...this is what I have decided to do:

I recently took out a loan against my 401k, which had somewhere in the ballpark of 14k for five thousand dollars.  I will be using this 5 thousand dollars as the jump start to my trading.  I will report my account and progress, positive or negative, through the blog.  My strategy will be to look for short term trends, swing trades, and momentum trading opportunities, and I will not short any stocks (however I my utilize the double/triple short trading ETFs).  I also plan to do a fair share of reading as well, and probably provide some type of reviews as I finish them, in addition to my daily usual blog reading.

My hope is that in a few years from now this blog experience could serve as inspiration for those on the sidelines asking "what if", or another horror story of getting wiped out.  More simply however... it will be the results of one amateur who decided to "put my money where my mouth is" and go for it.  Fuck it, its just money, after all.