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.