OObreakeven

That's my new name. And it's not because I'm picking the wrong entries... it's because I'm trading like a putz. Calling it a day before I do any damage trying to pound my 'trading chest' to redeem myself.
 
AUY, BRL, GG, ABX. Entered all long. Settled all for breakeven. Again, just traded like a putz. With AUY and GG the trades started going against me and the trigger finger came alive. ABX started well then retraced to my BE point... sold. And BRL, well... I was hungry and decided to exit. Ridiculous. However, I don't look at this negatively as I'm reassured that the trades I entered did well. I'm just peeved the way my knees buckled at the first sign of weakness in the stocks. Pathetic.
 
I'm heading back to the States on Sunday for a 3 week vacation. Not sure what my trading schedule will be but it might be non-exisistent next week with the holiday.
 

Disappointing

Shorted C and ended up at exactly breakeven. I'm disappointed in myself today because I paid a lot of attention to the fact that the market was down big that I passed on several long positions. GG, KGC and AEM were all trades I should've taken but was basically scared to. Not good.

Funny commercial

Nada

Things have come to a standstill it seems. I can't trade tomorrow so I'm hoping Thursday and Friday will do the trick for the week.

Proof of trading

For a long time, I didn't post my IB results panel which shows my actual trades. Why? Well, I really didn't think of it and I honestly didn't know how to remove the 'shares' column. In any case, I am including this screen shot after every profitable day. There's really no need sharing proof of unprofitable trades now is there???

Why do I think this is important? Credibility. We may pass that off as some throw away word when it comes to looking at and analyzing charts. But my blog is not just simply a trading journal but also a tool to show other potential, full-time traders the realities of every day trading life using a particular strategy. The only thing you need to fill in is your risk size/amount.

To think of it now... I have no idea why all trading blogs don't/won't provide the same proof. Sure, it's not necessary. Sure, no one can force bloggers to do so. But I say this: Talking about trading is much, much easier than proving you can trade. What bugs me is going to a blog and seeing a 'so-called' trader posting charts that makes trading look so easy. Everything from creating a managable watchlist to the rationale for entry is extremely difficult and it absolutely has to appear that way.

I don't propose going as far as Dinosaur Trader with actual dollar amounts as income is a very personal thing. I personally don't like anyone asking me how much I make... never have, never will. What I can provide is proof of purchase so to speak. Proof that I actually entered a trade. Wow, how crazy is that?

So this is my challenge to any trading blog: for every winning trade you showcase... back it up. Is it really so crazy or so demanding?

Yawn

I think it'll take a miracle to get me in a trade today. Not much happening at all.

Other Trader-X blogs?

I enjoy looking at charts... especially from bloggers that share my similar style of trading. However, other than TraderAM, I don't know of any other blogs that follow Trader X's general style of trading (gappers).

You all know of any?

Multiple trades

Overall... a good day. But it didn't start off that way as I majorly screwed up my first trade ESI. My plan this week has been to limit losses whenever I can. Sometimes this creates a jerky trigger finger. So, when I entered ESI (12:30 bar) the overall market was down but it was a great setup. Looks like a cup and handle right at the ORH with a nice NR entry bar. But the next bar closed down and even more narrow which made me believe this was a potential failure... so I scaled out for a small loss. Price action continued to be jerky and I just decided to bail if I could get back to breakeven... which I did. Price proceeded to zoom up $2 from my entry. Bitch.
 
Sour taste in the morning and now my next entries had to count. Entered EWY short off a break of the 12:45 bar which was NR (extreme) and closed right below the ORL. I didn't like the space between the 5ema so I placed my initial stop 2 cents above the 5ema at the time of entry. After what seemed like considerable sideways action... price finally dropped. It was getting late in the day and I sold all at 3pm or so. Glad I did as price moved considerably up afterwards.
 
Entered IBN short off the 1:15pm bar low and I thought I was going to get stopped out but price made a big move down to keep me green. Again, it was late in the day and I thought I'd sell all right above $33 which worked out well.
 
I also entered DRYS for breakeven as I had a bad fill and a bad feeling about the jumpy price action.
 
Enjoy the charts:

One trade

Went to dinner last night and blogger was down when I returned so I couldn't post. However, it's not an interesting post anyway. I entered KGC long (6th bar) and it failed. After the spinning top of the 7th bar I scaled out to limit my loss and then was stopped out. Not a big hit. NUAN looked good but the 4th bar was a bit too wide for me.

COF - Short

Pretty slow morning as I didn't get my first trade off till 11:30 and my first two trades ended up as losses (ASML, SSL). I probably shouldn't have taken the ASML trade (8/15). I also shorted DISH but ended up partialing out for a slight gain.
 
COF was what made my day and kept me green for the 2nd day in a row. Entered off a break of 12:15 bar low which was an NR7, inverted hammer just below the ORL and S2. Partialed out quickly to pocket some cash and exited the rest just above the fib. ext.
 

RIO, NFX - Long

Feels good to finally post some decent results. This was my first day back to monitoring just the :15 charts and I hope every day is like this. While nothing spectacular... the trades I took produced the desired results and I exited exactly where I wanted with no regrets.
 
RIO
 
Entered off a break of the 10:30 bar high which closed very strong and above the R2 level. I knew this wouldn't be a huge gainer if it just tagged the fib. ext. but I didn't want to let it go just because it wasn't going to make a ton of dough. I just need to get back to profitability. Anyway, I exited all my shares just below the fib. ext.

 
NFX
 
After a nice first candle and a strong push up, NFX presented a nice opportunity off a break of the 1pm bar high. I was looking to see what was going to happen at 67.48 as my entry candle was one in a series of inside bars after the 10:30 wide range bar. So, I was hoping price would push through this level... which it did (but nothing sustainable). I exited half my shares at 1R... another half at 68 and the rest on a break of the 2:15 bar low.

Blender trades

That's what I call it when I get chopped up. I said I wouldn't post till I had a profitable day but just wanted to relay that while I haven't been profitable in awhile I have made some winning trades. Unfortunately, there's been more chop than pop.

I'm not a big market analyst (maybe I should put more time into that) so I'm not sure why the 5-min charts are getting chopped to pieces. Setups that had performed well time after time are now failing. Granted, shorter timeframes are more susceptible to chop but the market for me over the past few weeks has been downright unforgiving. It's like my orders have a tag associated to it and once they execute there's a message that appears on every other traders screen that says: ATTENTION: OONR7 HAS JUST ENTERED AN ORDER, PLEASE SELL OR BUY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF HIS ORDER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION.

The chop isn't entirely the market's fault. I've made some mistakes and made greedier entries. Entries that if I had allowed for a wider stop would have proved very profitable. Also, once I've reached my max loss I end the day. So there have been trades that if I was green... I would've taken.

Bottomline... the 5-min charts can wait. Wait till I exceed a certain equity threshhold which allows me to take riskier trades. I'm switching solely to the 15-min charts for now with entries at or above/below the ORH/L.

I've also made some pretty significant changes to my watchlist to allow for more candidates. I'm now including stocks that have just closed above yesterday's high/low and include 2-day gap stocks as well.

No more posts

Until I have a profitable day again.

Bad joojoo

Which one of you is sticking pins into a OONR7 doll??? Bastards.

CMGI... short... 5-min... chopped. Copy and paste for tomorrow's blog entry.

I actually was not in a good situation today as the nanny who normally picks up my kids was out and I was left to play daddy and try and trade. Obviously... can't do either well (so I chose the daddy part). I missed a great setup on the 5-min with MT (1:15 bar) and NVDA (1:50 bar low).

My losing streak's got to end soon.

Lousy day

Entered MCD twice and was stopped out. Not much luck the past week of trading. I'll be off tomorrow (at least the morning session). Hope you all did well.

No trades

A lot of candidates but most of them never made it to the ORH/L. ABX, FDRY, GG and DRYS were the only ones I looked at all day.

Nothing brewing

I'm 99.99 percent sure I'm done for the day. Nothing in my watchlist even looks moderately good.

One trade

One loss. Sounds like a U2 song:

You say... one trade, one loss
When it hits my stop
Then it's all I've got

CG... 10am bar high (5-min). I almost missed this trade as I was late in putting my WL together. Liked the setup but it just didn't work.

Stops on the 5-min charts

So... I've been frustrated with being stopped out on good trades over the past couple days. While I'm not one to worry over a couple of trades and am one to get pissed off over missed profits on trades that moved the way I thought they would move. It seems to me that the best way to be a successful trader is to capitalize on the good opportunities that present themselves and try to squeeze out a good amount of profit from them.

With that being I am going to start place my stops a few cents below the 5ema at the time of entry. Most of the time that will mean the low of the previous to entry but sometimes I will just look at the 5ema and just drop it down a few cents.
I have picked the right trades I just haven't managed them well.

As I've said before... I don't mind losses when they happen I just mind them when they can be avoided with some tweaks. Yes, my risk size will increase but I don't think it will increase drastically and I believe I will be able to buy the same amount of shares relative to my risk amount.

WHQ... damn it

Here's part of my conversation with PDT yesterday:

"With that being said... I am starting to think about placing my stop based on the previous bar's (to entry) low instead of my entry bar low. That would give me some cushion (but also increase the spread). I may just use it on stocks where the entry bar isn't as close to the 5ema (like FTO)."

So, today with WHQ, had I followed this concept of placing my stop one bar prior to my entry... it would've been a very good day. I entered long off a break of the 10:20 bar high and was stopped out. Had I placed my stop 2 cents below the low of the prior bar to entry I would be sitting pretty. Now, I entered again on a break of the 11:25 bar high... and was stopped out. Had I placed my stop 2 cents below the low of the previous bar... I would not be writing this post.

Lesson learned. At some point these lessons will pay off in a big way.

Prophet scans down

As of the time I'm writing this... the prophet.net scans are down. This happens way too often. I now call every time and bitch.

I urge any of you to do the same (paid or non-paid subscribers). Here's the toll-free #: 800-772-8040. I just did.

FTO - Long; IBN - Short

My intuition failed me on FTO today as I entered off a break of the 10:10 bar high (5-min) and ended up partialing out and taking a full exit as I didn't 'feel it'. Sometimes it happens. I think it's the result of the lackluster market action of the past two weeks that made me just want to take profit.

IBN presented a nice opportunity off a break of the 12:35 bar low (5-min), price dropped nicely but came to a standstill at 35.16 which is where I ended up selling close to the end of the day.

A workman-like effort... positive result. I'll take it.