CYOU later

Well -- mission accomplished.

This morning I noted that CYOU reported strong earnings and was gapping up.  I saw it had a small float and so I targeted it for a daytrade.

i waited for CYOU to attempt to fill the gap and then I got in as it began to bounce.  It dropped again and I was close to being stopped out but it recovered and it ran pretty fast.  I was trading small so I got out with an .80 gain.  Then it dropped and I bought it back about .40 lower than my exit.  It traded flat all day but near the end it picked up again and I sold it for a small .22 gain.  However-- it went on to close at the highs.  I was far too cautious -- but I correctly found an 'in play' stock -- made a decent entry -- and easily made some money.  Not much -- but you could make a living if you could do this every day.

So my goal is to hit another 'in play' stock again -- I will increase my size just slightly.   Overall - today bounced like I expected and the beginning of a new month is usually strong.   The only weak stock I saw today was SKX which lost the 20 day MA -- but on light vol. so I'm not too worried.

BIDU posted some strong numbers as well (note: CYOU is kind of in the same sector).  Oil stocks were raging and unfortunately, I have no exposure. 

I did have a winning month which is good.  And I think I beat most of the indexes as well.  Nonetheless, it could have been better.  I plan to be more cautious in Feb. and look for more in play daytrades to add to gains.  Swing trading does not seem to be working right now.

 Since the market is full of one day story stocks -- daytrading the strength seems to be a better way to manage risk.   We shall see.

ARAY - 5 min Candlesticks

I have seen several big one-day winners in the past week and they all seem to follow the same script.  The open is always a gap open which most traders are afraid to buy.  The gap never closes and the stock runs almost the entire day, usually providing at least 2 ideal areas to add more and raise one's stop to protect against failure.  I have annotated the last story stock.  Next week, my goal is to participate in at least one big one-day runner.  Now that I know what to look for, I have a specific plan to enter and manage risk.  

ARAY - 5 min Candlesticks: "

via StockCharts.com
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and just gets worse

Let's just say - I"m glad it's Friday.

Slumpage:

I was all over the place today.  Bought weakness in CEDC and it got weaker.  And all day - I knew exactly what was going up.

Volume makes the world go round and today the volume was in CRUS and CCME -- these trades were easy but I could not get comfortable finding an entry and just watched them climb all day. 

But I can see there's something odd going on.  The market is in love with a few stocks far too much -- like NFLX and CRUS and AMZN and that usually ends in tears.  Case in point:  AMZN just reported and just got clobbered, losing all its wonderful gains for the day in 4 seconds.

Meanwhile, the gold, silver, oil names are weak and getting weaker.  The market perhaps is thinking about rate hikes in the future (as well it should).  Record food prices is not good for any economy.

Well... it's been a weird month.  I did great the first 2 weeks and then it went quickly downhill.  A lot of second-guessing myself. 


One thing I did right - sort of - is take a lot of these losses quickly.  I gave back a small piece of the gains so it's good to remember what is correct thinking and maintain that.  What I need to do more of is: Buy Strength.  That's what worked the first two weeks. 

 At the moment my best holding is PLNR and I like what SKX is doing. I added some GCI which was acting strong but I managed to pay the high of the day (one penny less) and then it dropped back. So let me be an example of what not to do as you progress to master trader status. 

The other thing I did is sell my YHOO position as it ran very fast and I made the huge mistake of buying too much.  I got out at a very small loss and now I will rebuy it but maintain a proper stop. 

So overall - it's been another week of pain.  Hope your day was better.

SKX - Daily Candlesticks

I like this company's fundamentals and the chart is now creating a bowl-pattern with the 20 day MA - I often find this pattern forms before a big move.  Either that or the bowl breaks down and it's a good time to exit.  I'll try to post more charts here.  If all goes well, SKX target is low 30s.
SKX - Daily Candlesticks: "

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Disappointing Day Of Disappointments

There's something particularly humiliating when you lose money on a day everything is going up like gangbusters.  It was a full on Costanza day with YHOO, SKX, SVNT, AGYS all moving south as the Fed took the OIH index (index!) up 5% 

Does the market care that Yahoo has Internet holdings worth the entire market cap?  Of course not.  The purpose of the market is to remind me every day I have no idea what I'm doing.  And it does a great job of this. 


Remember my last post - i was so smart to get out of HTCH, right?  Oh, except right after gapping down on the crappy earnings report, it moved up over 10% intraday -- my $180 loss could have been a $600 gain.  It only wanted to be weak long enough to suggest it might go down -- and then it went up. 

 I did notice on Twitter that quite a few people I follow got faked out.  So perhaps I'm not alone.  I knew the market was going to be tricky here.  I just didn't think it would go ahead and rally big -- but STILL show me losses.  But of course, I will live to fight another day. 

Today pretty much erased a lot of negative technical signals.  Bernanke has promised to keep the party going and the dollar is sinking to oblivion -- and this naturally is always good for stocks, particularly metals and energy.  However, it's no time to be complacent.  AMZN finished red.  SBUX is down after-hours.  NFLX on the other hand - is ripping the faces off shorts.  So you got to be nimble and perhaps a little lucky.  I was neither today.  I was George Costanza today.  YOU HEAR ME, JERRY???

Losing can be winning

Today I lost about $185 on a daytrade and it was easily one of my best trades of the day.   Someone I follow likes HTCH which I did some research and I liked it as well.  I traded it a few months ago and made some money. 

I bought a little HTCH on Monday and then today, I added a little more... it was holding the 50 day moving avg. and I knew they were reporting after the close today.  However, about half an hour later, I got a bad feeling.  The stock was now trading below the 50 day MA and I realized, looking at the chart, the stock was being dumped right into the earnings report.  The more I looked, I quickly realized that someone must know the results of the upcoming earnings report and they were terrible. 

I didn't hesistate.  I quickly sold my shares and took a loss.  About 5 minutes later HTCH was trading even lower.  The stock was weak all day and finally, after hours, the results were released.  A total miss.  HTCH gapped down almost 10% from my sell price - saving me at least $600 in losses.  This was a good read.  I was looking at the HTCH  yahoo! board where one poster said he added more because it was now a lot cheaper.  I used to do that too.  Adding to losers is a natural instinct but it rarely pays.  The earnings report stunk.  So why should the stock move up any time soon.  

Being impatient with losers requires practice.  And a willingness to admit you were wrong.  It's okay to be wrong.  As long as you don't end up really wrong, you can survive to fight the next day.