HAR - Long

What a difference a couple of days make. In hindsight, going 0 for 5 Tuesday was probably a good thing. It helped me re-focus on volume and remind me how important it is to my system. Not saying I won't make mistakes in the future, but I like how I was able to spot a divergence, make changes and see positive results. I traded HAR and ACN today. I was shaken out of ACN (5-min) at the ORH for a gain before it proceeded to jump up and through the ORH and tag the intraday fib. ext. With both HAR and ACN, my entries were made off of inverted hammers. Jamie uses these a lot and it makes sense. It's a bar that demonstrates the bears tried to take over but the bulls were still in charge. So, if the high is broken on the next bar it's kinda like the bulls telling the bears to piss off. Or something like that :)
Here's the HAR trade:

• Nice, strong first bar
• Price retraced down to the 61.8% fib. level (gee, so weird how that always happens :)
• I really wanted to enter off a break of the 10:50 bar high as it was an inside nr7 hammer with low volume, but it wasn't above the 38.2% fib. level so I waited
• Entered long on a break of the 11am bar high (inverted hammer) on increased volume
• Speaking of volume, the spike on the 10:40 bar showed me the bulls were interested and the increased volume on my entry bar basically confirmed it (at least that's how I interpreted it)
• Exited at the beginning of the 1pm bar as I didn't want to risk giving back my gains (a doji formed on the 15-min chart too). If I stayed in the position, my new stop would've been on a break of the 12:50 bar low but I didn't want to risk losing .30 on a hunch... plus, I had to go out and get dinner

SGY - Long

SGY was pretty much picture perfect the way it retraced down to the 38% fib. level and bounced off the 5ema. My entry was a nice narrow bar with volume. Don't think I need to break down this trade... look at the chart. I exited half on a break of the 12:20 bar low and the rest on a break of the 2pm bar low.

GB - Short

As Eyal pointed, it was pretty choppy today. I actually tried some new things to get my watchlist smaller - yet still loaded with nice stocks. Yesterday was a bit of an eye-opener as it reminder me that I was getting away from what's most important in gap stocks... big volume. So, I'm re-shifting my focus to try to eliminate low volume plays and I hope this will allow me to reduce my list quicker and focus on the high-volume gappers. I don't feel like I've missed high-volume plays, I just feel like I get lulled into chart setups and almost forget about the 'pump' behind the price action. Anyway, I'm rambling... all behind the scenes stuff. So, I missed a great play off of Jamie's watchlist today in GME. I was watching, nah - staring, the second bar on the 15-min chart but ended up staying out of the trade. The 10:10 bar on the 10-min chart looked good and so did the 10:20 bar on the 5-min chart. I was able to catch a nice short off of GB. Here's the trade (15-min):

• After a strong first bar on a big gap down, price moved down through the fib. levels in a nice, orderly fashion
• As it approached the 61.8 level, I notced a NR7 down bar on the 8th bar, but there was no volume behind it
• The 9th bar produced another NR7 with increased volume and I entered on a break of the candle's low
• I flipped to the daily chart to see what the potential run could be and noticed a major pivot (support) area at 27.40 so I was a bit nervous price would bounce at this area
• I exited during the 12:45 bar after 'feeling' like 27 was offering a lot of support
• Not a huge gain, but a nice trade after an 0 for 5 day like yesterday

Volume quiz

When dealing with gappers (such as the ones below), what kind of volume would you rather be dealing with?

1) Set A
2) Set B

Set A

Set B


If you correctly answered set A, you probably didn't lose more than 3R today. Moral of the story... when trading gappers, look for candidates with unusually high volume. That's the beauty of gappers - built in momentum. Duh.

Set A: FMCN, LOW
Set B: KSS, M

0 for 5

Yeah, count 'em... all 5 of my trades today were for losses. My batting average today resembles A-Rod's come playoff time. Total loss: -3.25R. I haven't lost this much or not have a single trade work for me in a very long time. The best advice to myself is this... tomorrow's another day. I stuck to my rules, obeyed my stops and stayed disciplined. That is most certainly a good thing.

Here are the stocks and entries:

M: short, 5-min, 11:20 bar low
KSS: short, 10-min, 11:30 bar low
URBN: short, 10-min, 10:50 bar low
PCAR: short, 5-min, 10:30 bar low
PTR: short, 5-min, 10:25 bar low

Ernie's foul mouth

I haven't posted a video in a while and since I made no trades today I figured I'd lighten up everyone's day with a little Bert and Ernie humor.

FYI: This is NSFW and not for anyone who doesn't like foul language (keep the kids away). This also is not for anyone who grew up with Sesame Street and wants to keep their wholesome image firmly intact.

EDIT: Don't want to offend anyone with the language.. so I took it down. But if you really want to see it - click here.

Rise or Fall revealed

I like to think of my daytrading system/style as a work of art. It's never really 'finished' and there's always room for improvement. With this being said... I have really enjoyed adding intraday pivot points to my charts recently as they're another good sign of support and resistance. I pretty much use the 38.2 and 61.8% levels as support and resistance and now when I see a pivot point forming in these areas I pay special attention. So, bottomline... you'll be seeing pivot point lines in my charts from now on. That brings me this week's Rise or Fall trade (or non-trade). I came across NXY in my weekly review and thought to myself "Why the f*%$ did I not enter this trade????". I might've been in other trades at the time and managing those, but this was a gem that slipped by (because it was in my watchlist that day). So on the chart I posted I intentionally didn't add the pivot point lines so you can see that - once added - it can really change how I interpret a potential trade.
 
Okay... the trade:

• On the 10-min chart below you'll notice price closed right on the S1 line
• The entry bar was also an inside, NRB with a volume spike from the previous bar. This tells me that this is a potential breakout area
• Entry bar was also smack up against the 5ema and, frankly, this was either going to shoot up or down
• I also really like when the pivot line is very close to my normal entry area (in this case, the 61.8% fib. level)
• Price dropped very quickly after the entry bar and the primary target price was the fib. ext (with an eye on S2)
• I probably would've taken a partial on a break of the hammer that formed at the 11:50 bar and would have definitely been out once price tagged S2

 
To add pivot point lines in Quotetracker, just right click on the chart, click on 'Select indicator' and then scroll down the top left menu bar till you get to Pivot Points and add.