March 8th

This was very unusual today... my IB simulated trading platform must have been acting up because each time I clicked for a transaction, IB would process the buy or sell a few shares at a time. So, what would normally be a 1000 share trade in CLNE became a 101 share trade over about twenty-five seconds of waiting. And what was intended to be a 1000 share trade in POT became a 65 share trade over about the same time frame. And it was the same when I liquidated the positions... In and out became a slow-motion affair with lots of slippage. I did manage a few paper-bucks gain and the trades would have been good ones had they executed properly.
I have included the POT chart here. The yellow line with a green checkmark is my "unafraid" trade in the direction of momo. (the line points to where the stock was trading when I signed)

It would have given up to 71 cents gain before reversing. And, to further evaluate the trade, I put the short white lines where I felt I would fade the trade as I have in the past. You'll note that I thought the best spots were short at $118.85, short at $119.12 and short at $119.33. It is clear why I am so often averaging a losing trade. I am early on the turn of direction very often. The third try was a beautiful entry spot, though.

I have also included the chart for RIMM, another one which was really moving when I signed in. I didn't bother playing it because the platform was not working properly. I did, however, track it. I also marked it with the green checkmark and yellow line pointing to the spot where I first started looking at it; the spot where I could have jumped into the notable momentum. As of right now, the stock is up $1.40 from that point. Would I have kept it this long? Very unlikely, considering my track record! Ideal exits would have been the failure to punch through the double-top at 1:00pm or the first close below the 17 EMA at 2:25pm.
The point of all this is to reveal the importance of following trend and not trading counter-trend.