June 12th

A number of positive distractions kept my focus away from the computer today although the full day was available to trade had I made the time. A lunch appointment, some day-job admin. responsibilities, a brief shopping trip to a local outdoor outfitter, and a slight "under-the-weather" feeling just kept me from the full focus that I had yesterday. Just the same, I took three trades in X and connected for winners on all three. I had a very nice entry short at 10:24 am at $40.34. As you see from the chart, I got out early with a paltry $60 gainer. As you also see from the chart, I marked the entry/exit diagram with the big magenta colored line which is my indicator that I missed a large percentage of gains on the trade. Boy, did I ever. The stock did not bottom out until it hit $38.80 at 2:25 pm! That's a potential gain of $1,540, more than that if I had doubled up on the trade as it sank. After returning from my lunch appt and a bit of shopping, I had a chance to short the 2:30- 2:40pm jump in X. This one also had a premature exit but I did manage to get about 11 cents of the 45 cent drop; approx. 24% of the entire move. I took about 13.5 cents out of X on my final trade; getting 42% of the 32 cents available.

In the "missed trades" department, I offer the following:

I found VMC as a big mover this morning in pre-market through the IB market scanner I use, Listed as the Top Percentage Gainer and the top Price Range stock, I decided to keep an eye on it. At 10:55 am, it peaked for the morning and I was quite tempted to take the short at that point. However, the fact that it was not tracking with the indices made me a bit uncertain... I watched and learned. It broke down very nicely with a $1.26 drop. Oh, well. I will now have a better feel for these big runners next time!

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3 for 3 winners, a 100% success rate. Gain of $671 in 2.25 hours of trading.

June 11th

It was nice to spend the whole day in front of the markets, paper-trading the SKF and POT. A couple of bad decisions to not mind my stops caused me to slip back to my old habit of averaging in for a better price on losing positions. While all of them yielded winners, this really is a tough habit to break but one I must. The one loser was a POT short at 1:10 pm which I felt had a great likelihood to come into the money. It just felt like POT had run up so much for most of two days plus it started to show some weakness in relation to the indices when earlier it had been showing strength. It was tiring and poised for a breakdown. Unfortunately, I was about two hours early for the break and I let the trade go a bit tooo long before I shut it down. A loss of $381 is more than I like to take on a stop out. Interestingly, there was a clear sign that I should not have taken the trade at all but at the time, I was so focused that I did not see the forest for the trees. On the 3-minute chart at the 1:06 pm candle, there was a huge volume spike coupled with a good divergence from the mean... both my signals for reversal. But, I was so convinced that I KNEW what the stock was going to do that I didn't heed my signals... and I paid for it. I know to NEVER pre-judge a stock but I was so intense that I didn't take a step back and look at the big picture. Had I done so, I would have waited for the breakdown.

As is quite often the case, many of my winners today were cut short much too soon; gains in the thousands were left on the table. But, as I usually write, I am grateful for the winners! All are paper-trades and as such, make terrific learning opportunities. The education rolls on...

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8 for 9 winners, an 89% success rate. Gain of $1,443 in 6.5 hours of paper-trading.

June 10th

I had the chance to get into the markets at 10:30 am and stay all day if I wanted to. However, I have some admin work for my day-job to attend to so I'm closing out the day at 2:15 pm.

Paper-traded three stocks today; POT, AAPL, & SKF. My POT and AAPL trades were examples of lost opportunity from selling too soon. I really gave away a lot of gains on the POT trade. I had an absolutely stellar entry at 11:18am long at $114.35. This was within 17 cents of the LOD! I sold 5 minutes later for a gain of $233. The price just kept rising however, finally topping out at $116.48 less than an hour later! I would have had up to a $2,130 gain had I held on. Oh, well. I will eventually get the hang of this. On my AAPL trade it was more of the same although I am giving myself a bit of a break because while the price went up another $770 beyond the $148 gain I had, the price did actually dip to what would have been minus $290 on the trade just 10 minutes or so after my entry (*see 11:15 am, 5-min candle); a price which would likely have scared me out of the trade... causing me to miss the eventual nice gain anyway.

Overall, I was happy to get the gains on the day but I certainly had much opportunity missed. One loss today in SKF was a stop out; too early on the reversal which eventually came at 1:45pm on the 5-min chart. I made up the loss on a short at the reversal (1:49 pm) and one more as the reversal picked up speed (2:10 pm). The last trade was one I made just to get me over the $1000 mark for the day; covered too soon but didn't care as it was just a "goal" trade to put me into the thousand dollar territory.

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8 for 9 winners, an 89 % win rate. Gain of $1,055 in 3.75 hours of paper-trading.