Thursday..

The golf finished yesterday..I had fun caddying it's too bad my bro didn't play great..anyway as we tee'd off later in the morning yesterday I didn't make it home in time to catch any of the market.today should be back in full action but here's a photo yesterday from the tee of the par-3 17th hole..

light trading..

Some light trading after the golf today..nothing to brag about but some lunch money..last round of the golf tomorrow then it's all about trading..

Yesterday and today..

Golf tournament started yesterday and we tee'd off early both yesterday and today so I missed the first half of trading both days...not much happened in the afternoon yesterday and today was more or less the same thing..I did grab a couple trades today when I returned from the course...saw fslr popping hard over the $27 mark so waited for the pullback under 27 and started buying..i sold as we started approaching the $27 mark again..my only other trade was a rimm buy on the hard push down looking for the bounce back..grabbed a bit on it anyway here's a snapshot of my screen showing the trades taken..this is the lightspeed trading platform, I am in the process of switching platforms to DAS Trader Pro which is super fast with executions etc..hopefully get to put in a bit more time tomorrow depending on the golf tee time again..

A week off..

No trading this week for me for a couple reasons. Mainly because I am doing some administrative stuff to do with moving funds and closing/opening brokerage accounts. Therefore I will be quite busy filling in paperwork and then fedexing out original documents as well as getting passport copies notarized etc this week. This is the boring and time-consuming part of trading in my opinion lol. Also, this is a good week to take off as it's short anyway due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday later in the week. The markets are closed Thursday all day and close early (at 1pm est) on Friday. I will also be busy with my brother getting ready for another professional golf tournament which kicks off next week (I caddy for him). I will definitely be posting some golf updates on here too haha..

Friday's Charts...

Well I have a bit of time and I'm up early on a Saturday so thought I'd post some charts and comment on the trades I took for Friday.. Each evening I do some market scans and come up with a list of stocks to start with the next day. I am looking for stocks that have been beaten up (3 or 4 down days in a row) and are approaching either previous price support areas or significant moving averages (the daily 100 or 200 day avg). I will add to this list any stocks in the news the next morning (earnings, interesting news items etc.) as these will probably give good movement once the market opens. Trade #1: esrx made my list the nite before as a possible bounce play, it had been down a number of days in a row and the day before had started turning indicating a possible retracement..once the market opened it moved up quite quickly so I waited for a pullback (very similar to my futures trading style). On a 5min chart it pulled back and gave a narrow 5 minute bar rite at the 8ema, so my entry is simply a break of the 5minute high. From the first chart, you can see the entry was around 51.31 as the current 5min candle had a high of 51.30. The next chart shows how the trade played out, and as shown it went in my favour, continuing the move higher..I was a seller into the pushes up, unloading my shares on the way. I normally sell in thirds, my first target being around 15cents my next around 30-40cents and my final over 75cents if it gets there. The stop on this trade was a break of the previous 5minute candle low which would have been 51.18 on this trade so I risked 13cents. I also added 500 shares on a break of the day's high as this usually gives a nice pop (which it did).

Trade #2: During the day I have intraday scanners running, looking at different things, one of them being significant volume spikes. Many times, news is released during the day that causes large amounts of buying or selling in a stock and sometimes if I catch the volume early I can hop in and grab a quick ride of 10-20cents or more. dhi was also on my bounce list as it had been beaten up previously so was due for a bounce. Once I saw the volume coming in (pink arrow on chart) I hopped in (was able to slide in at 18.60). Another nice thing about this trade was that the high of day was just above my entry so I knew if we could get through the high of day more buyers may hop on board (the high of day break is usually a good catalyst for a push higher on a strong stock). Second chart shows the outcome of the trade, we continued the push higher over the next 10-15mins and I was offering as it went up and then got rid of my last shares as it turned just in case it fell back down.

Trade #3 and #4: Both losers and both stocks I had on bounce. The thinking was on jcp it had formed a bit of a base and i figured a break of the base higher it may get going up. It triggered only to fade back down and continue lower. I closed on a break of the base to the downside limiting the loss. ip was also on bounce watch, and it was moving lower touching it's 200 day moving average. The mistake I made here was that I didnt wait for some volume and shape to take the setup (the volume and push down came later around the whole number $33). Again, closed the trade on a break lower thus limiting the loss and looking for the next trade.

Trade #5: This was the correct setup I was looking for in the IP trade, as you can see here on fwlt we got the push down giving the waterfall shape along with the pop in volume. You may notice that this mirrors my Euro scalping style where I would look for a stretch and hop in the opposite way, knowing that price moved a bit like an elastic and would always bounce back. I took the previous 5 minute candle break and this one pushed up where I began offering as it gave 10 cents profit and up.

Friday's trades..

Didn't get a chance to record my trades from yesterday in my spreadsheet, it was quite boring I think I took 3 trades and the first 2 were losses then 1 winner which made back the loss and then some. All-in-all I believe I was up $86 by the end of the day yesterday before commissions so nothing to write home about lol. Today I played golf early with my brother as we are getting ready for a pro tournament here (he is a pro and I caddy for him) and then came back home to do a couple hours trading. The markets were grinding lower with not much activity however I still got a few setups. Started off nicely then a couple losses, then around 12.45pm Bermuda time the markets got a push higher, not really sure why maybe there was some news out anyway I was able to grab one more trade as things climbed a bit. Here's the trades from today, I hope to post a few charts with some explanations/details over the weekend.

Wednesday's Trades (Nov 14)

Just some light trading yesterday as I'm still getting going (haven't traded stocks live for a while)...stock markets have been tanking since the election, however I am still managing to find a few setups for long trades (haven't switched to shorting mode just yet)..each day I keep a spreadsheet of trades which I will try and post here along with charts..my position size on trades is based upon the stoploss size as the most I am comfortable risking per trade is max $250 (which is less than 1% of my account balance)..the spreadsheet is pretty self-explanatory and most days I stop around 1pm bermuda-time and if it's a nice day I hit the golf course :)..anyway will be back in action again today..

A brief update/plans going forward...

Well it is now November, been a while since I posted anything. My goal is to be a bit more active in my postings. The summer was busy as always, and my trading was very infrequent. I have spent the last month reorganizing thoughts and examining exactly what my hopes and goals are for the future. I turned 27 in September and realized I have been trading in some form or another for 14 years (I first got my start investing in stocks at 13 years old). It has been a great adventure, full of both great joy and great disappointment. During October I took time to refocus my efforts on my 'roots' in the stock market and began adapting what I have spent years testing and trading both in spot forex and futures to stocks. The progression of my trading has been detailed on this blog so far, including when I started the blog doing rainbow scalping on the Euro, then the move to trading futures (both currency and equity/oil), and now what will hopefully be my final trading move - daytrading stocks. The blog itself has a new look/location, however the trades I take are obviously rooted around the same styles and systems I have grown familiar with over the years, the only difference being I will be taking trades on the stock market. A little about my style: I basically have a few setups I look for as in most trading systems. I start my days watching the news (I switch between golf news and market news haha), then do a bit of pre-market research and scanning to build a list of stocks I'll be following for the morning. Sometimes I look for the push to certain levels to catch reversals (as I used to in scalping the Euro), sometimes I look for pushes followed by a pullback and continuation (such as when I traded renko bars on the futures markets) and sometimes I catch breakouts. The great thing about the stock market (to me anyway) is that there are thousands of stocks to choose from, so I can be guaranteed a few good setups no matter the market conditions. I will really make the extra effort to update each evening on the day's activity by posting my trades and sometimes charts and explanations etc.