"A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits."

Monday, August 24, 2009

August 24th


I had expected to be here from about noon until the close but an emergency project for the day-job took precedent. I found PBR as a big mover and started to watch it just as it was pulling back around noon. After returning from my project, I saw it consolidating after the big drop of the day. I looked for the price to reach for the 7 EMA after it had stopped at a higher low at 2:30 (up from the LOD back at 2:00pm). Long at 43.65, price poked up over the 7 EMA then withdrew, continuing to consolidate but also compressing. It made a doji at 2:40 (with a higher low) then another doji with a an even higher low; all the while compressing up against resistance at 43.66. I felt this was a positive development and looked toward a break out soon. Indeed, price went through resistance, through the 17 EMA, and gapped up into the next candle. Another reistence point was at 43.78 at which point the stock hesitated and I dumped it. The smart play would have been to short here but I decided to watch volume on the Raw Data feed to see how it behaved as it dropped to each successive support area. After the drop stalled at the 2:55pm- 3:05pm support area (basically LOD established back at 2:00-2:05), I started to track any upward momentum. I went long at 43.64, a bit late in retrospect because I caught the higher side (near the 7 EMA) of what could have been an extended consolidation channel. Price sunk some over the next two candles (the lower low on the 3:20pm candle had me nervous and my trigger finger was ready for stop loss at 43.54. However, price rebounded, cleared both 7 & 17 EMA and I rode the momentum up but exited at the resistence level of 43.73. I felt pretty good about it because price then dropped into the next candle. Good thing I didn't go short though, because price rebounded and rallied to 43.84. At the same time PBR was hitting that 43.84 level during the 3:30 -3:35 candles, the QQQQ and SPX were topping out and more importantly, the SPX topped out at the high of the 5-minute candle after a strong price climb. That right there is a great signal for reversal. See this link for details:
http://www.mysmp.com/day-trading/5-minute-bar-closing.html