4 trades

All losses. Felt like I was on a treadmill today and going nowhere. Fortunately, only SHLD was a full 1R loss... the rest were fairly minimal. Traded the following:

SHLD: Short, 1:30pm bar low
GPRO: Long, 12pm bar high
DLTR: Long, 11:30am bar high
ALD: Short: 12pm bar low

Sometimes, proper trade management will cause me to take a loss. For instance, DLTR and ALD never touched my original stop (opposite side of entry) but I partialed out to limit losses.
Have a good weekend, I'm off to Nurnberg, Germany tomorrow! Kicking the Christmas spirit into high gear for the kids as we're going to a bonafide Christmas market.

Tough

Hard to make a high-probability buck lately. Market's up big, I've got a full watchlist and - up to this point - no candidates are setting up. Sucks since this is my 'full' trading day and I'm out of town on Friday.

APC - Short

Still waiting for a day this week when I'm burning up the keyboard with orders. Thought today was boring as well. I caught APC short but initially I didn't like the lack of unusual volume. I decided not to discard it since volume was on the fringe (between too low and just right). My entry bar was a failed reversal at the ORL with volume. Exited on a break of the 2:45pm bar high (I would normally partial here, but since I shorted a stock on a big 'up' day I didn't want to risk too much profit). Turned out to be the right move as the stock moved up big after I exited.

Nothin' happening

Sticking to my guns and waiting for the trades I want. Didn't happen today. I was stalking ISIL at 11am but decided against. Too bad.

No trades

There were trades to be made out there... but they just didn't meet the specifics that I look for. GA and FNM are two decent examples. I'm expecting very low volume after today so I don't expect to trade till next Monday. If I don't post... enjoy your Thanksgiving. We're actually celebrating it here on Saturday with some American friends.

LVS - Short

For all the IB users out there... were you experiencing any issues with IB's data in the first hour of trading? My backfill was acting funky and I had to clear my charts and backfill again. Pain in the ass considering how long IB's backfill takes. Anyway, I traded LVS and missed the first 'ideal' entry off a break of the 12pm bar low. However, I was able to get in on a break of the 12:30pm bar low which closed below S2 on increased volume. Exited the entire position on a break of the 2pm bar high.

Tradeweek

With my new schedule I really needed to find a trading style that was simple, effective for gappers and could be applied throughout the day. What I ended up focusing on were two and three bar retracements. I find these to be not only easy to spot but also highly effective. Also, I'm also going to concentrate on just the :15 timeframe for a more 'relaxed' (dare I say) trading experience. The retracement trade is pretty simple. I look for 2 or 3 bar retracements (either up or down) with a reversal bar and I enter on a confirmation of the reversal. I also look for potential 'dummy' retracement plays where the reversal bar sets up against the retracement trend but there is no confirmation. I remember Trader-X saying a while back that this is a pattern you should look for if you wanted to reduce candidates or wanted more high probability trades. So, here's a look at some charts this week that fit the above criteria:

Executing all these trades, including partials, would've produced the following stats:
Total trades: 9
Win: 7
Loss: 2
Win rate: 78%
Total R: 14.46

EXPE - Long

EXPE had all the making of a nice long gain yesterday. My entry was right above R4 and the ORH after a failed 2-bar retracement. I call this a dummy retracement setup. A trend looks like it's about to fail (especially at a key resistance/support area) but then the next bar continues in the direction of the trend. I always like entering on the confirmation bar.
So, my entry was off the 11:30 bar high, price quickly moved to $31 and then fell sharply back. I partialed on a break of the 12:15 bar low and ended up selling the rest of my shares on a break of the 1:45 bar low. Up and down stock which used the round number $31 (and 119% fib. level) as strong resistance. Small loss, but a loss nonetheless. Bastard!!!!

JCP - Short

Tried a new exit idea and it cost me. First entry was on a break of the 1pm bar low and I was stopped out two bars later. I waited before placing my stop after entry to see if price would try to shake me out during the next bar. The next bar high was my new stop and it proceeded to bend me over and thank me for playing along. I re-entered on a break of the 2pm bar... price started moving my way and I thought I was just too early in my first entry. Unfortunately, this stock did not want to make a big move down but I was able to get out at BE the second time.

No trades

Not much for me to work with today. Although, I did have a limit order in for VMSI but price blew right past it. Would've been a nice gain.

WMT - Long

The day I make a killing when the market soars will be the first day I make a killing when the market soars. Contrary to big down days, I just can't seem to find nice setups or entries during big up days. I was able to make some money on WMT today off the :15 chart (break of 11am high) and broke even entering again on the 30-min chart (1pm bar). At least I can trade the full day tomorrow.

GG, FXI - Short

Made a couple nice trades using the retracement pattern. I had a fortunate 'mistake' on GG. As soon as I entered I went to place a buy-stop order at the top of my entry candle. Instead, I placed a sell-stop order and doubled my position. That's like the 3rd time that's happened in the last few weeks. After a brief debate about whether I should sell or not... I decided to keep all the shares which turned out well. FXI (:15)

• After a previous failed attempt to break the ORH (resistance), a nice 2-bar retracement pattern set up starting at noon (which was also S1)
• Entered short on a break of the 12:45 bar low
• Looked like price was going to once again test the ORH (S1) but it didn't and broke down
• Exited at S2 which was also near the ORL. I figured this was going to be a reversal area (it retraced again and moved further down)

GG (:15)

• I like retracement setups at either a pivot point or the ORH/L
• After breaking above S3, price moved back down and below S3
• A 3-bar retracement started at noon and broke just above the S3
• Entered short on a break of the 12:45 bar (busy time for me) and kept an eye on how price interacted with S3 again
• I was prepared to get out after 1:15 bar as it looked like it was finding support (remember, I had double my position and a very itchy trigger finger)
• Exited just above S4 which was my target price at entry

AMAT; KNOT

Went long AMAT (12th bar, :15) and was stopped out on a revised stop. Shorted KNOT (5th bar, :15) and made some change down to S3 or $15.76.
Not too exciting from a results standpoint today.

No Prophet

I talked a few weeks ago about how Prophet was raising their prices on the Silver membership from $29.95 to $44.95. Now, the main issue I had was that I used Prophet for my data feed. However, the feed, just like their scans were unreliable at times. Even with that I was still prepared to fork over a lump sum 1-year membership at the $29.95 monthly rate. I needed to do this by 10/31. I waited till 10/31. I called their office on 10/31 and heard a recording that their were off for the holiday. Holiday??? Are they talking about Halloween? I wasn't aware they employed witches and ghosts and needed to respect the 'national' holiday. So, I called on 11/1. Same message. Guess they employ saints too.
I gave up and said fuck it. They have the worst customer service out there. Oh sure, you can get a person online, but they can't figure shit out and always refer to their 'technical' department which doesn't show up till 11am EST since they're based in CA. 11am when the markets open at 9:30??? Nice. For the last week I've been using my IB scan along with the gapper list provided by Jamie or Knight Trader and the IB data feed. I haven't missed Prophet one single bit. IB's backfill takes a lot longer than Prophet, but since I can pull my scans early on... time isn't really that big of an issue.

KNXA - Short

Hello, my name is OONR7... and I'm a chartaholic. I'm always looking at charts and trying to spot new patterns to make my entries easier to spot and, of course, more profitable. My new craze is price retracement. But not just any retracement... specific 2 and 3 bar retracements which leads to a potential entry bar. I've always used retracements in the past, I just haven't specifically sought out the 2 and 3 bar retracements. What I like is that they're pretty easy to spot and very effective. I took my KNXA trade today based on a 2 bar retracement into a shooting star. The entry was pretty far away from the 5ema, but I really like entering on a shooting star for shorts as it provides a very reliable stop area. I was able to grab 1.2 points off of this trade as I exited at $17. Here's the chart:

Other nice retracement opps:
SI (15-min, 2:45 bar)
RATE (30-min, 12pm bar)

CRL - Long

In my last post, I made a reference to taking a perfect trade as opposed to having a perfect trading day. Well, can't say I had a perfect trading day as there were opportunities that I didn't take (FSLR, 30-min, 8th bar just as an example) but CRL, for me, is what I mean by the perfect trade. Not a lot of worries, acted as it should have with a great fill. Here's the chart:

Missed opportunities

Hindsight is 20/20... yeah, yeah, yeah. If a stock is in my watchlist and if that watchlist is not that long and I miss a trade... then I'm doing something wrong and not looking in the right places. Personally, I have distractions to deal with so I can kinda blame it on that, but sometimes I just get downright bored looking for setups and often will close the computer at a certain time. This will probably change when I return to the US as my work day will start and end sooner than it currently does.
Back to the hindsight thing. I'm still waiting for the perfect trading day. Don't get this confused with executing perfect trades. The perfect trading day for me is spotting and capitalizing on every (or most every - I'm not that anal) opportunity that presents itself in my watchlist.
It can and will be done.

EDIT: Guess I should mention SMSI (15-min) and LFC (30-min) were nice missed opps. There was some movement on my watchlist after all :)

Nothing worked

Shorted CPO and went long MVL... neither worked. Pretty boring day overall. There was little movement in a lot of the stocks in my watchlist.
Hope you all did well.

ABK - Short

ABK presented at least two solid entry points today. One early and one late. I was able to catch the early entry but missed the more profitable later one off the 5-min chart.
 

PXLS, ALVR Charts

PLXS, ALVR

Kinda tired so no charts tonight (maybe in the morning). Went long PLXS off the 5-min chart (can you guess where???) and short ALVR off the 15-min (again... take a guess).
I know, I'm a lazy bastard!!!!

T.I.M.

This is pretty cool. I will definitely check out Timothy Sykes' website daily. Like other bloggers out there, I also got an advance copy of his book - An American Hedge Fund. Unlike other bloggers out there... I haven't finished it. But, what I've read has been really, really insightful. If you've ever wondered 'what if I started trading at a young age??' then this is the book for you.