One out, two in

Had a really good day in the market today. Again, my IRA rode CHB up 5%. Bredth was excellent with only a few losers.

I don't have my charts working at the moment. I'll try to post all of my charts in the next few days. Tomorrow night would be a good night except for the fact that I'll be escorting the kids around the neighborhood begging for candy. Oh, those were the days. I mean, how cool is Haloween for a kid? Nowadays I gain ten lbs thinking about all that sugar!

One loser got punted - BC. It gapped down and out for a loss. I picked up both UTX and URI in the am. Both have very tight initial stops.

As of Friday after the close, my stop loss average is now a profit of over 1%. Things have really been hopping of late. I'm riding this market until it croaks. Then I'll get off the horse.

I found a site that allows a practice forex trading account - oanda.com. Go there and open a game account, or whatever they call it, and it tracks your activity with a pretty good p&l. Not bad.

Decision made on the trading account

I have decided to move my trading account, and I think I've found a home. I've been reading up quite a lot on markets other than the US equities markets, and I want to take my game to those other markets. The one I'm most interested in is the forex. I think that currency trading stuff looks like a winner for several reasons.

First, it is a huge, very liquid market. No problems getting into or out of positions. Not that I'll be trading enough contracts of anything tradeable to cause myself problems, but still, it is nice to have lots of liquidity for pricing reasons.

Second, it is basically a 'round the clock market. I can set my longer term trending positions, but still trade shorter when I have time. My real work no longer has to be the obstacle to real fun.

Third is leverage. The broker I'm looking hard at provides 50:1 leverage in the currencies markets. I think that may even be pretty low, but it is good enough for me right now. That's a real turbo charger.

Finally, in looking at the charts of the major pairs, I think I'll be able to work up a trading methodology that should work well fairly soon. I think playing breakouts and waiting for trends to develop off the breaks will be a good way to go. These things seem to like to get a little run out of their moves before giving it up. With the leverage involved, smaller moves can be big winners.

Anyway, the broker I'm probably going to use is Interactive Brokers. In my research, all the big guns had good points and bad, but IB seems to fit the bill the best for me personally.

What I'm going to do is let my trading account liquidate itself naturally and send the funds in to my new account as they become available. Well, I have to wait until I raise $5K before I send in the first traunch since that's the minimum opening deposit, but after that I'll trickle the rest in.

IB also allows trading in just about any other market I'm even a little bit interested in, from futures to commodities. I think eventually I'd like to build up to where I'm trading trending positions across several different market. The diversification is far better than diversifying across industries in the equities market.

I'll still be trading equities in my IRA, so they won't disappear from my blog by a long shot.

What goes up....

....must come down. I'm getting smacked around a bit this morning.

Lost two - ORB and HIG








I guess nobody liked the HIG earnings.

Once again, huge difference in fills. Had ORB in both Schwab and Scottrade accounts with 18.40 stops. Schwab filled at 18.40. Scottrade filled at 18.30.

A couple charts revisited

I had no activity today, other than generally kicking butt. My positions in my IRA were up 2.3% and 1.84% in my trading account. Most responsible were LSI, fresh off a great earnings announcement, CHB and CHS.

I sold a position yesterday that I wasn't thrilled with losing - CVD. In looking back, I should have been thrilled to sell before something very bad happened, even before it did. I said the stock could go either way. I was wrong. Of course, it could have, but it had formed a very obvious descending triangle pattern. For some reason I haven't given them the respect I give the ascending variety. I've never been very good at short trades, at least in comparison to longs. It just seems the formations haven't held up very well for me. Well, this one did, and I'm lucky to have gotten stopped out yesterday:






I buy ascending triangles anticipating breakouts. This one would have been a good short yesterday.

Another sale just a couple days ago - CR:






This is the one I missed setting the stop on, and paid a big price yesterday. I sold about 2/3 of the way down the big black stick. Had I held, waiting for the stock to help me out and recover some of my accidental loss, I still would be below my selling price.

Tomorrow I have HIG, which reported after the close today. I thought the report looked good, but I think I've been clear on my report reading abilities. The stock was down a bit AH. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Good Luck!

The earnings reports keep rolling in

LSI reported after the close today and had a terrific quarter. The stock was up almost 8% in AH trading. I'm hoping for another runner tomorrow. AMZN played very nicely today, finishing up about 12%. It was a very nice day all around, except for my early morning non-stop.

I lost one position later in the day - CVD:






Technically speaking, I'm not too thrilled losing this one right now. The trend is clearly broken, but the stock is still fine from a technical perspective. We have a pattern that could easily break to the upside. However, it could also fall completely apart. They reported earnings after the bell that sounded pretty good to me, but as I've discussed, I don't put much faith in what I think about the reports. And I didn't read up on it too much. I do know the stock did not move AH. That might be bad, but who knows?

The difference between a real broker and a joke site? I had CVD in two different accounts with the same stop price of 65.00 on each. Schwab filled my order at 64.99. Pretty good. Scottrade filled my order at 64.86. What?! I'm searching for a new broker. I think I'll move to a direct access broker with futures trading availability. When I grow my account up some, I'm going to school on that stuff. In all the reading I've done over time, I think I've figured out that I'll enjoy it. Something that will let me place a freaking stop 15 cents below the current freaking bid would be a plus. Oh wait. That's EVERYBODY ELSE. $7/trade is good for this sort of broker, and if I didn't trade so much it would be fine, but there are better options out there.

I bought a stock I've had my eye on for a long time - ENER:






The stop is a little large at 6%, but the trend is strong, it is moving back away from the line, and the trend is 8%+/month. Hopefully I didn't kill it.

What the hell is up with this chart? All but a few month lines are missing. It bugs the crap out of me. I've seen a few charts recently on quotetracker missing every other month, which I hate, but this one is ridiculous. Are they getting mad at me for not paying up yet and not clicking 700 times on the TDAmeritrade adds? I'm either going to pay up at some point or move my trading account over to TDAmeritrade and qualify for a free ride anyway. Give me my month lines back!!!

Four days until November. I'll have a gigantic month if things don't fall apart on me now.

Well, I screwed that one up!

I had a nice tight stop set on CR:






The stop was under 2%. Well, I recorded the stop price, but I somehow failed to actually send the stop order! I woke up about half an hour after the open to find I still owned this pig more than half way down the big black stick. The lesson: SET THE DAMN STOPS! The other important lesson is to sell. Don't wait for the market to correct the mistake. There may not be that magic bounce to bail me out. I sold for more than an 8% loss (sigh) and the thing just kept right on plunging. As I type, my loss would be approaching 10% had I held, hoping for some help.

As for earnings, obviously the CR numbers didn't blow anybody away. Well, except for me a little I guess. That one is down big. AMZN is up nicely as expected and CHB is up nicely, waiting for their conference call.

CR is KILLING me this morning. Oh well, it could have been a gapper with the same result. Lesson learned. Or mistake not to be repeated at least!

I almost forgot - GGC stopped out

Can't keep a solid all-in portfolio of stocks for 24 hours:






My stop price was the day's low. pfffff.

AMZN - to the m00n!!

AMZN up huge after hours. They "blew out" their quarter:






The spikey shadow is the after hours run. It is up over 38 AH. Will it open there and stay there tomorrow? Who knows, but it worked out for AAPL and XLNX recently:








I'd say I'm having a pretty darn good earnings season so far. I have a couple others with earnings released today - CR and CHB, but there wasn't much AH movement. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I don't pay much attention to what's in the reports since the information doesn't do me any good anyway.

I've noticed in years of watching charts that strong charts trending up tend to bring good reports and weak charts trending down tend to bring bad reports. Trends are trends for a reason. I hop on and let the price be my guide.

Hey, breakout players. Here's one for you - DOW:






Oh, how I do love these formations.

I think this weekend I'll post a chart of all my positions. At some point I'll have to figure out how to get a link up to yahoo quotes.

A couple low risk entries this morning

Picked up BC and CR:








Both have stops around 2%. The BC trend is very quick over 7% and the CR is very nice over 4%.

I am now "all in". Unless I get stopped out someplace, I have nothing to do but watdch and wait.

New position this morning - INFY

Picked up INFY just a bit ago:






I've been watching this one for a while. The last move up to the top of the channel was supported very nicely by volume. The stocastic stayed nice and high. It looks to me like there is more in this trend.

Almost hit a milestone this week

I have almost reached "Stop Break Even" in my IRA portfolio. If all stocks were to stop out at my stop prices, I would now lose .08%. I thought I might get to a profitable situation after moving my stops this week, but not quite. Of course slippage makes the picture a bit worse. Assuming I don't have to add too many new positions next week, I should be in a profitable stop situation next weekend.

Net stop loss in my trading account is -1.92%, so pretty good there, too.

I added one new position to my IRA yesterday, GGC:








These are 1-year and 6-month charts. There is still some pressure from the long term downtrend line, but there is still room to run before we reach the line and my stop is less than 3%. Plus, the stock appears to have put in a bottoming "W" pattern in June following a huge volume three-day blowoff drop in price. We may be able to push past the downtrend line if we get that far.

AAPL came through today. XLNX tomorrow?

AAPL swam today. It didn't move much off of where it ended after hours yesterday:






I'm pretty sure yesterday's long uper shadow was the after hours action.

Hopefully, XLNX will follow suit tomorrow. They released a good earnings report after the close today and increased over 8% after hours.

I lost two positions from my IRA today. SMH and FII:








I really thought I had something going with SMH. Failed breakout and failed trend. bummer.

I sold a position in my trading account - CHS:






I still hold it in my IRA as it didn't technically stop out. It sure looks like it shoule have to me, but the stop was set last Friday. Selling it in my IRA made way for a short - CRDN:






Nice stop here and it is moving down nicely after making a lower high. It is a nice quick trend.

Good luck tomorrow!

AMZN follow-up

A little follow-up on my AMZN purchase from this morning. I don't have much time to write in the morning before leaving for work.

This is a more risky entry than typical for a couple reasons, but has a couple other good reasons to jump on now that I gave more weight. Here's the day-end chart:






First the bad. There was a huge gap back in late July that just filled last week. The stock retreated after filling the gap. Filling a gap and then retreating further is not uncommon, and would not be a huge surprise.

Also, the long-term downtrend the stock has been in since December of last year has not yet been broken. Notice how the gap was filled towards the top of the downtrend channel. That's a double whammy keeping the stock from going higher.

And now the good. The gap was formed by a huge volume blowoff type day. The sellers entered the market in huge numbers and puked up their shares, tired to death of watching the thing tank. I didn't look, but it is very possible a news event pushed them over the edge. Either way, this is very often a bottoming event. Lots of new blood own the stock.

Second, we have a pretty well organized young uptrend following the blowoff bottom. The trend line has been tested four different times including yesterday, with no breach. It is a young trend, but it has every chance to carry the stock through the old downtrend line. If it does, there is no telling how far it could go. This is an 8%/month trend, so it doesn't have to go too far for it to be a very successful trade.

That brings me to my third reason to buy today. The risk/reward ratio is excellent. I was able to get an initial stop loss at under 4% - less than half the monthly growth. Not bad.

Anything could happen, but I like this setup.

AAPL should be fun tomorrow

I don't know if AAPL will sink or swim tomorrow, but it was up 6% at one point in after hours trading after releasing a blow-out quarter. It settled in +4.5% or so.

I lost HPOL today:






It just couldn't hang out and wait for the trend line to catch up. Very small gain here.

Some stats from trading so far. These go back to June 1st.

Winners have exited the portfolio on average after 33 days. Losers 13 days. This is the type of data I was expecting (duh), but I didn't and still don't know exactly what the spread will be after hundreds of exits. Total exits so far are: winners 20, losers 38. Again, these stats include trades from before I had much in the way of trading rules in place.

Average realized gain is a 1.85% loss. However, I have a net gain since inception including unrealized numbers. My average "stop gain" is a loss of 1.5%. This should change by a lot when I move stops Friday after the close. Many positions are currently just approaching a stop gain. It takes at least two to three weeks for the trend lines to catch up to the entry prices generally. I should have lots of small losses, quite a few small gains and a handfull of gigantic winners if all goes according to plan. So far it looks promising.

These are all IRA numbers. I'll separate my trading account results from my IRA results going forward. They really should be quite different since I can short in my trading account and I'm using margin.

Party Like It's Nineteen Ninety Nine

I now own AMZN:






400 anyone?

The market opened hot again this morning. After all, it was down yesterday.

What goes up...

...must come down. And I got hammered pretty hard today. Luckily, I am a trend follower, so it doesn't matter.

I had only one stopped out today. PIR:






My shopping was successful. I found AAPL.






I was looking at the internet a bit ago and found that after the close a story came out about a virus on some of their video ipods. Also they release earnings tomorrow. I could do very well right off the bat, or get punted. We'll see. I do know I'm the only living human without an ipod.

Another in the (paper) win column

HPOL broke out of consolidation today:






This allows me to move the stop up just above my purchase price. Now I wait for the trend line to catch up.

Check out the day BABY had:






I like to see the faster movers creating some space. They announced an acquisition the market liked. BABY helped my portfolio gain a bit over 1% today.

No activity on the buy or sell side today. The portfolio was stable for a day! I should get some cash cleared in my IRA tomorrow - enough for one position. So, I'll be going shopping tomorrow. Everything on my watch list has been flying lately, so I don't know whether I'll find anything with a decent price tag or not.

I'm toying with the idea of moving from drawn trend lines to EMA lines to follow my trends in the future. I'd use crossovers in the lines to determine buy and sell signals. To do this, I'd probably just pick out a bunch of the most liquid stocks that tend to trend and trade them full time. I'd always be either long or short each of them.

The problems with EMAs are not small. First, I need to determine the number of days to use for each line for optimal signaling. For this, I need to backtest several combinations. The problem is, I can't seem to find a backtesting software that doesn't either break the budget or come with strings attached. Frustrating to have the entire internet at my disposal and be unable to find a tool like this that I'd actually feel good about paying for. I'm not interested in a subscription, but I'd pay for a good piece of downloadable software. Hmmm.

Second, stocks don't always trend up or down. They spend a lot of time moving generally sideways. This would cause a lot of wipsaw buys and sells. That's why I'd need to trade quite a few positions.

I don't have this all figured out yet. Just thinking out loud. I may just stick with what I'm doing.

A few charts for the weekend

The new wearer of the yellow jacket this weekend is ORCL:






ORCL is sitting on a 24.6% gain.

A funny thing happened when I redrew the trend lines to conform with my trend rules - specifically not using the low from the previous downtrend as the left anchor. The current price is almost contained by the channel.

After I connect lows to form the trend line, I draw a parallel line at the high. The result is a trend channel. The significance of the upper line is really just to see when the stock is busting out of its trend.

Last week's yellow jacket belonged to this week's second place stock. CXW is +23.7%:






Show this week is SEIC +16.8%:






This one has really been on a tear lately. It's gone through a series of breaks from support levels. The result has been a very steep 5-week trend up and out of the channel. If it sticks up there I'll have to bump up my stop and see how things develop. I figure either they form new trends up there, or become cash. Rather than just selling, I plan to set stops below reasonable support levels and see what happens.

Look at the structure on the PCAR channel:






It doesn't have the fastest trend in the world, but it is very reliable. I've decided to stick to trends at least 2%/month, so this one qualifies. Anything 2% or less will be looking for an exit and won't be bought in the future.

I still have a few positions in the portfolio from prior to my rules being clarified. One of which is UDR:






No complaints about this one, but the trend was too slow. I'd rather tie my capital up in a faster mover - above 2%/month. This one is now being played more like a swing trade, but without a sell target. I'll continue moving stops up to appropriate levels until it gets taken out.

HPOL is another legacy stock:






While it is trending just fine, I bought it on a breakout well above the trend line. It would take forever for the trend line to reach the purchase price, so I'm using stops below support until the trend line catches up to the purchase price. Then I'll let it trend normally.

Follow-up on my SMH breakout prediction:






Was it always going to happen this way, or would this market make any long-happy prediction come true? We'll never know. Either way, the break from the ascending triangle came with volume. Excellent sign of more good to come.

Nice retest of the trend line this week for SO:






That's all for now. I have a bunch of positions with very good gains at the moment, but with the market being as hot as it has been over the past two months, I should. As fast as my balance has grown over the past couple weeks, I'm just barely outperforming the market.

Friday The Thirteenth, morning update

Two expected stopouts this morning - SONS and DRIV:








Picked up some OXPS:






The market is mixed one hour in. So far I've got pretty decent gains in both accounts. That won't last if the bears win going into the weekend.

The sizzle continues

This market just cannot take more than a one-day break. Up nicely again today.

I got stopped out in one position - HSP:






eh. wuddya gunna do?

I picked up one that I forgot I had just a bit ago. I use askresearch.com to look at charts generally, not my quotetracker software. It's just quicker and easier for scanning charts that aren't in my watch list quickly. I found ADI and bought it:






At the time it must have looked pretty good. I have to admit, I don't like it now. It could work out fine, but I think I'd rather have the cash to pick up something that looks better tomorrow. We'll see. So, to recap, I bought it, sold the lowest day since the bottom, and bought it back higher than I bought it the first time. And I don't like the chart much. That's good trading. My blog will soon be read by the pros before they dare make a move.

However, it probably won't matter much if the market keeps doing this:










I won't even look for a short position until these things show some sign of pausing. Looking at those charts, I fully expect a portfolio renovation at some point soon. It just can't keep going line this forever. But, until it stops, I'm on the bus enjoying the ride!

Almost fully funded

I have room for one more position. Usually, when I get to this point the market takes a huge dump on me and I stop out several positions. With any luck, it is the junk exiting and I'll be left with the good stuff. That's the way it is supposed to happen at least, and so far I think it is panning out that way. I have several real runners that are lining up to be the monsters that pay for the early losers. I figure I'll probably run about 2/3 losers. Just a guess there, but it makes sense that a lot of stocks moving down close to their trend lines will drop below and stop out early. Of the 1/3 winners, hopefully half or so will be big winners, paying for the losers and returning a good multiple. Time will tell the real story.

I added only one position today, DRIV:






The trend is a very good one. We'll see how it holds up.

I'll add another chart to the mix. SMH looks ready to pop:






This is my favorite pattern - an ascending triangle. During my swing trading days, these were my favorite patterns. I found them to be among the most reliable breakout patterns. I love getting into them prior to the pop. Most patterns I don't feel comfortable trading until they break resistance, but these I like to catch early. This one may or may not work, but I think getting in with a stop under the trend line would be a good idea.

I'm found!

Scanning my sitemeter traffic counter data today I discovered how my blog is located from France. Seems if you go to Google France (google.fr on your world wide web apparently) and search for "flogged bottoms", you find little ol' me.

Yikes!

I have several picked bottoms on my blog, but none have quite been flogged as of yet. I'm still working on that.

And on to charts....QUICKLY!

Lost NOC today:






I moved my trend line down to capture all of the past two days since I had plenty of room, but it was not enough. I'm not sure how it finished. This chart is from about 8:20 or so Pacific time this morning.

Flogging will commence on two new bottoms. First up is BABY:






Anybody who's had a baby recently may have seen their product. It is the machine used on newborns to check hearing.

Last is PIR:






This is quite a trend if it holds up for any length of time at all.

That's it. Good luck tomorrow.