Trading Recap 7/13/15

Well I had a decent loss today so there goes any potential for a two day streak. I may have been screwed a little shorting something that got a price target increase right afterwards but I'll never know if the trade would have worked had that not happened. Either way though, it's my fault for being red on the day as there was plenty of other opportunity that I saw but never took.

White arrow is entry followed by exit.

ANAC: I had this on watch due to the premarket action and I was short biased since I have seen a lot of these types of gap ups fade for the rest of the day. At around 10:30 I saw it peaking the prior support and it looked like a nice short pattern (HOD consolidation/descending triangle) so I entered short with risk on $123 over/under. It looked good so I added in after it made lower lows with risk on $121 over/under which might have been too tight but it looked good for a fade. Unfortunately, it came back and I stopped out for a decent loss and right after a price target increase was announced so that was bad timing.

Here are some of the other plays I wanted to take. Yet again, all of them would have worked and the one I actually take fails.

CUDA: I had this on watch for a short after seeing what MU did and remembering that it continued to fall the day after the initial gap down. I wanted to see Friday's LODs peak first before entering but then realized too late that that wouldn't be the best entry. I did lower highs before it went red on the day and could have entered there, however with the price action that followed I am not sure if I would have held for the rest of the day to see it go lower. In fact, I probably would have stopped out at the top of the bounce with a break even stop.

OHRP: I actually thought about shorting it around the 10:00AM highs around $3.70s although nothing really seemed to show that it was a top there. I just know that professional traders like Nate usually like to scalp around .70 on these parabolics. After that I was looking to short after 3.30s peaked to indicate it was the backside of the move. It was sort of sketchy and hard to discern in real-time whether or not it would fade or continue higher but it did go lower, but not for much. It held a bit and started higher lows and while it still the backside, I was thinking of going long for a reclaim and squeeze. It broke out and there was a perfect retest and perk off the support that I did not see and it was off to nHODs from there. A total miss both short and long but mostly long.

XOMA: I had this on long watch but it had some nice short patterns which I did not end up taking because I did not think that it would have been a good short. Unfortunately, it ended up flushing almost a dollar from where I would have entered. Very nice HOD consolidation pattern like Friday's action at 4.70s.

Things to work on:

1. Stay focused if there are other opportunities going on and don't just check out. This is supposed to be your job.
2. Be smart when adding and although tempting, don't add more than what would violate your rule about not taking a trade if the stop would be too wide.