Stocks
Trades: 104
Shares: 36,400
P/L: -1,602.37
Swing Trades
Closed: 26
Shares: 5,700
P/L: -8,735.99
YM
Trades: 35
Contracts: 39
P/L: -941.88
Options
Trades: 1
Contracts: 10
P/L: -157.00
Stocks
Trades: 10
Shares: 2,000
P/L: -817.5
Swing Trades
Closed: 3
Shares: 400
P/L: -310
YM
Trades: 2
Contracts: 2
P/L: -248.52
Stocks
Trades: 4
Shares: 800
P/L: -258.50
Swing Trades
Closed: 5
Shares: 900
P/L: -326.33
In my post a few days back I outlined how well the Holy Grail setups had been working for me at the end of last year. Well, that success died an early death when January rolled around. I went back and looked at my daily results for January and they are pretty terrible. Including today, there have been 17 trading days this month and I have lost on 11 of those days leaving only 6 positive days for the month. With this string of losses its no surprise that I am negative for the month in the amount of -$525.87. However, there might be a light at the end of the tunnel yet. I just want to finish this week out strong and maybe be flat to positive for the month. We’ll see. Here’s today’s analysis.
Today was another short day for me because of piano lessons I left the office at 1:30 CST which gave me only 5 hours of trading time. I capitalized on the time by taking several good trades, and by keeping my losses small. I also made most of my money by positioning myself in two stocks in the same sector at one time.
My first system alert came in on MA at 9:00. Abiding by my rules, I started to look for other stocks in the sector to compare but didn’t know any. Tradeitup mentioned that COF was in the same space so I pulled the chart up. Ironically COF was setting up beautifully as well so I took both trades. I started the positions off with 100 shares each adding another 200 to MA and 100 to COF as the trade continued. Everything worked out beautifully with MA other than not getting out at the exact high (like that will ever happen consistently). I trailed my stops actively on both trades, and I got a little too tight with COF. I was watching the 1min chart to set my stops (where I normally use 5min charts) and as you can see by the chart, I left a lot of money on the table. However, I made more money on COF on the second trade, which was a Holy Grail on the 1min chart. I doubled my size this time and shed half of the position on the way up and got out close to the highs with the rest. I have a separate 1min chart for the second trade on COF.
After these trades I mostly sat back and chatted with the guys on Wallstreak while working on my Holy Grail analysis post. I took four trades that were all small losers in RIMM, CLF, FSLR, and COF with the biggest loss being -$67. I was about to give up on trading at 12:45 because of the lunch lull and the fact that I had to leave in 45 minutes to be at my piano lesson. While chatting with Denarii he mentioned that he was looking at TRA so I took a look at the ags. I noticed a nice Inverse Holy Grail setting up in MON, AGU, and POT so I got three sell orders ready with pre-defined stops in place. MON kept moving up past the 20-SMA through my stop so I didn’t take this trade and stuck with AGU and POT.
These two trades worked out great, except that I got stopped out too soon again. POT didn’t bother me too much, as it started trading crazy when the clock stuck 1:00 CST which is not surprising. However, I should have squeezed more money out of AGU. I kept moving my stop down with price keeping it just far enough away. The 1min bars had a little 5min consolidation and my stop was at 63.30 which was good. Well I got a little stingy and moved it down to 63.25 since I had gotten stopped out of POT and of course the market took advantage of my ignorance, took me out at 63.27 and then dropped to 62.70. What an idiot. Here’s the charts. I added a chart of MON at the end to show the difference in the three and why I didn’t take that trade.
Stocks
Trades:8
Shares:1,900
P/L: +634.00
YM
Trades: 5
Contracts: 5
P/L: -96.30
