Breakeven

Market's been a real bore the last two days. Today I shorted LCAV and went long KMGB and ended up breakeven on some pretty lackluster action (and charts, that's why there are none). I'm in total limit loss mode right now and selling/buying when a trade starts going against me. I'll be damned if I'm gonna lose 1 single R in this current market.
Damned I tell you!!!

One and done

Went short RSH today off a break of the 11am bar low (15-min), but ended up selling all on a break of the 12:30pm high (15-min) for a very small loss. Setup looked great... just didn't happen. That's how it goes.

I wanted to short SFL (10-min, 10:30 bar) but the low volume and wide spread at the time of entry made me hesitate. Would've been a nice one. Can't wait till tomorrow!!!!

Rise or Fall - Revealed

The symbol for this week's Rise or Fall was AMP. And if you decided to go long on a break of the hammer high, you probably would've made some money if you got out in time. At worst, you probably would've broke even. In all honesty, I didn't even consider trading this stock but it did stick out because of the perfect hammer that formed on increased volume. But, as X has stated in the past, not every hammer is the same. In the past (about a year ago) I probably would consider this a very good time to enter, but with the way I'm trading now, I would not have entered for two very big reasons:

• Potential entry bar did not close above the 38% fib. level
• Bar prior to potential entry bar (PEB) was a down bar and the PEB was not convincing enough for me to take a position.

Closet daytrader noted in the comments that I did not draw my fibs. to the high of the day. He/she was right. If I had... I wouldn't have even considered the trade at the time as it would've been well below the 38% level.

Rise or Fall - 7/28/07

Well, it's been awhile since the last Rise or Fall, so I hope you haven't forgotten the premise. Take a look at the last candle on the chart and let me know if you would go long, short and stay out based on the information on the chart. I will let you know what I did on Monday.

15-min

Daily

CE - Short

I wasn't sure how my watchlist was gonna look today after yesterday's huge selloff. I did say to myself that I wasn't going to hold on to winners for very long and if I was 'in the money' I was going to take it off the table. CE was my only trade as I wanted to keep every cent of profit (but I did see some other nice setups). Also, I thought CE was a picture perfect setup and entry for me... I really should create a hall of fame (like Victoria's library - where is she anyway???) and include this in it. Here's the trade:

• Placed fibs. from 1st bar high to low
• Price retraced back up to the 61.8% and promptly came down (bearish indicator)
• Entered on a break of the 10:20 bar low (perfect shooting star) which had increased volume and closed right below the 38% fib. level
• Exited just above the fib. ext. during the 10:40 bar (5-min). This broke from my 'exit off the :15 chart' strategy because price dropped so quickly that when I looked at the :15 chart I saw the 5ema so far up and I was afraid price would make a huge upturn. That's exactly what it did and I would've made much less exiting off the :15 chart. Hey, if you can exit off the fib. ext. then it's ok to stray... IMO.
  

Be sure to check back tomorrow, I'll be posting another Rise or Fall.

XLB - Short

Wow... what a day. Not sure if it's my system, but I felt a little overwhelmed as a lot of signals were going off for me and it felt like they all happened at the same time. In any case, I hope everyone did well and caught some nice short runs. Here's one trade I took today (10-min):

• Placed fibs. from 1st bar high to 2nd bar low
• During the 5th bar price broke through the 61.8% level but fell back down and left a long upper tail (bearish)
• Entered on break of 10:30 bar low on increased volume
• I was thinking of exiting after the 11:45 hammer candle (on the :15 chart) but price really didn't close above the 5ema and the market was tanking so I waited it out
• Exited on a break of the 1:30pm candle high (:15 chart)
  

Entry (10-min)

Exit (15-min)

I also traded BID, FED and LCC.

Top 5 reasons why I trade

The Freedom
No boss, no set hours, no mid-morning management meeting, no clients to deal with, no rush hour traffic, no nasty public restrooms.
 
The Money
I've often heard that the jobs that are most fun tend to pay the least. I consider trading to be extremely fun and the pay can be great. I mean, it's pretty amazing that I can enter a trade at 10:30am and exit by noon and make more money per day (on some days) than what I was making in any of my previous jobs. Thankfully, I've been able to do that consistently recently in hopes of making a career out of this. Sure, if I get a runner that makes 11R or so, I may take a day off, but for the most part, I intend to get in front of my computer every day and make some dinero.
 
The Challenge
Trading has been the most challening endeavour for me (and I've taken on some pretty big tasks in the past). There's so much to learn that it's almost overwhelming in the beginning. However, I was able to stick with it, focus on the charts and now feel like I can spot a OONR7 trade fairly quickly. It truely is all about finding what works for you and then testing out your 'method' for consistency.
 
The Flexibility
I live in Paris but make my money on U.S. time. May not sound like a big deal... but it is to me. Making money through daytrading means I can make money no matter where I am in the world. Other than daytrading, my other big goal is to become a successful screenwriter one day. To do this I figure I need two things: inspiration and money. My inspiration could come from going to exotic locations to write (say for days or weeks at a time) but to do this I need money and that's where daytrading comes in. I can see the world, write and make money at the same time. FYI... I'm a horrible editor as my many mistakes have shown.
 
The Respect
Overall, I get the sense that daytraders don't get much respect. I don't know... I think it's viewed as gambling. However, if you can successfully make a career out of it (and prove it) then it's probably one of the most satisfying careers around. I also think there's a big 'mystery' behind daytrading because it is so difficult. If you can become a good daytrader... you've earned my respect. Also, there's no better feeling than having my money make money. In a sense, as a daytrader, my money is my biatch!!
 
What are your reasons?

JAKK - Short

Today was a short day... literally. I had things to do around 11:45am U.S. time so I was hoping to get in and out quickly. Here are the facts on JAKK (10-min):

• Placed fibs. from 1st bar low to high
• After a strong push to the OR low during the 10:00 candle, price retraced back to the 50% level... this is when I started looking for an entry
• Entered short below the 10:40 candle after it closed strong on increased volume
• Price fell fairly quickly to the fib. ext. and I had to choose whether to hold the trade till late in the day (with a trailing stop or something) or take profit at the fib. ext.
• I decided to take profit at the fib. ext. (as you can see, price dropped even further)

It was revealed to me...

My future workstation:
 

I need to take a cold shower now. Good night.

CHKP - Long

CHKP was a nice base and break setup and I wouldn't be surprised if King Jamie didn't spot and trade this as well. The only issue I had was on my entry bar. I thought it was a bit too wide for my taste, but it was a sweet breakout bar nonetheless. Here's the trade:

• Placed fibs. from 1st bar low to high (very strong bar)
• Price then consolidates nicely between the 38 and 61.8% fib. levels
• Entered on a break of the 10:35 candle high (near OR high)
• Price then consolidates again at the OR high before moving up
• Because my entry was at the OR high, I checked to see where the fib. ext. would be if I used yesterday's low (ala Trader X). I found that the fib. ext was at $25.60 so I also kept that in mind as a potential target price
  
• Exited on a break of the 12:45 candle low off the 5-min chart (right above $25.60)

How I limit my losses

Didn't see a lot of great setups for me, but I did like DCI and decided to enter. However, I didn't like how things were going and decided to start limiting my losses where it made sense to me. Click on the chart for more detail:
 

 
In hindsight, I should've just kept all my shares and exited at the same exact spot since my stop was never hit. In that case, I would've only lost .07R instead of .17. But, sometimes it's hard to make the perfect call in the middle of the trade.

Workstation photos

Anyone have a killer trading workstation setup that they want to share? I've been thinking about how my setup will be when I return back to the states and it would be great to get a good idea of what others are using.
Send me photos at oonr7chat 'at' gmail.com.

Back in Paris

After the quickest - and most uneventful - 9.5 hour flight of my life... I'm back in Paris. I thought it was a good sign when I was yawning at 10pm last night - an indication of a good night's sleep ahead - but it was fleeting as I was awake by 12:30am and ended up staying up till 5am.
I went to check out American TV on my newly installed Slingbox, but the damn thing wasn't working. Not sure what's up with that but I'm pissed.
Anyway, really looking forward to trading today and I hope you all make some nice trades.

SWY - Short

I cannot be distracted whatsoever when trading the 5-min charts. I literally check the charts every 2-3 minutes for signals and if I'm away from the computer for any short amount of time, I could end up missing a great entry. So today, as I'm leaving on Saturday, I had some family show up at around 10:15. I had to excuse myself several times, but I did manage to go short SWY (my only trade of the day). Here's the chart (10-min):

• Placed fibs from first bar high to second bar low
• Priced retraced up to the 50% level but promptly failed and left a long upper tail (bearish)
• Entered short on a break of the 10:30 candle low (also a NR7... ahhhhhh, ain't she a beaut???)
• Exited on a break of the 12:45 candle high on the 15-min chart

Entry

Exit

CNI - Long

Sorry for the late post... did a bunch of things yesterday afternoon. Don't have time to post a chart, but I was stopped out of CNI initially (10:55, 5-min), then re-entered on the 12:05 candle (5-min) and made back my losses.
 
EDIT: Eh... I put up the chart anyway.
 

Your mission

This is the latest email from someone (not Jerry) at QT:
 
"There is no code implementation for it. Really first request we ever got for this. Will see (but certainly not in the near future)."
 
So... this is my call to arms. I don't ask for favors very often, but if you are a regular reader of this site and like what I provide... I urge you to send an email to Quotetracker asking them to add automatic intraday fibonacci lines as an option. They can figure out whether to do it intraday or from yesterday's close.
 
What to do?
Send an email to Quotetracker
 
What to ask for?
Ask them if they can add automatic intraday fibonacci lines
 
What not to say?
Do not mention you are doing this because I asked you to.
 
What's the email address?
support@quotetracker.com
 
Who should participate?
You and possibly 3 of your friends (we need to make an impact)
 
They way I see it, we can have possibly 1,000 emails sent to them. We will be heard at the very least and they can't say it's the first they've heard of it anymore. This can be fun... especially if we can get it done. Talk about power of the people.
 
Thanks, in advance, for your help.

ROH - Long, KG - Short

I went both long and short today and, as I've mentioned before, I really like when I do this and remain profitable in both trades. I'm trying to take as many good trades as possible as I'll be off on Friday, not only because of OPEX, but we're heading back to Paris on Saturday and I need to buy some cheap American goods!!!
Okay, on to the trades:

ROH - Long, 10-min

• Placed fibs. from first bar low to high
• First bar left a long upper tail, but still closed up. Bars 2-5 consolidated at the 61.8 level (starting to look bearish)
• Entered on a break of the bar 6 high after it closed strong above the 38% fib level
• My initial price target was the OR high because of all that room in the 1st bar's upper tail
• Exited off the low of the 12:30 candle on the 15-min chart (hanging man)

ROH Entry, 10-min

ROH Exit, 15-min

KG - Short, 5-min

• Place fibs from first bar low to third bar high
• After the 3rd bar, price dropped below the 61.8% level and I looked for a short entry
• Entered short on a break of the 10:45 candle low
• After 1:30 price was consolidating again, but I needed to head out
• Exited on a break of the 2pm candle high on the 5-min chart

Day 2 - Auto Fib. Lines

Still no word from QT about whether they'll even consider adding automatic fib. lines as a feature. The last email I received asked where I wanted the fib. lines. So, it seemed like they were 'looking' into it, I suppose.
 
Of course, my email could've been quickly moved to the 'things to do later' folder.
 
Again... if there are any programmers out there who know how to do this in QT, whether through a script or something (I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night), please let me know.

IMMR - Short

IMMR is a great example of a stock that goes against the day's trend. I actually had a lunch meeting and needed to cut the trade short, but it at least got to the OR low. Here's the trade:

• Placed fibs. from first bar high to low
• Price made a quick jump up past the 61.8 level but didn't stay there for long
• After falling down, price consolidated at the 38% level and I waited for a nice down bar with volume
• Entered on break on the 11:30 bar low (with nice volume)
• Sold at the ORL as I needed to head out for a lunch meeting
• IMMR looked good on the 10 and 15-min timeframe as well
  
• Around 3R for an hour's worth of work... then played virtual tennis for 2 hours

Automatic Fib. Lines

Just got an email back from Jerry Medved from Quotetracker that read as follows:
 
"No, the lines have to be added manually."
 
Now, he sounds like a good enough guy to give him the option of hearing me out. So I replied back to him mentioning how much of a great option this would be and how my readers would really enjoy this (cha-ching). I also mentioned how the competition (esignal) also offers this.
 
Let's see how he responds. I don't want to unleash the power of the OONR7 Nation just yet.

Wanted

Does anyone know of a way to automatically draw in intraday fib. lines in Quotetraker? For example, have fib. lines added to the first bar high to low.
I know it's not a feature currently available in Quotetracker but I wonder if there's a program that can do it. Or maybe there's some programmer out there that's willing to take on the task????

CIT - Short

CIT was the only stock in my watchlist that met all my criteria and presented a good short opportunity. I missed nothing today and made decent money so I feel good. Here's the trade (15-min chart):

• Placed fibs from first bar low to high
• Price retraced but met considerable resistance at the 38% level
• After a doji on the 6th bar, price dropped down and just below the 61.8% level
• Shorted on a break of the 7th bar low
• Exited on break of the 16th high
• Ho hum trade, but profitable and stress-free

SWIM - Long

If it's good enough for King Jamie it's good enough for me. I am now going to look at the 15-min chart for my exit regardless of what timeframe I enter on. It's not that I haven't thought about this before, but now I'm going to try to stick to it and make it a routine. It worked well for me today with SWIM... here's the trade on the 10-min chart:

• Placed fibs. from first bar low to high (strong first bar)
• Price retraced and bounced of the 50% level (never fell below, bullish sign)
• Entered on break of 10:10 bar as it closed strong above the 38% level
• Exited off the 15-min chart when priced closed below the low of the 3:15 candle (also below the 5ema)

10-min

15-min

CMC - Long

CMC offered an interesting setup today as I first saw my entry candle on the 10-min chart, but the high/low spread and the target price was not at least 1R. So, I looked at the 5-min chart, saw a nice candle with a .13 spread (as opposed to .30) and took the trade for a very nice gain. You'd think I'd reward myself with something nice... instead, I had to cut my day early to get a wisdom tooth pulled. So, I'm writing this post with one-half of my mouth numb - sorry for the drool. Here's the trade:

• Placed fib. lines from first bar low to high
• Priced retraced 100% (which I didn't like) then went back up above the 38% level in the same candle (10am candle, 5-min). However, volume was not 1.25x the previous candle so I didn't look to enter here
• Switching back and forth from the 5 and 10-min chart I noticed a hammer forming on the 10 with nice volume behind it. But, as I mentioned before, I didn't like the high/low spread
• So, I looked at the 5-min chart and decided to enter long above the 10:05 candle high (dragonfly doji)
• Since I really entered based on the 10am, 10-min candle... I was using the 10-min chart for my exit
• I needed to get ready for the dentist and exited during the 11:40 candle (10-min chart)

5-min

10-min

I probably made this post sound confusing... but basically, I saw my signal on the 10 and bought on the 5.

PBG - Long, DHI - Short

Today went pretty smooth. I traded both long and short and I am always happy when I can do that AND be profitable on both trades. I don't know... just kinda tells me there are opportunities in any kind of market. I missed SHLD which really bugged me, but it was on my watchlist and it was just a matter of me not seeing the entry in time. I can live with that. Here are my two trades:
 
PBG (5-min)

• Placed fibs. from first bar low to third bar high
• Price retraced to the 61.8 level but bounced up off of it
• Went long off a break of the 10:10 candle high
• Exited off a break of the 11:20 candle low (closed below the 5ema)

DHI (10-min)

• Placed fibs. from first bar high to second bar low
• Price retraced to the 61.8 level but then dropped
• Went short off a break of the 10:20 candle low after it closed below the 38% fib. level
• Exited at the fib. ext after price consolidated with a series of NR7 bars. This wasn't a big price mover and I didn't want to risk a .10 jump so I exited all my shares after price hit the fib. ext again

No trades

I had a pretty full watchlist and came close to pulling the trigger on a few trades... but, I ended up sitting on my hands.

If you did well... feel free to leave a comment about your trade (just like Jason did - congrats to him)

Ready to go

After a week off... I'm more than ready to get it going today.

Good luck to all and I hope to post a nice chart of a winning trade today.

I hope you caught these...

I tell ya... trading sure is easy when you look at charts at the end of the day and pick the perfect entries :)

So, I'm on vacation this week but I'm still running my scans to see what I would've missed (pure torture). Here are a couple of stocks that came up on 7/3:

ACH - Long, 15-min

• Placed fibs from low to high of the first bar
• Price retraced and leveled off at the 38% level
• The 10:30 bar formed a perfect candle at the 38% level. This is where you have to weigh the risk as price was still a bit far away from the 5ema (at least for my tastes).
• There wasn't a real exit point so I think I would've exited close to end of day
  

ACAS - Long, 5-min

• Placed fibs from first bar high to second bar low
• Priced retraced back up to the 61.8% level then fell back down (looking like resistance)
• From 10:10 - 10:25, price retraced back down to the 50% level
• 10:25 bar burst back up and through the 61.8% level on increased volume (more than 1.25x the previous bar)
• I would've entered of a break of the 10:25 bar high
• I would've exited off somewhere around the 11:50 area