Owner: A Trade A Day URL:www.atradeaday.com Join Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:00:04 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A source for trading ideas. Site statistics:Click here
WYNN Trading Idea 2007-10-10 04:00:47 *Sigh*…I shouldn’t do this. Logic is telling me that shorting WYNN is not a winning trade. But there’s also something inside of me that says this stock is toast. If it can break 144 next stop is the 50 SMA.
But we’re in a bull market and we’ve seen true leadership from some excellent companies. I don’t know. Tell me what you think.
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5 Career Saving Tips for New Traders. 2007-10-09 04:00:30 1. Start with as much capital as possible
My favorite market cliché goes like this “if you want to make a small fortune in the futures market, start with a large one.” I think that traders stand a better chance of making money than this cliché would have you to believe, but whenever I am asked “how much trading capital do I need to start?” my answer is always: As much as possible.
The reason is, like the market, a trader’s performance is characterized by streaks. One day is profitable Three are not. Three months are profitable. One is not. One year is profitable and the next one isn’t…you get the idea. With less experienced traders, swings in your trading equity can be magnified through over trading, the use of leverage, and just plain poor decision making. Experienced traders are not exempt. Drawdowns and mistakes still exist and are a constant threat to their bankroll. Starting out with an account as big as possible cushions your psyche from the inevitable swing Read more:Career
, Saving
SIF Trading Idea 2007-10-08 04:00:27 The featured trade today is SIF. SIFCO Industries (SIF) aerospace components, components for turbine engines, as well as, electroplating sales and services.
How do you get in a business like that? I mean do you just wake up one day and decide “Gee, the electroplating and turbine engine industry is under served when it comes to their metalworking needs. I know…I’ll start a company”.
Evidently a really smart person would. SIF made 2.1 billion in the 3rd quarter. That’s 2.1 billion more than I made. But SIF stock has the potential to earn a nice chunk of change if the trade goes right.
SIF is just a pure momo play. I like it over 20.50. My target is around 25.
Read more:Trading
Trading Ideas Update 2007-10-07 05:00:01 It’s Sunday afternoon. That means it’s time for another trading ideas update. Where I review the trades from the past week that were featured on this blog as well as any remaining open trades.
The AMTD trade is chugging right along. My stop is currently around the 18.20 level. I will be riding this one as far as it can take me.
The TNH and CSCO are both similar in that they both broke out well, but are stalling. I’ll be watching carefully. My TNH stop is pretty loose, around 115. CSCO has a mile to go before I get stopped.
The AGU trade is doing ok, but today there was a big increase in volume with little movement.
The GT trade is forming a handle which possibly will give me the opportunity to add more.
The NILE trade never setup and is no longer valid.
NVT is getting bought. The NVT trade didn’t have a chance to setup for me. So, I’m taking it off my list.
The KGC Trade is still consolidating. I still like it over 15.50.
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, Update
Something completely different 2007-10-06 06:00:54 I love de-motivational posters. Here’s some of my favorites from www.somthingawful.com. Check out their site for more.
See you Sunday for a position update.
Read more:completely
, different
Link Love Friday 2007-10-19 04:00:12 Blain at stocktradingtogo.com give us 13 great ways to invest in oil without buying barrels.
Alex at mytradersjournal.com points out 5 reasons naked put selling beats covered call selling. I really like this blog. I’m adding it to my blogroll.
Chris Perruna at chrisperruna.com teaches us how to make money selling short. Adding this one to my blogroll too.
Trader Gav pointed me in the direction of a very cool trader tool. Especially for forex traders.
That’s it for now. See you tomorrow!
Read more:Friday
GSOL Trading Idea 2007-10-18 04:00:10 Yesterday I wrote about stocks rolling over. I think there’s still a question mark as to whether this uptrend will continue, but for the time being we’re still in an uptrend and that means I’m trading longs.
GSOL present a typical momentum play. The stock has moved up very fast, very quickly. Now we’re seeing consolidation which gives a lower risk setup. We’re looking at the third consolidation in this move. In my experience, the more consolidation and moves beyond three, without correction to the low of the previous low, the less reliable the move becomes. So, the fourth and fifth move would be less likely to continue. How’s that for a trading rule!
Let’s take a look:
Don’t know what GSOL does. Don’t really care. I like them over 30.00. Stops will be tight so I like the risk/return.
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Trading stocks that roll over. 2007-10-17 04:00:58 Interesting development in the world of investing. Looks like the NASDAQ and DOW are starting to roll over. Is this just a regular correction or the beginning of the end of this bull market? I have no idea, but let’s look at how to profit from this move.
It all starts with an extreme move. Like the marubozu. I want to see a black marubozu(red on my charts). This begins to crack the confidence of investing public. After I have identified a handful of uptrending stocks with a black marubozu, I wait.
What I want to see after the strong down day is a consolidation. Typically this will take the form of a base or a bear flag. The investing public is starting to feel a little better about their buys and the financial media continues to cheer stocks on. But then there’s another down day which is my setup. My setup occurs when another strong down day breaks the support of the bear flag/base on heavy volume. Now the down days come faster and the investing public beings to dump shares Read more:Trading
Top 5 Trading Clichés 2007-10-16 04:00:20 Know any good trading clichés? You know what I’m talking about. Those trite pearls of wisdom oft spoken ad nauseam in major media outlets like CNBC. We all shake our heads solemnly in agreement when spoken. Of course there is truth to all of them, but they’re spoken so often in financial circles that we’ve become desensitized to their meaning. Here’s my top 5:
5. Bulls make money. Bears make money. But Pigs get slaughtered.
What does this mean? Greed is good, but to a point. Trader death can be brought on quickly by trading too much or trading too large.
4. Sell in May and Go away. An often heard, but less understood cliché. This is a top cliché because everyone knows it, but people don’t know its application or ignores it. The theory is that the first four months of the year are the best for trading. Once summer roles around, it’s time to go on vacation. Perception of market performance aside, this cliché is true because summer tends to be quiet Read more:Trading
SFD Trading Idea 2007-10-15 04:00:19 SFD is flashing a hammer. SFD has seen two consecutive days of selling and is poised for a bounce. Where it will bounce to is uncertain, but there are three things that raise the probability of an up move.
1. Two consecutive days of heavy selling on increasing volume.
2. The hammer day had high volume.
3. Price has bounced off the lower bollinger band.
SFD is not my typical momo trade, but it is certainly a more traditional swing trade. Stop is below the hammer candlestick. Target is the 50 SMA.
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Booted off the Blogrush Bandwagon 2007-10-23 04:00:20 On 9/17, I signed up for the Blogrush syndication network. It was an effort to boost traffic and kick start my blog. Well, I earned thousands of syndication credits and put up with over a month of outages to earn maybe a couple of clicks to my blog.
Now Blogrush has seen fit to boot me from their network. Supposedly, I didn’t meet their “strict content guidelines”. Let’s take a look at their “Dear John” letter and see where my blog didn’t make it.
We regret to inform you that your BlogRush Account has been made INACTIVE because your blog did not pass our Quality Review criteria. You will find instructions below for making your account active again.
You will notice that the widget no longer loads on your pages — please remove the BlogRush code from your blog for now.
We recently reviewed your blog(s) located at:
http://www.atradeaday.com
We determined that your blog did not meet our strict quality guidelines. Please do not take this perso Read more:Bandwagon
Shorts to Consider 2007-10-22 04:00:44 Market action over the past week has indicated that it’s not an appropriate time to initiate new longs. Where this correction is going to end is difficult to say. What matters to me is how to play this movement and make money.
The first thing I’m going to do, like I said earlier, is not to put on anymore long positions until the pullback is complete.
The second piece of my strategy is to identify shorts. I’ve already begun some preliminary scanning this week, and I wanted to share some more of my ideas.
I always am scanning both long and short candidates, but usually only trade one side at a time for obvious reasons. In the case of today’s market I want to have long candidates in case the up trend resumes and shorts in case we see a new down trend.
But how do you know when it is ok to go short or long? When do you know the trend has really changed? Well, my answer is you never really know until the trend is established. By then alot of the good trades, where a l Read more:Shorts
Trading Ideas Update 2007-10-21 05:36:53 Well, the Dow Jones Industrial average was down almost 3% same with the NASDAQ. As a result, most of the longs I initiated over the past couple of weeks have been stopped or are close to being stopped out.
The AMTD trade is approaching the 50 SMA. Stops are set at my initial entry of 17.99.
The TNH and CSCO trades have been stopped at breakeven.
The AGU trade is sitting at about 1R.
The GT trade is no longer valid as the pattern has been broken.
The KGC trade is still open.
The SINA trade is sitting at breakeven.
The SFD trade has been stopped.
The GSOL trade is close to breakeven. The day trade worked out well, but the position trade is close to being stopped.
No more new longs for me. We’ve broken through what was the third move up in the DOW, and the NASDAQ is at the 2724 area of support. I’ve got some shorts on my scans. Will share tomorrow morning.
Read more:Trading
, Update
Something Completely Different 2007-10-20 04:00:09 These guys deserve to get the crap kicked out of them for putting gloves on this animal.
Trading Ideas Update 2007-10-28 04:00:20 It’s Sunday which of course means it’s time to review open trades featured on this site as well as any positions that were closed this week.
The AMTD trade is consolidating above its 50 SMA.
The AGU trade is sitting close to 2.5R.
The KGC trade is now around 2.5R.
The SINA trade is at about 1R for me.
The GSOL trade is at 1R.
Longs seem to be working but barely. Look at the DOW and COMPQ I can’t be help think the market will turn lower. I’m having a battle internally. I want to take my profits on my longs and start shorting.
But that’s not my method. My trades need to stop themselves out. Letting the market dictate your action is very important for long term profitability. I’ve closed my longs before based on “fear” that the market was headed lower, only to have the market keep going higher.
See you Monday!
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, Update
Something Completely Different 2007-10-27 04:00:46 When I was 13 years old, I used to love to watch the Ultimate Warrior in the WWF. This video is so bizarre, It almost hurts to watch it.
Link Love Friday 2007-10-26 04:00:58 It’s that time again.
Trading blogs are a fun niche, but their appeal to the masses is limited. I’m always looking for ways to promote my blog. Caroline shares some valuable insight with 7 way to connect with people in your nice.
Corey shares 6 tips to asses the significance of price patterns
The market speculator has a game plan for trading a queezy market.
Got rentals? The Frugal Trader has a post that could save you thousands of dollars by learning to screen tenants.
TraderBubs can read my mind. This should give you a clue what I’ll be drinking this weekend.
BTW, I’m adding milliondollarjourney.com and thestockbandit.net to my blogroll. Should have done this a lot earlier as I frequent theses blogs and they always have great content.
Read more:Friday
Top 5 Ways to Get Investing Capital Now! 2007-10-25 04:00:11 Investing for a living is a dream for many people. The freedom from the rat ace. The opportunity to make your own hours, to control your own destiny. The ability to pull money from the market like it’s your own personal ATM. Well, maybe not the ATM part.
However, in order to get started you need capital. How much capital depends on who you ask. Throughout market history there are stories of traders who started with a a minuscule bank roll and turned it into a fortune. Traders like Richard Dennis and Jesse Livermore started with a grubstake and a dream.
The point is you need capital. Whether it’s $250 for to open a forex account or a couple of million to start a hedge fund. There are ways to get capital. Here are my top 5.
5. Bum it off a relative.
There’s a couple of ways to do this, but I would recommend pitching it like a business proposal. I actually acquired my first trading stake through this method. In my case, I created a business and trading plan and present Read more:Investing
Hard Time Cutting Losses? Read this 2007-10-24 04:00:50 The market pullback over the past couple of days caused a couple of my longs to stop at breakeven. In my opinion, It’s an issue of timing. The market corrected. The timing didn’t work out and I got stopped. I can accept that because I followed my method. My trades didn’t work out the way I wanted but that’s normal. In fact, it’s expected that most of the time they won’t work out.
Every trade I post and every potential trade on my watchlist, I think, is a good trade. But they don’t all end up making money. I have to cut them when they fail. I think it’s common knowledge by now, that losers should not become bigger losers. As traders, we keep our losses small, but what about when good trades go bad? What should we do when we’re riding a winner that’s flashing sell signals? We know we should get out, but sometimes we bend the rules and hang on.
There are tangible, account-saving reasons for cutting our losers. Jeff White at thes Read more:Cutting
, Losses
FCX Trading Idea 2007-11-01 04:00:46 Time for me to take a close look at FCX again. I originally featured a FCX trade on 9/11/07. The entry price was 92.15. What a difference a month and a half can make. FCX is currently trading over 117. I took partials at the 107 target and I’ve managed to hold on to some of my original position. I was close to liquidating everything on 10/22 as price approached the 102 area. What makes the trade so successful though is my adherence to my trading rules.
At some point in the future I’ll elaborate on my exit strategy, but to give you a high level idea, I partial when my target is hit(107 in this case), and let the rest run until I am stopped out. My stop is placed at levels where I perceive there to be support. There’s some subjectivity to this approach, but it works.
FCX is flashing another buying opportunity. It seams that nothing is going to stop the market from continuing upward, so we might as well ride it until price dictates otherwise. The trade is to initiate a Read more:Trading
5 Cognitive Biases that Ruined My Trading 2007-10-31 04:00:22 I’m almost finished with Way of the Turtle by Curtis M. Faith. In the book, there’s a section on some of the cognitive biases that traders and investors experience. A cognitive bias, according to the book, is a “distortion in the way people perceive reality”. I thought it would be interesting to list my Top 5 and how I’m dealing with them.
1. Loss Aversion:
Simply stated, it is the preference for avoiding losses instead of acquiring gains. When I follow the rules of my system and lose $100, I feel the pain is more intense then if I had missed a trade that would have made me $100.
Where I have seen improvement is I would rather take a trade because I am following my rules and lose $100 then not take the trade because I ignored my rules and avoid losing the $100. Traders who are prone to loss aversion would rather ignore their rules and not lose $100 than follow their rules and lose $100.
The reason loss aversion is “bad” is that it causes the Read more:Trading
, Cognitive
How I use Trading Volume 2007-10-30 04:00:19 If you need a technical definition of volume, you can find one here.
Volume
, for me, is conviction. Volume ,placed in context with price movement, allows me to trade effectively. To measure the significance of volume, we need a baseline. I use a 30 day SMA of volume. What I am looking for is the % change relative to the 30 day SMA. My logic here is that 30 trading days of volume data should give me an idea of what is considered “normal” for a given stock.
There are 6 price and volume combinations that I look for:
1. Price goes up, volume goes up.
This is indicative of a greater demand for the stock than supply. The greater the volume relative to the 30 day average, the greater the demand for the stock.
2. Price goes up, volume goes down.
Price would indicate that there is greater demand than supply for a stock, but volume does not confirm the move. I interpret this as just a lack of any real selling pressure with just enough buying pressure to make the price move up.
3. P Read more:Trading
IBM Trading Idea 2007-10-29 04:00:47 I’m in a bit of a holding pattern when it comes to long trades. I see a lot of good counter-trend longs that I could talk about. I’ll give you a hint. If you read my How to trade Hammers article and do a quick scan, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
My scans are also turning up several good shorting opportunities. Case in point: IBM
IBM has broken through its 50 SMA, typically a significant support level, and has begun to consolidate. This consolidation is a text book bear flag. Volume has died down after the initial move downward and now we’re just waiting for a break of the 111.00 area to initiate a new short.
This is a very text book pattern. Trade with the trend, if the Dow rallies and IBM breaks 111, the trade may not work out as well. While the trade is textbook, there’s still risk. I like IBM under 111.
See you Tomorrow!
Read more:Trading
APA Trading Idea 2007-11-05 03:00:20 With oil apparently running up unabated, oil services and oil drillers are making money hand over fist. Someone needs to take Light Sweet Crude aside and explain to it the concept of Reversion to the Mean. It is so far outside of the mean, a correction would be dramatic. However, with the world’s unquenchable thirst for the black stuff combined with the exhaustion of cheap oil, perhaps we are seeing a new paradigm take shape in commodities, oil related anyway.
Which brings us to APA. This stock has already run up which is a positive considering I want to put my money in stocks that are the best. What I need is an opportunity to get in where the risk is low.
Now depending on how you determine consolidations, I see that APA has consolidated twice since it’s breakout over 87 on 9/20. After three consolidations and breakouts, the breakouts tend to be less reliable and less explosive.
What works out well for APA is the gap down on 10/20 penetrated the previous breakout, which Read more:Trading
Trading Ideas Update 2007-11-04 03:00:59 Let’s review trades featured on this site that are open or were closed this week.
The AMTD trade briefly pierced it’s 50 day SMA, but managed to rally and stay above this important zone of support.
The AGU trade is almost to 3R.
The KGC trade is now around 5R.
The SINA trade is sitting just a little bit over 1R.
The GSOL trade has been stopped.
The IBM trade didn’t setup, but I still like it under 111.
The latest FCX trade hasn’t setup yet. I still like the stock over 120 to 122. A hammer has formed and for a risk of 2 bucks, you could make 6 if it goes back to 120. I will probably take the trade if it breaks 114, but that’s the last you’ll hear of it here
See you tomorrow!
Read more:Trading
, Update
Link Love Friday 2007-11-02 04:00:27 Blain at stocktradingtogo.com does some detailed analysis on the Largest International ETF.
Bullish Jim looks for stocks near their 200 SMA. I agree with him.
Raj at Performancing.com talks about Hitting 100/mth in Adsense: 7 things he’s learned. I don’t currently yet run adsense on my blog, but I’ve seen alot that do. The entire performancing blog has been really useful to me. Definitely check it out.
Switching directions slightly, Investor blogger gives us 10 reasons why adsense sucks for your blog.
Have a great weekend!
Read more:Friday
Link Love Friday 2007-11-09 03:00:12 Chris reminds us to keep an eye on the big picture.
Brian at Trade4Cash has an excellent post on pivot points. This one’s been out there awhile, but I just found it. Hope it is useful to you.
Adam Freedman at the investor’s journal teaches us how you can never fail in the stock market.
If you’ve never been over to fallond stock picks, it’s worth a read. His market commentary is particularly insightful.
I like Toro’s opinion on future Fed rate cuts.
Read more:Friday
EDU Trading Idea 2007-11-08 03:00:05 EDU has been on a tear recently. The stock is up over 30% since breaking out on 9/25. Unfortunately for EDU, the current stock pattern is ominous. Since October, each successive wave of buying has been on less and less volume. Since making an all time high on 10/29, EDU broke hard and is now retracing. This retracement will give us a low risk short opportunity.
Market direction is very important to this trade. If we continue to head lower in the overall indexes then shorts like this will tend to be successful. I expect that we’ll see a quiet day tomorrow, so don’t rush into shorts. Let the bear flags form. EDU has been a powerful stock, but even the most bullish of equities cannot stand up for long to the major market direction. I like EDU under 76.
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