Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Trading Review: 02-11-2015















Intraday Trades: +$594 for the day. A really really good discipline, patient day. There were a few slipups which will be mentioned below with the tickers, but overall was extremely patient and disciplined (in particular for entries which is what I have been working on). Additionally I traded quite a lot of tickers and a lot of tickets (around 100), so it was good doing that level of activity and keeping my cool.
The other thing I really like about the day is the ratio of positive trading to negative trading, plus the sizes of each one. Excluding the TWTR option stuff-up the losses are small relative to the gains.

BLDP: This was just a standard trend, grinding up abcd trade. Overall good trade, and thought process. This stock had enormous volume and Rvol for the day, and so I was thinking of it like a low float stock - reality is that it isn't and so I made a few mistake with my execution and expectations.
So basically I initiated the trade, with a tiny chase (but not too bad given time of day and tight risk). Risk was 10c (maybe could have been a little tighter with better entry, but whatever).
Anyway, I was expecting a bit of a late day rush, but of course not being a low float stock a 10c move is quite big, and so while I had my targets set to scale out at new highs into $3, reality is I should have been taking some profit quick, locking it in, rebuying at trendline, basically just not expecting massive moves, and treating the trade more as a scalp around a core.























ZIOP: So I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to be long this if it was a successful secondary. So this trade obviously played out to perfection... Without me. I was bidding after the initial drive, but was just never met. Then when I was finally met it was a reversal in all biotechs (IBB), not just this one.
The longer term breakout level was where I bought, so I am absolutely fine with this low risk trade.
IBB closed negative and this positive, so keep an eye out for more ZIOP strength.























BOX: Really happy with how I traded this. This is something that I wouldn't have made any money on if I wasn't trading patiently, and managing trades well. I was looking for the $20.20 crack (which was the opening print a week or so ago).
I initially shorted with a risk against r/g anticipating some sort of move down to that key level, and then perhaps later a scrack, but it went around for a while, then went down.
I managed just under half the position down there and added the position back near the highs, I then managed again on the way down to $20.20 keeping a core.
I have decided to swing the core because I like this as a short, however, in hindsight I should have close this at that key junction into the close around 3:30.























GENE: This is one of the trades I stuffed up, after almost an entire day of near perfect trading. I took a chance with a long bias based off the daily, and the buyins occurring again (see the playbook entry from yesterday), so I bought into the weakness around 10:30, with a stop below $3.80. It started to move up and broke the downtrend, but it moved to swiftly, so anything here would have been a chase so I feel okay about not getting an add here.
It then put through high volume into new highs, and I sold some into $4.50 (my position was tiny at this point so it wasn't much). I then added back that immediately into the wash to a relative level, and then when I noticed it holding there, and vwap creeping up I added a little more (still bidding for more lower).
Then it made one tiny step higher and held there. That was interesting. Basically it was holding below the $4.50 breakout level on the daily (which has been tested a couple of times now). so I added and got quite big. It then broke that tight consolidation and onto new highs on huge volume so I chased a tiny little to get to an enormous position size. My average wasn't amazing, but it wasn't that bad either.
At this point I'm feeling pretty damn certain about my bigger picture view. That is, this thing is going quite a lot further. Of course you still have the manage the position, sell rips and buy dips type of thing and I failed to do that. So I rode it all the way to the high (thinking greedily this thing is going parabolic over $5) at which point I had about $1500 unrealised profit in GENE. Basically I was trying to be a hero and capture the enormous move with massive position, when reality is to do that you need to manage the position effectively.
Accordingly I liquidated the entire position at $4.50ish at the end of the day, where some should be locked near $5 and I should be swinging some, with an aim to get back to full position size at a good spot tomorrow morning. Very poor and completely minimised.
Good lesson here about always managing positions. This is something that is a secondary goal for me at the moment and will probably take priority once I am happy with my patience/overtrading/entries. I'm usually not too bad with it, it's just when I become very biased about the bigger picture.























PIR: This was the stock of the day for me (although GENE should have been). PIR had an enormous gap down on the CFO resigning and on lower guidance. Now that's pretty negative, but the size of the gap was enough to attract bargain hunters etc (imo). It reminded me a little of COUP (at least I think it was COUP?) from the prior day.
PIR trended down in the after hours and then in the premarket. Right before the open it established a higher low, however you would be hard pushed to find/accurately notice that.
For me the key was using the 6 month low of $11.40 as some sort of inflexion. With the idea that holding over that would signal that I may be right about my thought process.
It actually turned out a lot easier than that due to an opening drive up. I then used the consolidation at the highs to get long, and managed appropriately.
It actually ended up a lot stronger than expected as I tried a high of day rejection and had to stop out. Then I nailed the parabolic short, covered washes, reloaded on an actual high of day rejection (the key being this one was around 12:30).
This was probably my best trading. Great patience, great interpretation (ie. trendline broken, already parabolic so hod rejection on the cards.























WBA: Very interesting stock. Broke to all-time highs today. Was bought to my attention at roughly 10:30 while it was still trending strongly, but difficult to get into trend. With an ATR of $1.50 you don't really want to be chasing it when it has already moved its ATR.  This type of uptrend has a tendency to go parabolic so I kept an eye on it, deciding that around $80 would be a good spot.
The speedup and volume started to come through and I nailed the top, quickly covered 1/3, and then another third when the washout paused. I stuffed up re-entry into the short, but quickly corrected. Then shorted the hod rejection, again look at the time - it was the perfect stuff.
As an aside, I think the setups for PIR and WBA hod rejection are my favourite type of hod rejection. The time (around midday), the break above prior hod which just happens to be below a nice whole number ($80.00 and $13.50), so it's like "oh broken out, but wait here's this can't keep going".
I then covered the full position as it began to hold which I am okay with given the line it couldn't get below. Great trading!























MU: MU had an enormous move yesterday, closing at the highs (higher probability of a repeat the next day). Also if it could get above yesterdays close it was looking at a nice breakout. So MU did the weak open r/g, I didn't really trust it, was a bit extended for me. However when it began the hold at the highs I established a low risk long near the bottom of consolidation, was wicked out, and tried again. 10-15c risk for approximately $1 potential gain.. Pretty good. So I'm okay with the loss here.
I failed to recognise the downtrend early enough. I noticed the break of the triangle but didn't really notice that it was starting to get tight and tighter to the floor.
Even worse than that , after the break through the floor, I noticed it at g/r but decided not to go there... Why? Look at that nice consistent trendline. Eventually I tried to join the trend at $30.89 when I spotted a $30.90 seller, but from there it washed out and I missed it. Good trade idea though. When trendlines are consistent like this it is quite unusual and so you can expect the trend to hold until it doesn't (i.e. low risk entry, huge potential).
I was looking at the washout for a long, but wanted closer to $30.25 (yesterdays support), so I'm okay with missing that. Hindsight, the volume pattern was quite nice, but not biggie.























TWTR Call Options: I decided to include these in the intraday trading PnL and review, purely because they were an intraday trading mistake. I seem to really have a problem cutting losses on options. I will need to work on this. Again, the reason I trade liquid options is so that I don't have an issue with anything like that. TWTR had an opening drive up, that was what killed me, and I just didn't react, kept offering lower and lower... Could have easily got out at 0.8 instead of 0.5ish, saving $300.

TWTR: TWTR had an opening drive and then consolidated near the highs. So I got long low risk. Overall a good trade, but the motivation behind it was the options (some sort of stupid hedging idea). So although a good trade with about 3R realised, just a bad situation to be in.























GC: Was just a pure attempt at a momentum play on short gold. Worked briefly and was nearly up 1.5R so not too bad. I'm okay about the trade, but not super happy. Would have been nice to revisit gold later in the day and join that trend though!
























FSLR: This thing was an absolute prick of a thing. So yesterday FSLR had an enormous move in the afternoon on a deal with AAPL. Overall the deal is extremely bullish, but having run up enormously in the after-hours, and then faded late ah, and pm it just seemed a little weak. So my idea was that it was just going to churn around important levels for the day (seeing as it was overdone on long side, and news too bullish for downtrend).
So on the open I shorted into the $50.00 level, $50 being a sig level, with a stop at $50.21. I was wicked out before it came of $1.20. Then it came up against $50 again (not as confident by this stage as should test too many times), but I gave it another go, stop above that prior wick high. It wicked me out then came off down to the sig level $48.60/.50. Incredibly frustrating! I think the takeaway here is you have to be prepared for big wicks on the open.
I then tried the long against the $48.50/$48.60 level which coincided with g/r. Was looking constructive so I added and then stopped.
All in all, great trades, possibly some minor adjustments to be made to strategy? but loss very contained considering I had 3 losses.

Swing Trades: +$811 for the day.

ADES: Came off again, but no OTC style panic. The sellers were well in control until late in the day. So I guess see what happens. RR still favours holding the short. Going to have to look to start trading in and out of it I think and managing it a little more actively. The fact that it keeps getting saved is worrisome.























AAPL Far Out of the Money Weeklies: So this worked 10x better than expected, market even gapped down, and AAPL up with an opening drive. Market strength seemed to carry it through late day though.
So I've taken all but 1/5 of the position off. I figure it has reached the rough price I wanted (which was the options being worth $1), which they were around $124.40ish. So I just scaled out into $125.
I'm not 100% sure that was the correct thing to do, after all, this is where you get the serious bang for your original buck, maybe I should have kept 2/5s.
Anyway I think now that it has reached my zone I should be out of the remaining into strength tomorrow (perhaps a $126 gap up or something, or failed opening drive).























VPOR: So the BMAK appeared and I more of less got out straight away of some. Then for the remainder I gave them 15 minutes to hang around before getting out.
Interestingly I had anticipated that I wouldn't be able to get out on the offer, but BMAK never drove the price down, it just hung around that level all day so I could have. This is a slight change of behaviour from the other times when BMAK just drove it down hard. But I'm happy, definitely not re-entering at this price.
I will need to keep this on the radar though. There are a couple of possibly scenario's: (1) The dilution is nearly finished and it consolidates and moves higher, or (2) the dilution drives it lower again and I buy under/around 0.0010, and add when BMAK disappears. Either way could yield 50%+.

























There were also a couple of things to note today. With the oil selloff in the morning, oil and USDCAD triggered a overextension alert. Again, just like yesterday USDCAD was a lot cleaner!!

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