Almost Bored To Death....Almost....

Gross: +$488.44
Net: +$403.59
Loss From Top: $81.37
Trades: 54
Shares Traded: 58288

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD): +$526.81
ConocoPhillips (COP): +$72.23
United Technologies Corporation (UTX): +$61.38
Alcan Inc. (AL): -$2.56
SAP AG (SAP): -$6.85
Corning Incorporated (GLW): -$32.35
Genentech Inc. (DNA): -$100.56
Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ): -$114.49

Well what a day it was today.

I decided to stick around and try to trade the whole day since I went out for a long lunch and I was going to meet up with my wife today after work (if you consider trading as work).

In the morning I was anticipating the trading that was going to occur on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

The first trade of the day was on AMD and it was merely to test the waters...unfortunately I took it for a loss, but I kept my position relatively small and I got a feel for how AMD was going to move in the morning (an overall trend, but a lot of up and down motion to put up with).

I then caught a nice move to the downside on AMD (see good trades below)...I really tried to set aside my fear and when prices occasionally retraced, I had the courage to hold on. I could have used a little more patience on this trade, but there was a wicked chop up that scared the crap out of me and had me dump half my position.

But as it tried to make it's way down, I felt as though AMD were really fighting the move down and I got worried again, so I dumped the other half. Though I caught a good portion of the move down, I could have taken more.

I'll keep working on this, but my trade on AMD really had me fighting that feeling to get out (since prices were just sooo up and down....it would go down a few cents, bounce back up 5 cents, then continue back down, but then jump back up 5 cents again).

I shorted AMD again when it broke the $18.00 level, but I hardly held onto it long enough.

But once the big move down on AMD was over, there really wasn't any real good trading on any of the stocks I was watching (well, for me at least).

For the rest of the morning, about half my gains were erased as I had real difficulty finding good opportunities. At 11:30AM, I met up with my wife for lunch and didn't come back into the office until about 1:30PM.

But the rest of the afternoon was a complete snooze-fest. I ended up sitting and watching the markets for the majority of the afternoon and I was able to make a little bit of what I lost back, but I focused on not forcing anything.

The afternoon just felt like an eternity and seemed to drag it's feet ever so slowly...and I caught myself a couple of times wanting to trade just out of boredom. Shortly after 2PM, most of the traders at the office called it a day (I guess they were bored to death as well). I'm just glad I didn't do anything stupid late in the afternoon.

Anyways, a long weekend is upon us...I just wish I had another whole week to trade as I will be away on vacation from Jan 22 - Jan 26 (this time, we're heading to the Bahamas).

Have a great weekend folks...I'll post up my Weekend Reading either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Good Trades
9:45:57AM - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was downtrending while the Futures were moving up. I saw some size on the bid break at $18.30, so I went short 2000 shares. Rode it down (though I had several strong desires to get out several times) and when AMD encountered it's first major bounce, I got half out. AMD continued going down, but I felt as though it were struggling to go lower and got the other half out (but as you can see, my feelings were wrong). I got out as follows: 15-cent winner (1000 shares), 26-cent winner (1000 shares) ($410 profit before fees ; Short 2000 shares @ $18.30 ; Out: 9:55:37AM)


Bad Trades
None.