MRK, HTZ, MRB, NE

All losers. Bastards!!!!

Note to self...

Be extremely wary of first bars that close in the opposite direction of the gap. It seems like I'm just freakin' determined to make every setup work. With the faster timeframes it's easy to get caught staring at candles rather than the overall chart pattern. I shorted M despite the very strong first bar. I traded and made money off this kind of trade before but it seems that you just have to be perfect nowadays with the entry (for gap trading). I also shorted APOL to end the day positive but this has been a rough week.

Thursday's trade

Another iffy day for a gap trader like myself. I managed to make some very quick cash off of LDK (10-min) after seeing 2 inside bars with the 3rd bar (NR) closing above R1. The stock moved quickly at the start of the 4th bar and I decided to quickly adjust my position size and place a market order instead of my usual limit order. Had some major slippage but everything worked out as price moved to R2 which is where I sold all my shares.
 
After that there wasn't much going on. I missed a nice entry in JASO off the 5-min chart (10:50) cause I was eating shit and IMing a buddy of mine at the time. Really hate when I get distracted like that... but it's my own fault.
 
On another note... Trader Eyal posted his result from the Van Tharp trading test. I found some the questions difficult to answer as both options could apply to me depending on the circumstances. But overall the results were pretty interesting:
 

Stupid trade

Sometimes I make trades that I know I really shouldn't be making but somehow the 'what if' factor comes into play and I pull the trigger. Today's JBL short was a good example of that. I played if off the 5-min chart and shorted off the 10:10 bar low. Now, the first bar was bullish and the 2nd bar spiked above the first bar's high or ORH. I don't like this. I should have said out loud 'even though it gapped down... this stock is showing bullish tendencies - stay away'. However, the market was down a good deal at the time and the daily chart looked pretty darn good. I'm not broken up about this but it's a trade that I shouldn't be taking and I certainly should've gotten out much sooner rather than keeping my original stop.

Luckily, I shorted C and was able to end the day with a reasonable loss. Last two days have been tough trading IMO.

Chop city

Although I was profitable today (not by much) I really worked to make the best of what I had. Traded LFC, HK and CCJ. I exited HK at practically breakeven after a 'hunch' the stock might tap me out. Sure enough... it would have.

Anyway... not the start I was hoping for after a 4 day break.

End of week

Ho-hum day as NKE (long) stopped me out but I was able to recoup some with CEF (short). Overall, not a lot of action for me today.

Taking off tomorrow and Monday so hope you all trade well and have a good weekend.

ADBE - Long; NG - Short

This was about as close to a perfect trading day as I've had in a long while. I entered the trades that made sense to me... skipped the ones I was worried about and exited my positions exactly where I wanted (near fib. ext) and in a relatively short amount of time. Off to play Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) with my son.

IB scanner

Does anyone know of a plug-in or script I could run that will allow me to automatically import gap candidates from the TWS scanner directly into Quotetracker?

Any info would be great.

AINV - Long

Inside NR7 trigger bar closing strong right above the ORH... nuff said. Missed KEX off the 10-min which bothered me.

DBA, DLB - Short

Had a couple glasses of some nice wine with a nice Spanish dinner (thanks to the in-law who's visiting) and I'm just not in the mood to get too detailed. However, both DBA and DLB were 'reversal' bar entries after a two bar retracement. Hope you all did well. Exited DBA at the fib. ext. and DLB at the ORL.

Nothing happening

When my watchlist is widdled down to 2 by 11am... time to call it a day. Have a good weekend.

WTF?

Did I miss the memo that said to get the hell out of any short positions by 11am or I'll experience massive buying that doesn't correlate to what's going on in the market? Literally all of my gap down stocks whipped up at 11am. Never seen this before... I mean, across the board. Got stopped out on all.

DSX
CMO
WB

Crappy day.

KLAC - Short

Not a whole heck of a lot of options today.

KLAC - Short
Entry: 11:30 bar low, 10-min chart
Exit: Just above the fib. ext. (1:30 bar)

A lot of work

I made 7 trades today and you would think that with as many trades I'd have more to show. While I feel fortunate to be profitable (as I do every time I am) I really felt like I worked for every penny today. In a way... that's a good thing. I made the trades that I wanted to make and whether I made a lot of money or not - that's how I should be trading. I've spoken before about aspiring to have the 'perfect trading day' where I take every opportunity that presents itself and execute flawlessly. I personally feel that's within my reach... but not every day and not this day. Too tired for charts but here's a summary:

Good:
HUM, APOL (twice), AGP

Chopped up:
CBST, HCBK, XOM

Overall, I felt a sense of relief in the market today. The bulls made a statement. Let's see how this works out for the rest of the week.

ARO, SSRI - Short

Not sure I'll ever go long again on a stock.
 
ARO (5-min)
Entry: 10:30 bar low
Exit: Fib. ext.

 
 
 
SSRI (15-min)
Entry: 10:45 bar low
Exit: 12:15 bar high
Comment: Wish I would have partialed or fully exited sooner.



 
 
Also got stopped out of GG. Entered after it found support from S2, not sure I should do that.

TS - Short

Been having problems with prophet.net lately so most of my candidates have been through IB and/or the briefing.com gap list. I spent about an hour on the phone with prophet last night telling them I was fed up with their issues.
 
If any of you are paid subscribers and an issue arises... you need to call to complain or things never get resolved. I kept telling them that their products/scanner features haven't changed for years so I can never understand why their scanners crap out from time to time.
 
As for today's trading, I placed a stop-limit order in BOOM (11/5) but price blew by it. I did go short TS off a break of the 7th bar low (:15) which closed nicely below the ORL. Exited at the fib. ext. Also shorted CIG but ended up losing latte money. Overall, I'm happy with the week... especially knowing that I missed a lot of very good trades. Have a good weekend.
 

JCP, JWN - Short

In a rush but I had a good day with JCP and JWN.

Beat up

Haven't had this kind of day in a while. Took 4 long positions... stopped out on all. I managed to limit losses on a few so the final toll really isn't that bad. Bulls just could not take charge today.

The lo... lo... loooooooooooosssssseeeeeeeerrrrrrrs:

RRGB
PAS
SAY
SMTC

IBN, NOK - Short

Calling it a day. Made some nice change with IBN and NOK and just missed a nice one in CIT. No need to push it.
 
The good:
NOK - Short off the 10:30 candle (10-min). Exited all shares just above the fib. ext.
 
IBN - This really was a beautiful setup. Short off the 10:40 candle (10-min). Kinda messed up the exit. Should've partialed instead of selling all at $46.60. Not going to worry about taking good money off the table though.
 
Charts:
 

 
 

Data issues... again

In December, I opened a TD Ameritrade account just to get access to their data (for backfill purposes). Well, everything had been working fine up until the last two weeks. In that time, the data has been off - just on select stocks - about 6 times.

Now, that may not sound like much, but with my style I absolutely rely on the accuracy of the information... where candles close, the opening range, lower/upper tails, etc. Of the six stocks I mentioned, I entered two of them based on bad data... data that - if correct - I absolutely would not have entered the stock and lost money. Yesterday's BA and Friday's MLNM trades are just two examples. On the flip side, there were opportunities that I missed because the data was wrong that I know I would've profited from. Fortunately, the data's been correct on my winning trades and I've been able to 'deal' with the problem. So... what to do? Well, I noticed prophet.net's info was correct and I will be using them from now on until I discover a problem, I guess.

I've posted here before asking for your input on data feeds but I really don't think there's an absolute solution. Most folks use IQFeed, as did I last year, but I found their data incorrect at times as well. I would ultimately like to use IB's backfill as I use them for my intraday data feed but their backfill sometimes doesn't work or takes too damn long. I may just have to verify data with both TDAmeritrade and Prophet before entering.

BZP - Damn you!!!

The good:
NUVA - Short off the 10:15 candle (5-min). Exited all shares at the 10-min chart ORL.
 
BZP - Long off a break of the 11:15 candle high (15-min). Exited all shares during 2:15 candle after lengthy sideways action. No reason to exit, took money off the table and ended up leaving a ton on it.
 
The bad:
BA - Short off a break of the 10:40 candle low. Stopped out. Something about entering off the 3rd consecutive down bar that is not working out for me. Gotta avoid these.
 
Charts:

 
 

Kids songs

Made into rock... brilliant!