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.