It's Too Jiggly
Gross: -$193.87
Net: -$277.59
Loss From Top: $277.59
Trades: 99
Shares Traded: 69600
Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC): +$119.84
Caremark Rx Inc. (CMX): +$50.74
Cemex (CX): +$41.47
AT&T Inc. (T): +$24.38
Citigroup Inc. (C): +$9.95
Realogy Corp (H): -$3.99
Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY): -$13.36
Valero Group Holdings (VEH): -$17.38
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL): -$48.68
Morgan Stanley (MS): -$117.11
ConocoPhillips (COP): -$162.51
Terex Corp. (TEX): -$200.80
Gotta make this short as I have things to attend to tonight.
This morning I got new charts!
BUT...this didn't prevent me from putting on stupid trades.
I missed most of the morning moves as I was tinkering around and setting up the new eSignal account.
Once that was done, I "attempted" to trade some of the stocks in the news...which was not a good idea considering everything was sideways for the majority of the day.
I put on one losing trade after another...one thing I know for sure is that thinner stocks jiggle just as much as the thicker stocks...in fact, they probably jiggle way more and I was constantly having to punch out for losers.
As a result, I kept getting hit for $40, $60, and $80 losers on 500 shares on these thinner stocks...these stocks jiggled...only they jiggled 10, 15 or 20 cents against you.
So, I've learned my lesson today....thinner stocks will jiggle just the same as other stocks, if not worse....in essence, they were too jiggly for me today.
It's a good thing I managed to keep all of my losing trades to under $100, but there were just too many of them to recover from.
After seeing myself quickly in the hole by over $500, I had to force myself to stop and take a break and to try to get my concentration level back up.
I think after getting new charts, my mind and focus was all over the place...I started thinking about the different scripts I could run, the different scanners I could program and also all the market stats I could put up (TICK, TRIN, etc).
In short, my mind and focus wasn't completely on trading and my mind was going in 100 different directions.
Throughout the course of the afternoon, I managed to cut my losses by half.
No good trades and no bad trades (kept all my losers under $100).
Tomorrow I've got to come back more focused and I've got to trade smarter. Today I was probably more excited about getting new charts than I was about trading, so I wasn't 100% there today.
Ok - gotta run...I'll still post up my stocks to watch for tomorrow a little later tonight.
Good Trades
None.
Bad Trades
None.
Net: -$277.59
Loss From Top: $277.59
Trades: 99
Shares Traded: 69600
Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC): +$119.84
Caremark Rx Inc. (CMX): +$50.74
Cemex (CX): +$41.47
AT&T Inc. (T): +$24.38
Citigroup Inc. (C): +$9.95
Realogy Corp (H): -$3.99
Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY): -$13.36
Valero Group Holdings (VEH): -$17.38
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL): -$48.68
Morgan Stanley (MS): -$117.11
ConocoPhillips (COP): -$162.51
Terex Corp. (TEX): -$200.80
Gotta make this short as I have things to attend to tonight.
This morning I got new charts!
BUT...this didn't prevent me from putting on stupid trades.
I missed most of the morning moves as I was tinkering around and setting up the new eSignal account.
Once that was done, I "attempted" to trade some of the stocks in the news...which was not a good idea considering everything was sideways for the majority of the day.
I put on one losing trade after another...one thing I know for sure is that thinner stocks jiggle just as much as the thicker stocks...in fact, they probably jiggle way more and I was constantly having to punch out for losers.
As a result, I kept getting hit for $40, $60, and $80 losers on 500 shares on these thinner stocks...these stocks jiggled...only they jiggled 10, 15 or 20 cents against you.
So, I've learned my lesson today....thinner stocks will jiggle just the same as other stocks, if not worse....in essence, they were too jiggly for me today.
It's a good thing I managed to keep all of my losing trades to under $100, but there were just too many of them to recover from.
After seeing myself quickly in the hole by over $500, I had to force myself to stop and take a break and to try to get my concentration level back up.
I think after getting new charts, my mind and focus was all over the place...I started thinking about the different scripts I could run, the different scanners I could program and also all the market stats I could put up (TICK, TRIN, etc).
In short, my mind and focus wasn't completely on trading and my mind was going in 100 different directions.
Throughout the course of the afternoon, I managed to cut my losses by half.
No good trades and no bad trades (kept all my losers under $100).
Tomorrow I've got to come back more focused and I've got to trade smarter. Today I was probably more excited about getting new charts than I was about trading, so I wasn't 100% there today.
Ok - gotta run...I'll still post up my stocks to watch for tomorrow a little later tonight.
Good Trades
None.
Bad Trades
None.
Labels: trading
posted by J.C. at
5:36 p.m.
5 Comments:
I've written to you before wherein I described the method I used, which was a great deal like yours. But I was not having much success, so I have changed it and am doing much better. I now am trading stocks that gap down >1% and have a price of between 20 and 100 (usually 20 - 60) and trade an average of 1 mil shares per day (sometimes 500K depending on the day). I'll scalp the retracement that usually happens btw 8:40 and 8:50 for 10 - 15 cents and then short as the retracement invariably fades and the stocks continues in the direction of the gap. I'm trading 1000 shares, so I don't need that much. On my four monitors I'll have 12 small charts (9 on one and 3 on another), each 1 hour w/ 2 minute bars (since I only care about the first hour to an hour and a half). I get the stocks from the downgrades from briefing.com, a premarket and gap down scanner from trade ideas. Based on the previous day and 10 day chart I'll throw 12 in the box and go to town. Ten out of the twelve I had for 12/18 were eca, eog, fl, hes, slb, mur, tot, xom, wft, and the. You actually could have fired off shorts at the open and let them ride all day, but that's not me. I don't have the patience or the guts to do that. Now today was a little different. I had nbr, dvn, pde, tam, and cam, among others, that had gapped down. Mostly basic material stocks that had been downgraded, but were a little over extended on the downward side before the day started. These stocks retraced as expected, but never rolled back over. Unfortunately I was waiting for the roll instead of scalping the retracement and missed out today. Anyway, the point is that this new system does show great promise. And my question is, have you ever played the gaps as your primary set up? In four days I've scored > $1,200 and have only traded from 8:30 to 10:00. Granted this is only the first week of my trying the new system, but it beats what I had been doing. Thanks for listening. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Good trading.
(ps) Read your blog every night. Helps me out a great deal.
By
Anonymous, at December 19, 2006 9:51 p.m.
Rudedog,
Thanks for your comments. And thanks for the insights into your trading! The last little while I've been trying to look for gappers or stocks in the news and I've been trying to trade them...so far so good. I've been using about 500 shares on these gapping/in-the-news stocks for now, but I'm starting to get more comfortable. Most of last week I was trading gappers and you're right! I've been making most of my money on these gappers/stocks-in-the-news and losing money on everything else!
Sounds like you and I are in-synch with each other! (I too started trading this way for about a week as well - hence the "On Tap" posts).
What I'm finding now is that I'm sometimes too overwhelmed with all the various stocks that are in play and I find myself flipping from one stock to another without ever really focusing on any one in particular (this was mainly due to my charting problems I've had - sometimes the charts wouldn't show up, hence I'd have to flip to a different stock).
Thanks again for your comment! It's great to hear you are having success with it - I've had success with it last week, though I'm off to a slow start this week. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.
Good luck to you and hopefully we can hear more of your progress!
By
J.C., at December 19, 2006 10:20 p.m.
If you're gonna trade like this on occasion, at least you're losses are small. I don't know your methods, but your edge appears to be in this fact. Keep up the good work, and don't be scared to take breaks!
By
Jeff, at December 20, 2006 9:17 a.m.
Hi,
When you write "Trades: 99" on of today. is it on a daily basis,
did you do 99 trades just today?
just curious.
By
Anonymous, at December 20, 2006 5:54 p.m.
Jeff,
Thanks for your comments. Yea - I'm just glad I hate losers with a passion and I usually cannot tolerate seeing a loser in my blotter for too long. I think taking some breaks is some good advice...I think that since it's been getting colder outside, I've been more reluctant to head outdoors for a walk.
Anon@5:54PM,
Thanks for your comments. Yup - that's on a daily basis...sometimes I trade over 100 times, other times I'm more patient, but I usually average around 80 trades a day. Hope it helps!
Good luck to all and happy holidays!
By
J.C., at December 20, 2006 6:29 p.m.
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