Traded...

without much success. Was it because of the FED announcement??? Who knows.

BWLD - Short (stopped out)
FEIC - Short (scratch)
FIC - Long (little cash)

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

CBG - Short

What caught my eye with CBG was the clear and orderly retracement to the 38.2% fib. level from yesterday's high that ran into the 5ema and printed a spinning top (indicating indecision) on the 6th bar. I entered short on the 7th bar low on a nice down bar and took it down to the ORL.

ODP - Short

I picked up a friend visiting from London today... had a great lunch and was coming home to start trading (while my wife played host). However, I completely forgot that Daylight Saving Time occurred this weekend over here and I would actually start working an hour earlier than normal. So, I was still able to get a decent watchlist together and found a nice opportunity in ODP (5-min):

• Priced gapped down, retraced 100%, then retraced again back to the ORH
• Entered short on a break of the 10:30 candle low after price ran into the 5ema and printed a nice bearish engulfing, marabuzo-ish candle on reduced volume right at the ORH
• Exited all my shares at the ORL

Also traded CMED for a loss (but it went in my favor at first - hate when that happens).

Hindsight trade - LAVA

While LAVA was on my watchlist, I believe I didn't trade it because I had the intraday fib. lines drawn and it was basing below the 50% level. However, when I drew the fib. lines from Thursday's low to Friday's ORH, you'll see price was actually basing at the 38% level. A perfect, low-risk entry presented itself at the 12pm bar on rising volume (a breakout signal). A .06 risk would've easily netted a .49 return if you exited at the ORH.

HITT - Long

Can I just say that I refuse to buy LEGO toys for anyone else's child because I know it's the father that has to put that shit together. Then, when the freakin' pieces start falling apart you have to be there to put it all back together again. Each finger-shredding piece was created by the devil himself.

On to today's trade. I really wanted to short ORCC but I didn't. Shame on me. I did short WMI for a few Cohibas worth and I went long HITT to end this crazy week on a high note. Here's the trade:

• Gap up with price immediately falling down but still within the 15-min OR
• Price proceeded to climb up and past the intraday 38% level then retrace back
• Entered long on a break of the 11:45 bar high which was an inverted hammer off a nice 2 bar retrace (on decreased volume I might add)
• My entry was right below R3 and I figured it would break through easily but I had my eye on it nonetheless
• Exited just above R4 (which was around the intraday fib. ext.)

Trading European exchanges

Anyone know information regarding trading on, say, the London Stock Exchange or other foreign exchanges? I already checked out the commission structure with IB and it's verrrrry pricey (29 euros for 1000 shares for example).
From a timing standpoint... trading the foreign exchanges would help me considerably. However, I'm not even sure if I could use Quotetracker (have an email to them) or what scanner I would use.

Any info you all can provide would be great. Thanks.

FFIV - Short

So, looks like my new 'work schedule' will go something like this:

Monday: Trade up till 11:15 and after 1pm
Tuesday: Trade after 11:15
Wednesday: Trade all day
Thursday: Trade up till 11:15 and after 1pm
Friday: Hoping to trade all day, but possibly after 11:15

My nanny quit on Monday and I've had to scramble to pick my kids from school this week. Then, they start a two week vacation on Monday (gotta love the French and all their time off). Finding a replacement nanny is not something we look forward to so we're trying to work this out.

On to today... but the time I had to leave my computer, I was only in FFIV. Here's the trade:

• Wide range opening bars with subsequent narrowing bars on lower volume
• Price stayed in the lower half of the 15-min OR
• Entered short on a break of the 5th bar low which was an inside NR7
• Had to leave by 11:15 so I placed a buy limit order at 35 along with my usual stop order. Just trying to protect profits while I'm away and capitalize on a move down if I wasn't there
• Everything worked out well and I walked away with a nice gain

Birthday over trading

It was my son's birthday today and a traditional way of celebrating birthdays in Paris is to have the party on a Wednesday afternoon since pre-schoolers only go half day these days. So, we picked a really nice place and invited his class. However, another tradition over here is to just drop your kid(s) off at the party and then come and pick them up when it's over.
Twelve kids, two adults... candy and cake. Needless to say... it was a pretty damn stressful afternoon. But, my son had a blast and that's all that counts!!!
I saw a lot of nice setups today. ASIA and LM in particular had great inside nr7 entries off the 15-min chart.

Hindsight trades

After looking at my watchlist last night, below are some really good opportunities that presented themselves. A very wise man once told me that the 15-min opening range is very important. Somehow... I've strayed a bit from that. I hope to focus more on entries developing within the 15-min opening range. In any case, here are some nice trades that I hope some of you were able to capitalize on:

EVVV: Nice shooting star/inverted hammer right at the intraday 38% level. I really prefer to call this an inverted hammer since a shooting star occurs in an uptrend (3 bars prior is a good example of a textbook shooting star)

MICC: Great marabuzo candle on decreased volume right at the intraday 50% level.

EPAX: NRB on decreased volume just below the ORL and after a WR breakout candle.

Personal issues

Been dealing with some 'issues' that may cause me to miss trading the first couple of hours in the morning a few days a week. I'll still be able to put together a watchlist till about 10am but then won't be back to my computer till 11:15 or so. Bummer, but at least there's afternoon trading which I haven't really looked at. This could end up being a good thing. Not sure if this is a permanent thing yet... we'll see.
As for today... sorry, couldn't trade. If I did, AMZN was a monster. There were 5 NR7 bars in a row leading up to the big jump. There was a nice OONR7 entry on the 1pm bar right at the intraday 38% fib. level on increased volume (which was an entry signal if I ever saw one considering the price contraction of the previous bars).

Late start

Had some stuff to take care of today so I wasn't able to get a watchlist going till about 10:30 or so. I ended up just using the IB scan and really didn't find anything of interest (as of this post).

Typical OPEX day

You never know what you're gonna get on OPEX day. Sometimes you get some nice runs and sometimes you get chopped out. I made some quick money on GRMN (inside bar, 15-min) and then got stopped out of CERN (11:45, 15-min) fairly quickly. That's just how it goes. FWLT and RIO were also nice inside bar candidates.
 
Have a good weekend.

Missed trades

I was looking at an early setup in ABX off the 2nd bar high (15-min) but price dropped quickly during the 3rd bar and I basically ignored the trade. Would've been good for a nice quick gain.
 
With LOGI, I was actually planning on buying on a break of the 10th bar high (15-min), but that never materialized and I pulled my order. However, the next bar was still NR and volume decreased even further and I said I would keep my original buy order in place. But... I went to clear my chart to see if the top tail in the second bar was just a data glitch and when I did that something weird happened with QT. After a couple of minutes, I realized I needed to log on again. By that time, price had already gone past my entry. Would've been good for at least a point.
 
Bottomline: Great plan... poor execution :)
 

PMI - Short ; PTR - Long

Finally... charts worthy enough to post. Feels like ages since I did that. Anyway, the 'new' stuff I've been working on involves inside bars and declining volume. I've been spending a good amount of time going back on my charts to look for inside bar entries and I find them to be very reliable and powerful. Also, tracking the 5, 10 and 15-min charts are too time-consuming and I'm leaning towards eliminating the 5-min chart from the scan list and just concentrating on the 10 and 15 (like I did today). Scanning all my charts every 3 minutes gives me a headache... despite the successes. Plus, if I can find a good move on the 15 or 10 and plot the fib. lines from yesterday's low I should get a nice price target.

Why the change? Well, I just mentioned one reason... trading on the 5-min timeframe is heavy on the brain. I was also ready for a philosophical change regarding volume. After seeing trade after trade on Jamie's site involving low volume plays on inside bars... it became apparent to me that I need to look into it. Finding a narrow-range, low volume inside bar at a key support or resistance area can often act as either a reversal point or a brief consolidation before a further move in the prevailing trend. And the biggest reason for the change is... opportunity. A trader's best friend is finding plenty of opportunities every day. I don't take advantage of every single one - for good or bad - but I'd rather have missed opportunities than limited opportunities.

I'm rambling... let's talk about today's trades. I took PMI short and PTR long.

PTR (15-min)

• Price quickly rose above the ORH then settled down to find support
• Entered on a break of the 8th bar high which was the second of two inside bars on declining volume. Since the spread on this candle was $3 (I usually don't enter candles with that kind of spread but the entry was too good to pass up and I said WTF). I didn't grab a ton of shares but the price target was $6 above at $261 so I could make a nice profit AND keep my risk the same
• Price ended up pegging the fib. ext. a couple bars later which is approximately where I exited

PMI (10-min)

• Used the 15-min ORH for my fib. lines (I will be doing this from now on, just simpler)
  
• Watched price steadily rise on declining volume with upper tails forming near the intraday 50% fib. level (I draw the intraday fib. levels first with all my stocks then adjust once they get close to their ORH or ORL)
• Entered short on a break of the 8th bar low (I actually wanted to enter on a break of the 7th bar low but it didn't materialize. However, the 8th bar was just as nice and also an inside bar)
• Price moved sluggishly downward and until the big one bar drop at 1:20. This bar came very close to the fib. ext. and I should exited near the fib. ext. but missed it. I sold all shares on the next bar at $26.10 on the way up

You name it....

It got chopped. As Eyal mentioned... it was chop city today. I traded WERN, SVU and KEY. Only SVU made me some money.

New stuff

Been trying out some new things and today didn't seem to be a very rewarding day. I was in UNG right below the ORH (10-min chart) but then got stopped out (small risk size). It then proceeded to move up. Also saw a lot of countergap trades. Hope everyone did well.

No trades

Second straight day I was looking at CELG on a break of the 2nd bar and the 2nd straight day I passed. Although today I just didn't feel like there was a big volume surge to warrant my entry. Nothing else gave me a compelling reason to enter. So, while it was boring... I feel like I was fairly wise to stay out. Looking forward to next week.

MDG - Long; RT - Short

By a show of hands, how many of you have been staring at the monitor, waiting for a setup only to be distracted or get tired and move on to something else... but when you get back to that same stock the setup you were originally looking for happened during the exact time you were away from the computer? Nice... I see about 5,000 hands. That happened with WX today (at the 1:15 bar on the 15-min chart). Breathe in.... breathe out.
It's not so bad as I had success with MDG and RT today. Here are the charts:

MDG - typical OONR7 play (haven't seen much of those lately).

• Entry above the 38.2% fib. level (nr7 bar with volume) and right above R2
• Exit at intraday fib. ext

RT - very nice Trader-X trade (finding more of these lately)

• Entry below the ORL, inside bar, inverted hammer on decreased volume. Not as close to the 5ema as I would like, but close enough considering the upper tail
• Exited during 12:50 bar... didn't like how volume dried up with nr bars... felt like a reversal and I didn't want to give up dough

Prophet price increases

Just received a friendly customer service call from Prophet letting me know that their rates will be increasing and if I wanted to 'lock in' to a lower rate than what I'm paying now for 1 or 2 years. I asked what the rate increase would be and he said from $29.95 (my silver membership) to $45 a month.
 
I've actually been thinking of canceling my membership because of a) all the reliability issues with Prophet lately and b) I think I can get my candidates from Briefing.com's gap list (provided by Jamie) and my IB scans.
 
However, I currently use Prophet as my intraday data feed along with my data provider for backfilling. After hanging up the phone, I went over to IQFeed to check in on their data rates. I may be calculating incorrectly, but I think they want to charge $32 a month just for data. Is this correct? I remember signing on with them for a trial run in February and it was only like $10 a month plus $3 for the exchange fees.
 
In any case... if anyone has a good option for a data feed. Please pass along.

Frustrating day

Went long XING (break of 10:10 bar, 10-min chart) and it stalled at the ORH. Then, I went short DSL on a nice NR bar with low volume on the 10-min chart again (12:10 bar low) and I was shaken out a few bars later for a very small loss.
Now, XING... eh, I can understand how it didn't have the engine to get past the ORH on such a down day. But DSL... WTF???? It drops right after my entry and I'm all ready to pop open a Tsing Tao and then it gets all choppy. DSL proceeded to drop to the daily pivot low of 52.81... and I had a sell limit order already in place at 53.10 (you know, I didn't want to be greedy or anything).
This week has made me want to become a scalper. I have left so much on the table after large initial moves after my entry.

No magic trick

Couldn't pull a rabbit out my hat today as I haven't seen any great setups on my watchlist - as of right now.

I did manage to make a decent gain shorting SIGM off the 2nd bar low (15-min) and then selling before the huge upward turn (touched and consolidated at the fib. ext. from yesterday's high).

COGN - Long

The anatomy of 1.08R trade (COGN):

5-min chart

• Entered on a break of the 10am bar high which was an inside nr7 bar with drastically reduced volume (contraction) right at the intraday 38.2% fib. level
• After being up 3R quickly, I ended up partialing out and then getting stopped out for an .8R loss

15-min chart

• This is a trade I wish I didn't make. I tried to get all Trader-X like
• Entered on break of the 10:45 bar high which was an inside nr7 hammer right at the ORH (with fibs. drawn from yesterday's low)
• Exited for a full 1R loss 2 bars later

30-min chart

• Yes, you read correctly, I traded the 30-min chart. I actually studied a lot this weekend and I'm going to start looking at the 30-min chart for inside bar opportunities
• Entered on a break of the 6th bar high after bars 4 and 5 formed inside bars. Bar 6 was also an nr7 with increased volume right at the ORH and very close to the 5ema
• I exited on what is looking like the top of the move (as I write this at 3pm) at 50.35... it was getting late over here and I was happy to take a 2.88R gain

I also traded ABAT which is a more traditional trade for me

• Entered long on a break of the 6th bar high which was an nr7, closed above the 38.2% fib. level and sat on top of R2
• While the entry was pretty, the exit wasn't and after noticing resistance at the ORH in bars 8 and 9 I decided to just exit at the ORH with a gain

No movement

Some pretty boring stuff the last two days. Entered NVDA and made some cash, but there was really no follow through.

No trades

Didn't see anything interesting and decided to go get some Lebanese food in Paris. Had a great dinner with a friend that's in town. Hope to have some better setups tomorrow. There were actually a few times today that I thought my connection was down because price seemed to stall.

I did a stupid thing...

I was long DISH - that's not the stupid part - and I decided to sell all my shares at R2 (that's the stupid part). I should've partialed at R2 and I think greed got the best of me as I entered the trade and 15 minutes later I was up a nice amount (and this is early in the morning). Not wanting to give any early morning profits back, I figured I'd just sell all and if the stock jumped up a bit afterwards... I'd deal with it. Well, it 'jumped' up $4.6 from my exit. If I would've partialed... I'd be up another +9R. This isn't hingsight... partialing is what I should've done. But anyway, here's the trade (a Jaime-inspired trade):

• Everyday, I look at Jamie's watchlist and watch for good opportunities forming at a pivot levels. DISH was a great candidate today
• Entered long off a break of the 2nd bar high (hammer-like) right above R1
• Price took off and my original target was R2 where I ended up selling all my shares and watched (with a tear in my eye) as price skyrocketed upwards
• Pissed I missed the big move, I also shorted this stock off the 11:50 bar low on the 5-min chart and made some additional money which helped
• A big thanks to Jamie for sharing his watchlist.
• I also traded CREE for some change
  

NOK - Short

I made money today and that's all that counts. Did a make a crapload?? No. Took two trades which were both profitable but the end result was only 1R. 1R... doesn't sound like much - and it really isn't - but it's also not -1, -2 or -3R. It's a positive result and that's the bottomline. I try to shoot for average and hope to get a couple of runners during the week. Haven't gotten the runners yet, but they will come. I actually contemplated entering BIDU on the 10-min chart (11:20 bar), but passed because the high/low spread was almost $2. A little too rich for my tastes. I think $1 spread is the maximum amount I'm willing to go and that still needs to be around 1% of the closing price. I traded CAL (Jamie-inspired trade) and NOK. Here's the NOK trade:

• As you can see, price gapped down but then immediately started moving up
• Price hit a brick wall at $37.50 and proceed to sharply decline
• The 10 and 10:05 bar had nice volume on the decline which made me forget about the rise at the open
• The 10:10 bar offered a brief pause in the decline and this is where price should've gone back up if it was going to
• Entered short on a break of the 10:20 bar low with the fib. ext and S1 as the price target
• Price moved down without a problem and I was able to exit at S1 with no problems... pretty smooth

PHM - Long

With PHM, I entered based on my criteria but then exited using Trader-X-style fib. lines from yesterday's low. I do this from time to time if price moves strongly towards my intraday price target and I want to see what the next 'logical' price target may be by using more extended fib. lines. I really wanted to get into this trade for some reason. I liked how it was basing along the intraday 38.2% fib. level. I thought the huge volume spike would cause the price to move down - which it did momentarily - but then it picked up again and I entered on another inverted hammer... fast becoming my favorite type of entry. Also notice how price set up along R2.
 
Entry (15-min):

 
Exit