Today started off very well for us and we are ending our trading day at 9:30. I had 3 good winners and one small loser. I was long STP basicly from the open and it went my way quickly. I waited for a pullback and added again for a total of 200 shares. STP then moves back to its previous high where I sell, just before the stock moves another dollar. I think I exited STP to soon because I had just added to my AAPL position and I was now long 400 shares. I was worried that AAPL would turn around on me and become a loser and I would need the STP profits to pad the loss. So I bail on STP and keep the AAPL. But it only takes a couple more minutes of holding 400 shares before I begin to get worried that AAPL wont continue to go and I exit the WHOLE trade, just before it moves another dollar fifty. If I had just stayed with the original 200 I would have held and at least made $300 instead of $75. I know now that I will have to be more carefull with my positon sizing so as not to scare myself out of winning trades. I also caught about a dollar move in EXM that I also exited to soon, with only 100 shares. The funny thing is that I made more money on EXM than I did in AAPL. That really hurts!! My only loser was in GS and it was only $50. I was up over $100 on the trade but thought it could continue to move and it ended up turning into a loser. Here are the charts.

I had a few good trades today each of which I should have held longer or had more size on. The only really good trade that I made was in DRYS which I had good size on and sold at a good level. The AAPL trade, the GS trade and the HES trade all should have been held longer or had more size. I think my main problem was that I was afraid of starting the week of with a loss so I kept my size small and took my winners to quickly. I did not want to begin the week on the wrong foot so I stayed conservative so that maybe we can have another good week. My only bad trade was in PCLN which I had traded on Friday. The stock was weak at the open and I wanted to get short but could not pull the trigger. When PCLN dropped to new lows and looked like it was going to go back to 130 I got short hoping to get some of the three dollar move that I had just missed by not shorting at the open. Of course I get crushed when the stock rips up on two 5min bars and I lose $185 on the trade. The GS trade was a winner but I wanted to add an additional 200 shares on the very next 5min bar after my original entry but once again I could not execute and GS moved 1.30 and I only had 100. Here are the charts.

I had a couple of good winners yesterday in HANS, ENER and ANF and a few small losers in GS, EXM and ATI. ATI was the only trade that lost me more than $100. All of my winning trades had news related gaps at the open. HANS and ENER had earnings gaps and ANF gapped on Retail Sales. After I lost on ATI, I stopped trading and went home. Here are the Charts.

Today I only had three trades these also were stocks that gapped on earnings news. I traded PCLN on a gap up and DRQ on a gap down. I was long on both trades and had a second trade in PCLN that was a short that made me $130. I was able to pull out $500 on PCLN and $207 on DRQ. I aslo have been sitting on 100 shares short of USO and had a stop in place if Oil reached 125. Oil did hit 125 to day and I covered half today for a $250 loss. I am still holding 50 shares short. Here are the charts.

The market was very boring today, specifically FSLR. He gapped up on an increased price target of $450 and immediately sold off for the first 30 minutes. I was short at the top with 100 shares, but I forgot to set Book Trader to use limit prices so I got slipped on the entry and exit without knowing it. I got out too early, but I was just taking it slow since I was out of the office yesterday. I made a whopping $33 on this trade and then had three other losing trades. I was quick to exit on the losers which saved me a lot of money, so I can’t complain. I did, however, miss one great buy signal because I was preoccupied when the setup happened.

Overall, I lost $160 in FSLR today, and didn’t trade anything else. TradeitUp was busy “making cake” today, so I wasn’t too upset at my crappy trading. Isn’t that great, I can make money even when I am not trading. Sweet! In unrelated news, MA has been weak the past two days. Go figure.

The Trade I Missed

If you recall back at the beginning of this year, we kinda had a small blowup because of a couple of longs going into January. One of those longs was Mastercard. I had made good money daytrading and swing trading this name in December and decided to hold 200 shares into the new year. I was long this sucker from $214 and got out at around $195 causing quite a lot of pain. MA then went down to test $160 before slowly rebounding and trading sideways before exploding to $300. Ah! The bitter-sweet nuances of trading.

Anyway, yesterday I was looking at some different time-frame charts on MA and noticed a pattern that looked like a good short opportunity. I saw the daily chart and how MA had failed to get above $300, and I took this as weakness. I quickly formulated a plan to short the sucker at the open looking for weakness going into lunch. I was planning on getting a couple hundred bucks out of the deal with 50 shares. I decided that it could be a swing trade if everything lined up right. I got short at $290.

Now for the funny part. I know you’re thinking 50 shares, what a wuss ( I was thinking the same thing), but MA has a tendency to move around a bit to put it lightly. I was initially up about $100 on the trade, and then in true MA fashion it rips against me. I am down about $200 and MA starts to consolidate so I am thinking she could turn back down here. After a good hour and a half of consolidation MA rips again and hits $301 at which point I was down over $500 on 50 shares. Total crap!

I decided to hold it over night seeing that it tested $301 three times and never followed through. At this point I was just hoping to get out with a small loss and not even worry about trying to hold it into profitability. The market opens this morning and MA had sold off a little bit. My $500 loss was only a $200 loss but I didn’t cover as I was waiting for a larger retracement. What’d ya know, MA proceeds to rip my face off and test $301 once again and I regret not getting out at the open. Finally, as the market sells off hard in the afternoon session MA gives up the ghost and has a swift sell off between 1 PM and 2 PM. I exit at $292.93 down $147.50.

Now watch tomorrow as MA sells of 20 points.