Today ended up being a decent day. I got a little screwed on BLUE which had me in the red in the morning but I made it all back and more with one nice trade. It goes to show you have to be always looking throughout the day at the stocks you have on watch. The continued focus going forward has to be on disconnecting from the money as much as possible.
LULU: Going into the open, I was mostly short biased because the move seemed way overdone given the Q4 guidance was weak which is particularly bad for a retailer like lulu. However, it did keep climbing in premarket so I kept that in mind. At the open it spiked up a quick $2. I really thought about shorting it then because that seemed to be the initial spike at the open and then it would fade the rest of the day. But I didn't do it in the 72s unfortunately. I had fear set in of what if it goes higher but as we know that is counterproductive and of course we must play the probabilities. So that was the first mistake. Now had it gone higher, would I have said the same thing or just said good thing I didn't short it? Given the pattern lately of these having one spike at the open and then coming off, it was worth the shot and clearly the same thing happened here. Anyway, I saw a base form and thought this was a good opportunity for a short so I shorted when it broke below it but then stopped out with my stop when it went back above the base break area. This is a similar mistake to FIVE where the stop should have been vwap over/under. It did have a lot of range but I had really small size so it shouldn't have mattered although to be fair for this sort of a trade and pattern it really shouldn't retest and it should just fade from there but of course anything can happen. I saw that vwap was still holding as a pretty strong resistance so I put an offer that got filled at vwap. It went a bit above and through the whole number but I gave it some room to work. It came off again but it looked like it was reclaiming with higher lows so at this point I wasn't really sure and just put a breakeven stop that got hit and got me out. While it was good that I got out because I wasn't sure, looking back at the chart, while it did seem bullish, it was one of those fake bullish type of patterns where it gets you to think it's about to breakout but then it just fades right when you think it will breakout. So I guess this goes back to something I kept saying before which is thesis > minute price action. So overall lessons: play the probabilities and have no fear, thesis > minute price action and be on the lookout for "fake bullish" patterns.
UHS: My main winner for the day. In the morning I was looking at it and how it looked weak with the big volume stuff candle and it holding under vwap. I thought about shorting it at vwap but wasn't sure about it. I guess that was a mistake but I guess I was looking for more evidence because I wasn't sure yet if it was going down or going to bounce but my inclination was lower. The stuff move and it holding under vwap should have been enough for me to give it a shot. I did eventually give it a shot on a nice pop and got a good entry. It ended up fading a bit from there but I was looking for a bigger move so didn't cover but was looking to add. When it retested $114 I thought about adding in but decided to let it test around and it ended up coming back all the way so I got out for flat. I could have given it to vwap over/under I guess but I rather just get out of the position and start fresh again if the opportunity arises. It started to peak $115 and the offers were absorbing a lot at that level so I thought about getting back in but it looked more bullish at that point because it looked like it reclaimed the prior support and I thought it would eat through it. I decided not to short which was a decent choice given it did spray through it where I would have been stopped out most likely but from there it did reject and come right back down and then fade from there and retest the low. When I saw it get right back under $115 I thought about shorting it then but didn't want to bother with it at that point. Eventually later in the day I saw it at the top end of its range with a nice volume candle. I decided to give it a shot with a tight stop and some bigger size for move back down to $114 from $115.60. It ended up working great and was a big gain for me. It did go a lot further though but I didn't cover because of a fear of missing out on profits or anything like that. It was just the plan to cover it there because I thought it would chop around at that point. I did think about reshorting when it was back under $113s and holding but thought it would just trickle back up instead of retesting the lows from yesterday. Lesson: Give things a shot when you think you have a better than average shot of a trade working, the trades that do work when you add into them will more than pay for the rest. Things may go further in your direction after you sell/cover but as long as you stuck to your plan and it wasn't out of a fear of giving back profits then you did the right thing.
BLUE: This stock finally fucked me for a bit although how I traded it wasn't bad. I was just caught in a big spike up. What happened was I shorted small size at vwap because I thought any pops towards vwap would be sold into but looking back perhaps it didn't bounce enough for that to work. It only bounced $1 vs $2 or so like yesterday. But that's hindsight speaking. We'll chalk this up to the probabilities speaking and this one instance it didn't work. Anyway, I gave it some room and saw it was peaking at around .65 ish level so I added in there and then gave it a full stop above the high. My plan was to cover half at my original entry and then let the rest ride with a breakeven stop on the added shares. Well unfortunately it spiked a dollar against me all of a sudden. I didn't panic and I put a bid where my stop was that didn't trigger and then I put a stop if it got back above $71. It hit my stop at $71.05 and then just went back down to where I could have gotten out. So I am glad I didn't panic completely and just hit out and let it test but I wanted to protect myself against further losses by putting that stop higher in case it did start to go higher. Just bad luck pretty much otherwise I traded it well. The only thing was maybe the vwap wouldn't have worked in this scenario since it needed to bounce more.
WDC: The first trade on this was when I saw a bullish pattern near the lows of the day so I just bought right away on instinct with a stop near the lows. This was good. I had an offer for half at what I thought was a good spot. It got there but stopped 2 cents before reversing and getting me out flat on the trade. Frustrating I didn't get at least a piece of it locked in but it's ok. Just poor luck. I wasn't aggressive with the offer either, it just didn't get there. I tried it again later when I saw it having a nice higher low and consolidating a little bit. It might have been a stupid trade and I was just looking for a scalp but I just kept moving my stop up until I got out for a tiny profit. It would have hit my breakeven stop anyway as it was just a scalp trade and once I was in the money a bit I didn't want to give it back. It did end up going much higher but I would have been out anyway. I figured I could just get a quick scalp out of it since it looked good for at least a move back to vwap. Nothing to really learn from this I guess.
TLRD: I wasn't sure whether to be long or short biased on this although I was more long biased based on the gap up above resistance and the decent earnings. It didn't provide much of a clear opportunity in the morning. It didn't dip to any good levels and didn't offer any good breakout levels either. It had dips along the way but I missed those as my attention was elsewhere. I did see a potential for a breakout above $27 and it was flagging a bit so I thought it was a good candidate for a breakout. I got in above $27 and it was consolidating a bit higher. I added in more shares when it broke above that range and put a stop a little below breakeven and below the last breakout point. I saw the way this chart looked and if it started to pullback and not go straight up then it would most likely fail over all. That ended up happening although it did hit my stop to the penny then bounce a bit after so I thought I made a mistake but it ended up fading back down anyway. No real lesson here I think other than it was good to try and add to it.
Other stocks:
Casinos: I didn't understand the news so didn't really touch them although I thought about it. These were more choppy trading than UHS for example yesterday where I understood what was going on for the most part. I guess the moral of the story here is to trade what you know.
Things to remember:
1. Play the probability and have no undeserved fear of a future what if scenario. Give things a shot when you think you have a better than average shot of
a trade working, the trades that do work when you add into them will
more than pay for the rest.
2. Thesis > minute price action
3. Look for "fake bullish" patterns
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