I thought I wouldn't get in to see the markets today but the day-job finished earlier than expected. After a quick errand to prepare for tomorrow's day job, I had a chance to sign into IB around 3:00pm for the last hour of trading. I saw a few opportunities and jumped in, paper-trading SKF exclusively. I traded a long into the beginning of the big leg up in SKF which started at 3:00, I expected the choppiness to continue from before and sold out for a quick profit. Bad move, as it turns out... because it just shot up! Wow... I hate chickening out on a nice move as it is just getting started. Then, I shorted anticipating a quick reversal at resistance. But, it was into that big move... I had the patience to sit by with one losing short-trade as it pushed higher. While this one position was a stinker for me, (yes, I know I should sell these and take the loss then either reverse toward the trend or wait for a better short entry) I held it and looked to scale in short to increase the position size. After the fourth partial position scaled-in, the reversal came at 3:18 and I covered into it, getting nearly all the move down. This allowed all but the first scale-in trade to be winners. SKF rested for about five more candles (15 minutes) and then popped again at 3:36. Again, I scaled in short on this move up and covered at 3:46. The postion made money, although the move did continue down in the next candle, leaving up to $1.20 on the table. It's ok though, I didn't want to get stuck with the large position over night so I booked a small gain of 12 cents per share when I had it. One last trade was long, a scalp, and picked up 9 cents per share before I called it quits for the day. All four positions today were winners.
7 for 10, for a 70% win rate. Gain of 58 cents per share in 1 hour of paper-trading.
Addendum @ 9:00pm: After posting my comments, I checked out some other blogs as I normally do to see how my fellow bloggers are doing and to get instruction where I can find it. As always, I started with Fear & Greed Day Trader. As it happens, he was playing SKF at the end of the day at the same time as I was. What a difference in performance. My first trade, the long at $47.79 at 3:00 was within 2 cents of his long. From there, I see the difference between a trader and a novice simulated trader. Where I got cold feet and bailed with a small gain, he stayed in, adding onto his position at what appears to be a breakthrough of resistance. Where I shorted a second trade in anticipation of a reversal, he continued long... eventually picking up about $2.60 per share when he exited ($2600 in real cash). I took 49 cents of "paper gains" in the same timeframe while being negative much of the time awaiting my reversal. Talk about getting a gain the hard way...
I overlayed his entries and exits on my chart and studied it for 20-30 minutes in multiple timeframes, trying to decipher what was going on. It is clear after seeing this where I want to be someday and how far I have to go to get there.
