March 10th

"Did you ever have one of those days where...?"

You know how that saying goes. Well that was a great description of my day. First of all, I traded SKF only today and went 15 for 22 successful trades for a 68% win rate. Not bad, except that one of the 7 losses was a painful $4.44 per share!

The first loss of the day was an inadvertent short sale because I changed my IB order entry to one-click processing. Why I had not made that change earlier, I don't know. But, today I did and I happened to forget and institute an order I did not want. Oh, well. To be expected. What wasn't expected was the fact that SKF at around 11:00am or so no longer had shares to short, on the best shorting day in months! So, forced to only go long on this, of all days, I felt as if I was running a race on one leg (my second choice, SRS, was also listed as "no shares to borrow" at IB). I think, in the face of a financials recovery, this is going to be the norm and not the exception. With the inability to short SKF, I found myself playing a dangerous game, going long into a big down day and it came back on me during the big 11:54 am down draft. Playing an intra-candle bounce, I got washed down with the big drop. I did not sell even though I had a chance to get out with about a $1 per share loss. I was stubborn and expected the up-move to occur. Any other day, I would be short on this move. By the way, that $4.44/ share loss could have been as little as a 6 cent loss had I held less than an hour more. But, selling my position sooner rather than holding longer would have been the correct course of action here.

Later: The ultra-low volume candle popped back up today as a reversal sign, see the 2:42 pm candle; preceding a nice trade-able long-side move of up to $3.74 /share followed directly by an opportunity to get as much as $ 4.97 per share before the candle closed in the red.

At this point in the day, I was down substantially but decided to bare down going into the close and see what I could put together. I did ok and closed up by 4 cents per share gain.

A couple things: 1. My best play today was a losing trade. Late in the day, I saw that I was on the wrong side of a trade and promptly bailed on it without thinking and watching for confirmation. I took a loss of 4.9 cents per share but avoided the bigger loss moments later. I liked my reaction time and the fact that I saw the writing on the wall quickly. My best move of the day was playing good defense.

2. The second best thing I did was not giving up to a big loss. I clawed back and essentially broke even for the day. I felt like I was tied in to the market toward day's end and it was really pretty fun. Had I NOT taken the big loss, I would have had a gain of about $4.48/share; as good a day as I've ever had since I began sim-trading the ETFs. Yes, I know it sounds like, "Other than burning down the kitchen, it was a great meal." I traded the loss and it counts. But, I like that it was one event and not a pattern of bad trades. Just a few weeks ago, I got demolished on some big-move days trying to trade against momo. I liked my performance today better. I saw all the same signals today that I've been seeing the past few sessions, and for the most part, I traded ok as a result.

Summary: It was very frustrating to not be able to short the high-ADR ETF's today. It really threw a wrench into the works for me. I scoured for other, non-inverse ETF's but didn't like the action. One thing I know, if the present volatility ever goes away, I am in a tight spot! I just haven't mastered playing for the longer term intra-day moves yet and that is exactly what will be required if this awesome price action ceases

15 for 22 wins, 68% success. Gain of $.04 cents per share.