December 28, Tuesday

This is from Tuesday, I didn't practice-trade yesterday and it is doubtful that I will today.

TNA was "behaving itself" on Tuesday and I had all winners on clean practice-trades (no averaging/scaling in), though small scalps for a number of them. I was out far too soon on a few! Staying engaged in order to realize some real gains is one of the things I must work on.

December 22 & 23 (last Wed & Thursday)

There has been a lot going on and I have been

"Blog Lazy" since early last week. Hope all of the Christians out there had a great Christmas celebration. For the chosen people, I hope you had a festive hanukkah.

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So much time has passed since I practice-traded last week that I don't have much comment on my market activities.

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Snow storm is to hit the Northeast tonight and tomorrow, though the way some are acting one might think it is going to dump three feet on the State of Maine. Last I heard, we were expecting about a foot. When I was a kid, that was considered a dusting! We didn't even change out of summer shorts for that little amount of the fluffy white stuff! :-)

December 20

In TNA today, I made 5 practice-trades as well as closing out the short from Friday; all for gains, though some pretty small. In fact, with my positions now at 25% of my standard trade of 1000 shares, all are relatively small. All were reversals of moves that had run their course.

I was away checking on a day-job customer between 1:30 and 3:30 pm and missed that very nice 10 minute run on huge vlume at 2:00-2:05 pm.

I'm always on the hunt for volume spikes, doji cnadles, near-doji's, signs of price rejection (long-wicks), waning volume and shorter candles at the end of trends, as well as opportunities to catch moves early out of consolidation (though not much of the latter today). After a while, these things start to be commonplace and I count on them to appear. Familiarity, I believe, is part of becoming good at this art. There is no substitute for time spent watching a moving market.

December 17 - Friday

Here is the delayed post of last Friday's limited practice trading. It was a busy afternoon, having to finally make a run to a recycling facility so to properly dispose of my own home-construction waste as well as that generated from customer projects over the past week. Why do I bother mentioning that? Because the facility closes at 4:00pm and I decided to leave with an open short trade in TNA with an entry at $71.12. I returned after the market close to discover a decent gain accompanied by an acceptable sell signal (ramping volume with moderate downward price rejection) was presented around 3:10 pm then later a more dramatic sell signal (volume spike plus significant downward price rejection) at 3:35 pm. After that final sell signal, a reversal had taken place and I was near breakeven in the trade.

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Monday morning finds the futures up and my practice-trade now sharply under water. I have a customer appointment this morning and have been given permission to come and go as I please because they are not at home anyway. I haven't decided whether I will stay and watch the stock at the open or whether to just let it go and return when the my real job is done. Either way, the trade served its purpose and ended its usefulness when it went positive and presented an opportunity for gain on Friday afternoon.

December 16

One relatively quick trade between day-job duties. My goal was to enter and hold a while. It was tough to watch a 40+ cent gain with a volume spike exit signal and not execute a cover order! But, I want to develop some patience... I held and eventually it started back down in my favor after the 1:50 pm candle top. I had to get to the day-job so I exited at the bottom of the sizable red candle. Looks like I would have had more available had I been able to stick around the office; the move didn't bottom out until 2:30pm.

December 15

I sensed a great spot for a breakdown in TNA and took the paper-trade short around 12:20 pm. I was early and sat throught another 10-12 minutes of consolidation waiting for my trade idea to unfold. The delay made me "antsy" so I covered for a tiny gain. Too bad... I was in the infant stages of a teriffic breakdown, just as I had predicted. Emotion-fueled impatience ruined a nice trade. I made an attempt to target the reversal of the big move I missed and the entry was early, (wrong) so I used it as an opportunity to scale in knowing that the move was getting "stale" and a reversal would come. As the turn was made and the stock started going up, I scaled out at $69.42 with all but one full share which I held until after the 17 EMA cross. This was a bit early on the final exit, but I avoided holding through a pullback which brought price back down to my initial scaling-out area. As the minor trend I was playing came to an end, I shorted... once again a very nice entry but out too soon on a end-of-day drop; a drop which included enough downward pressure to include a nine cent gap down at 3:40-3:45 pm which didn't get closed. I got a nice scalp long at the end of that quick move down, exiting near the eventual closing price of the candle. I was done at that point and didn't participate in the final two candles of the day.

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Thoughts: My entries are getting better and my "gut feel" for momentum is improving, albeit slowly. I still have difficulty with patience, getting in and out far too soon in many instances. And, I still am lax about setting stops. This is my major mental/emotional hurdle to clear. I simply don't want to realize defeat on bad trade ideas; it believe it will be my last conquest in the struggle to become a live-account trader.

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I have day-job for most of today so it will be unlikely that I can practice-trade. If I do, it will be briefly.

Good luck to all!

December 13 & 14 (Monday & Today)

I've been tardy getting my posts up in a timely way. Here is yesterday and today. I was unable to spend the either entire day on practice trading but I am always happy to have the time I do get.
I have reduced my standard trade size to one-quarter of that which I have used for most of the two years I have been practicing: now 250 shares down from 1000. With the exception of the cover of Friday's short in TNA.

December 10 - Last Friday

I forgot to put up Friday's simulated trading results. I am currently short a practice-trade in TNA from Friday. Could be a rough opening for my position, given that the futures have been strengthening all morning. I am with a customer for the early morning then back around 11:00 am or so. I'll have to wait and see how my swing-trade fares.

December 9

I struggled some with the accuracy of my entries but bought my way out of it by picking my spots carefully as I scaled in. Certainly not ideal, but effective. At some point, I will accept momentum and choose to play with trend more often than counter-trend.

I took it on faith that I would begin to feel when direction changes are to take place and I am starting to get it, for the most part. Much more to learn though, that's for sure.

December 8 - later

I was able to take 2 more practice trades in TNA after my work appointment. Mostly I watched the market closely, seeing other areas to get in but satisfied to just study.

December 7(yesterday) & December 8 (thus far)

I'm late for a customer appointment and can't comment. Maybe more later if I can think of anything to offer.

December 6 (yesterday) & today so far (Dec 7th)

I didn't get to post yesterday's practice-trades in MCP until now. I got to the computer after 1:00 pm yesterday and shorted into a huge upday in MCP to take advantage of a reversal area at 1:35-ish. Also, at days end I saw an opportunity to short for a profit-taking breakdown. It didn't come so I held overnight and was rewarded this morning. I didn't get an opportunity to cover at the 10:00 am bottom because I couldn't sign on to my platform until after 10:30 EST. I expect it to break down more, though one can never be too sure. Certainly not sure enough to hold a short for a long swing-period! I don't know enough about the fundamentals of the recent bid for Molycorp to risk a longer term hold on a stock that ran up the amount it did yesterday.

December 3

I had until about noon to look at the markets and decided to work with LVS. It went well: all four practice trades were clean and no losers. I did exit far too early on the first three because any of them would have been great trades to hold through the noon hour. Hindsight is 20/20.

No matter.

On the fourth, I took a reversal play, exiting quickly considering the primary move of the day was down. Smart to do so because LVS did continue "South" for another 20 minutes or so before consolidating for 2 hours. During that 2 hour period it built a nice "triangle," using the 48.75 - 48.80 area as a base and the 2:20 pm doji at 48.84 as the acute angle/take-off point. An hour and fifteen minutes of almost uninterupted climb took place after that.

December 1

I didn't have a lot of time to look at the markets today; maybe the last hour and 45 minutes.

TNA wasn't moving too much but because I am trading for practice and not for $, I decided to stick with it and try to pick up some experience. I got a bad read and went short. It went in my favor about eleven cents and reversed. I should have stuck to my quicker exits that I typically operate with. However, I held and it reversed against me. So sure was I that my read of a fade into the afternoon was right that I held anticipating the downturn. Well, it didn't come and I didn't stop it out. I bought a better average price at what felt like the top then waited. The turn did come shortly afterward and within 7 cents of my second short entry. After the turn, I looked for a chance and exited when it felt like a short-term bottom was in. Good read of momo there, because price did climb for 20 minutes from that point before topping out and dropping into the close.

What I take away from this is:

1. take some time to feel the movement before jumping in

2. faithfully set a stop

3. play the moves I see and not what I expect will happen because I tend to be early/wrong.

For the most part, I am starting to get a feel for movement. If I am wrong at first, I seem to later be able to get it right after paying closer attention. But, I need to be sharper with my entries... or, maybe I should be more selective about the set-ups I think are worthy of playing.

Certainly, I must be more in tune with playing the extremes of moves and not the S/R levels in the middle of trend. These are low-percentage plays.

To close this out, I'd say lack of patience seems to play a part in most of my faulty paper-trades.