I finally broke the Friday curse by having a positive day on Friday. Overall I would say Friday was a good process day.
LULU: I had this on watch for a 2nd day play. I still thought that the move was way overdone and that it could continue to get sold off. I saw that it was holding over/under $68.80- $69 so if it got below it I wanted to short. I saw at the open it went lower and so I looked for a pop to enter. I thought I would just choose vwap as a good spot if it got there. Obviously I wasn't using vwap as a basis as to whether to get in or not but as far as an entry goes, I thought it was decent. So I got in but then I remembered how I used to play these vwap touches for 2nd day plays and they would never work because it turned out to be a weak open r/g. But I was confident in my thesis and there was also a lot of resistance now from the $69ish level from before so that was working in my favor. Overall I gave it a shot because of the above but stayed alert in case. It ticked down a little but then it was around .58 level that the shares just started getting absorbed on the bid. It wouldn't get below it so with that and the possibility that this could just be a weak open I decided to can the trade with a breakeven stop that got hit and got me out for flat. This was a good call as it went up a point afterwards. I figured that if it did end up fading I could get in on pops along the way. No real lesson here other than to realize that getting out for breakeven worked this time but at times that might not have been the right move. Also realize that the real level was $69 but either way at the time it felt that it was definitely going higher so it was a good process call to make. If I still felt it was a short at the very least I could have gotten a better price with the way things seemed.
BIIB: The gap up on Phase I news seemed like a bit much although it was only up 5% but I thought that it could fade off still especially with the news being released yesterday and there was already a reaction. I saw it was under vwap in the morning and that vwap also coincided with some resistance from premarket so I thought around there would be a good entry. My risk was to above $304 essentially. I had more size than I usually would so if the exact resistance didn't hold and it went above vwap then I would size down which is what I did. I then let the rest go to above $304 which also stopped me out. At the time though I thought I had made a mistake because it went exactly to my stop out price and got me out on a spray above. I thought I gave it enough room but I guess not. So I thought I made a mistake but it did eventually move higher. However, with my reduced size at that point I perhaps should have given it more wiggle room in case. Even though that would have ended up with me taking a slightly bigger loss, process wise it's better. It did flush a bit back down which got me thinking I should try it again but I decided to wait and see if it was just a dip or not. If it wasn't I can short it on pops later or some other setup. It did make a new fake high and that was the top. Eventually it came back down under vwap and looking back at the pattern it looked nice because it was now peaking the prior support and it made a fake high so I should have tried it on a pop to 304.50s but decided against it. Later on it was consolidating under the $301 major level from before and it looked like UHS from yesterday before it took a big dive so I shorted again with a risk above the $301. It ended up making new lows at that time but it was holding up so I moved my stop down and that got hit. It eventually went back to my price and then higher so I thought the play was over because if it wanted to go lower then it would have done it then. Normally that probably is the case but not this time... I saw it go lower a little bit back to where I covered it but I didn't think anything of it. I thought it would just bounce around but instead it just had a fullon breakdown way past any level I thought it could go to. I was really surprised because I remember BLUE had gapped up even more and didn't even go red but I think this was a special case of the data being leaked and then it just returning back to where it came from. My thought process as it was flushing was that it would go to $294ish which is where I had my original target in mind based on the chart and the levels from yesterday. It went lower and I saw it got bought back up on good volume so I thought that was it but I saw the $290 level was there. I thought about shorting a breakdown of that level but it was right near where the r/g would be so I thought it would find some support there but nope. This was really a special case as I mentioned before where the data was leaked before and then it gapped up anyway. I'll keep that in mind going forward if the same situation occurs. Other than that, I'm not a big fan of the way I have been using stops whereas I like to give things over/under room in case. It's hit or miss - sometimes it saves you and sometimes it doesn't. And also be on the lookout for patterns like when it repeaked the prior resistance again after making a fake high. You noticed it but didn't take it which was a mistake. And I guess if a stock has that inverted H&S look and breaks below the two lows anyway then short it - although again this could be a special scenario.
FNSR: I wasn't sure what to do with this and wanted to see how it would react out of the gate. I was more bullish though with the decent guidance earnings and it was making new 52s. If it stayed above $36.50 that would be a bullish sign for me to get in. But of course it didn't do that and instead tanked. There was a breakdown/vwap pop trade there on the short side but as I mentioned I wasn't necessarily looking to short it. At this point it was just dropping pretty quickly so I thought it was just going to be one of those that the gap gets sold into. I looked for a bounce entry because I still thought the guidance was ok and I saw a nice bid soaking at 33.85 so I went long at .90 with my first target being vwap and then I would keep the rest in case it wanted to make a bigger bounce. But as with ULTA, its bounce was muted. I was up 40 cents or so but I figured I could get a bit more out of it at least but I just stopped out for flat because I saw it was going back down and I was looking for more immediate followthrough. It made a new low but not by much and it was getting bought up in the .60s range so I went long again at .75 for a bounce to vwap but I put my stop at breakeven and got hit. The trade, although it took a while would have worked. That's the bad part of always going scratch I guess. My risk was definitely if it made new lows but I guess in this case I was being too protective. It's 50/50 I suppose. It saved me on LULU but hurt me here. This type of trade was a bit more reliable than LULU.
ATH: IPO stock that I traded twice. First time I saw bid absorbs going into a whole # so I tried that but that didn't work. It was iffy on the level 2 with a lot of bids and offers absorbing but no real moves because of it. Later on in the day though I saw it was trending higher and looked good for a breakout so I went long the breakout and I didn't give it much room because I figured this is either going to work right away or it's not as it's an IPO breakout play. I never got stopped out but I did put my offer at 45.45 in case it sprayed up 50 cents or so. It went above $45 and just sprayed close to $1 and then came right back down and faded off so I got a nice fill on it. Nothing really to learn here except to have your orders in place just in case.
Things to remember:
1. Keep the BIIB special scenario in mind for the future in the rare chance that happens again.
2. Always be on the lookout for patterns to take advantage of and take them.
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