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.