SEP 16 - holding

So, my trade at HFC is very volatile, but technically, on the weekly chart is seems like a sure thing, since I bought right at support. So I will just keep an eye on it and let it run its course until it's at above 35.50 and I can make my money back.... we'll see, it's still early to say if this technical setup will work out for me.

Huge catastrophe! SEP - 15

So, just as I saw the terrible economic news, some banks decide to flood the market with dollars before the open and I had to cover my short about 2 dollars above my initial position. this has been devasting to my portfolio, since I trade on margin. I waited for the market to go down again and got long into the stock, I am gaining some money back but it doesn't even start to cover my big loss.

I am upset about this, and this teaches me again to not hold things over night. If I don't discipline myself I will lose it all. So the lessons are: Do not hold a stock overnight, unless you are a the start of a proven reversal and do not trade early in the morning any more, wait until 10:30am , at least.

Let's see how this trade goes and I will let you know later.

Update (3:58pm): Well, I was able to mitigate the pain a little bit, I am still down big time, but at least I am on the mend, I day-trade TWI for some profit, and at the end of the day I found a nice chart for HFC, which is right at support, so I decided to go for it. So far, so good. According to this chart, this is supposed to go up at least 2.5 points from my buy point (33.85). I will let this trade go for a few days to see if it develops as expected.

Should I trade? - SEP 14

Today the pre-market is up, despite bad news at home and relatively good news in europe. Pre-market seems to be going down from earlier highs though. I am thinking big investors know that the good news from Europe are mostly smoke and mirrors and will sell into strength, since today is day-3 of the upward move.

I can't day-trade today, so I am not very sure about getting a trade in today, but if I do, it will surely be a short, maybe I will wait for a peak to form and then short something that follows the major indexes's movements. the problems is that on thursday we got some economic news coming at 8:30 am... given the recent news I think they will not be great (one of them is jobless claims), but you never know. anyways, tough decisions, hopefully won't get burned today.

Gold is still on a downward move, will wait for it to get to it's 20 week moving average and then load up in EGO, but that seems to be a couple of months in the future, so I will let it go for now.

UPDATE (10:30am): So I couldn't help it. The news from europe were not enough to keeps the horrible economic data from sinking the major indexes, the problem is that I am such a chicken that I started shorting TWI almost at the low of the day, I will need to learn a lot more patience. Still, I am not to worried, I have a feeling this will keep going down for the rest of the week and I will make some decent dough.

UPDATE (4:42pm): I traded at the wrong time yet again, I am underwater by a bit more than a dollar!, this is horrible, but I know things will get better for me tomorrow. Today's rally was purely technical: the S&P got to the top of it's short term trading box (around 1,200) and then a selloff begun at the last 20 minutes of the day, leaving the S&P at the high 1,180s, so this makes me believe that the turn around has started and I will possibly be profitable tomorrow. New europe and USA economic news will probably drive the market lower for these last two trading days, I think.

Another day, another mistake to learn from - SEP-13

So, today, as I suggested by the technical setup of yesterday, the market went up in the morning, howerver I suspected the raise would be short-lived, due to all the problems going on in the world economy. So, I decided to wait for my stock to go up some and then sell... so the stock goes up and as soon as it starts going down I decide to sell, but instead of using a limit order, I used a market order and my profits went to the trash, I staill gained some, but it was not great (Mistake #1: Selling at market price during the first market hour), then as I saw the stock go down, I decided to short the thing, without waiting to see if that was just a temporaty pull back (Mistake #2: Shorting on an "up" day, Mistake #3: not waiting long enough to see if the pullback was short term). So, there you go folks, I am officially the biggest dumb ass in the stock market. Now I am waiting for the market to go down again so I can cover my short.... should happen soon, but I don't think it will today.... maybe my luck turns and I will be able to give some feed back.

UPDATE (11:06am): I waited and my patience was rewarded, I was able to get out of my bad trade witout losing any money!.... I am just bummed that I messed up a nice oppportunity to make cash if I had enough patience, oh well, I guess I will live to trade another day. now I will wait for the afternoon to see if I can get a good entry point, short or long, depending on how the market behaves for the rest of the day.

UPDATE (3:10pm): It seems like the market is going to close green today, that would be day 2 of buying, I expect some more upside tomorrow and possibly a turn around to end in red, I will keep my eyes peeled for a reversal and get a short in, although I could risk it and trade overnight, since I am out of day-trades until thursday... we got jobless claims, consumer price index and industrial production coming up on thursday morning, so I might probably just wait.

SEP-12-11 - Unsuccesful trading

So, after a lower open in the market I was going to make a good profit, but the greedy side of me took over, and decided to wait.... bad idea, the indexes started jumping, and the price of CMI jumped up accordingly, before I know it, I was underwater. I could have sold for a small profit, had plenty of time to do it, but no, I had to wait, then the stock kept jumping I freaked out and covered, losing about .90 cents per share in the trade.... grrrrr, and now the price is back down again and would have gotten a bit of profit if I had kept the stupid thing!!!

Stupid market, In this volatile market the best thing is to sell close to the open if you have a nice profit. Anyways, I can't do much until tomorrow, when I am enabled to do a day-trade, I am a bit freaked out in this market to try another overnight trade, so that's it for me today, unless I get a case of the "can't help its" later.

Last Minute note: 15 minutes before the market closed I could clearly see that there is a reversal going on, so I decided to get into TWI very near to the close at 19.59. and the thing closed at 19.77!!, almost made back all the losses of the day. I am pretty confident that tomorrow will open in the green, so this is a great opportunity to reap a nice profit. see you tomorrow!

Pre-market 12-SEP-11

Looks like my instincts were right. The greek crisis and no positive news during the weekend have spurred another selloff. The stock i shorted on friday is already 2% below its closing price. Even though there are no positive news in sight, i am wary of a snap back buy rally when the SPX reaches 1125 or less, so i will keep and eye and probably cover today.

September 10 - Not sure what to expect from the market on monday

Hi all,

This week has been a total roller coaster, which gives you great opportunities to make a good amount of money if you are into day trading, I was able to make a bit of money myself this week. Having already done the 3 day-trades I can this week, I decided (unwisely) to temp fate and short a stock and hold it until monday, under the theory that the major indices would keep going down on monday. So, with that in mind, I waited for CMI to go up and bounce off the 20 period moving average in the 15-minute chart and shorted it at 87.25, which at the beginning seem like a good idea, since the stock hit the 86.90's not too long after, but then jumped up bit, following a small reversal of the indices.

I still think that we have at least a bit of downside on monday, but the waiting makes me nervous, and I think that it would be in my best interest to not let an investment go overnight, unless there is a strong trend going on. So I guess we'll see, I will be glued to my screen at 9:30 tomorrow and see what happens.

Will write some more then to let you know how it went.