March 17 - April 1 2014

Right Click Chart, Open in New TAB

Some Charts are duplicates illustrating Pre-Market Data of the play. 

-.40R Down - Slow Day

One of those days when the market fakes you out and no follow through, key is keep losers small and your good to go.  One of the hardest things to master is when not to trade. In my office I have REMINDERS on my desk telling me if your bored go on YouTube, go on Twitter, go stare at the wall but just don't trade. It's tough, you know you wake up thinking you want to make a trade and the market doesn't give you the right serious and the in between your legs gets itchy and then your hand gets itchy and then your index finger gets itchy and when everything itches your account balance also gets itchy and starts scratching and bleeding to death. (Sorry I took it over board) key point = just don't trade when your bored, today wasn't that of a boring day but small losers is key. 

Below is the place, I shorted 1000 shares  just below 12 PM and the price I got was 17.12 and then the stock just faked and went back up, I killed my position before hand and didn't take a full loser! I released 300 shares are pins 17.16 then 17.17 and last everything at 17.18. 

Internet Connection Failure, Range Plays and No Follow Throughs - 2.61R

Yesterday was an excellent display of maximizing gains to a certain extent. For me to get burned today on 3 separate plays is okay because I know I can pull out possible 1.5-2R+ from my gainers and to have 3 losers totaling about -2.6R is okay with me. At least it wasn't 1 trade, that's a total of less than -1R loser per trade. It's part of the game, key is winners need to be bigger than ANY of your losers! 

3 Trades made today, all three negative. 2 I didn't mind because I kept them small losers. There was one however which turned out to be a bigger loser than I expected because my internet failed. (Note to make sure no more trading with WIFI connection, I need a direct wire now)

Here they are and followed by the trades will be the P/L at the bottom. -2.61R

HOLY SHIT see while I was uploading my blog this happened! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I was trading and its HORRIBLE!

See image below!

LOOK AT THAT! I just print screened it right now

 -2.61R Loser

Cut Losers, Maximize Winners

So in my previous post Click Here to read it I talked about how in trading you don't have to worry about losers, you can choose how much you want to lose so it is totally in your control. The main goal is to manage your winning trades to ensure you PULL out nasty amounts of GAINS! Conclusion of today, look for RISK/REWARD and get an understanding of how much room you need to make money in your trades. Exmaple: Look for tight stops! See if the stock will allow you maximize gains!

Today is a great example:

Total R: +2.31R

Winners:

Trade 1: $AMAT + .59R Winner

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Trade 2: $NTAP +1.92R Winner

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Losers:

$DISH -.17R Loser

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I had another very small loser, it was only -.04R

Key to Success: Cut Losers, Maximize winners and honestly review each stock and ask yourself "it this stock worth my money?" "will it pay me out good or am I just forcing it?" If you feel like you are forcing then just don't take it, its not worth your money or your time.

Below is Profit / Loss for Today. +2.31R 

Trading is very very statistical!

Today was a pretty dry day for trading, the markets did a lot but for my trading setups not much really happened.

My per-trade loss limit is $70, what that means is if I lose $70 on a play then the trade went as planned. The trade made today was a -$70. I realized after that I made a judgement call mistake, I did not take the market into consideration during this play. The market had broke through the resistance and was just resting, not really going up but just resting. When I was looking at the charts it gave a small illusion of possibly going up but not a big one. So I entered the trade. It was a clean and quick loss. I feel like I disregarded the market during the trade to a certain extent. But honestly, consistency helps. One thing that I know is that I will not LOSE more than what I need to lose per trade. My losses will always be capped off to the AMOUNT I choose to lose. So If I am risking $70 per trade I know I won't lose more than $70, its nearly impossible. The only way I will lose more than $70 is if I don't follow my trading plan. It is easy to handle losers the most difficult part of trading is maximizing winners. Basically trade management. During trade 2 weeks ago I was down about -$250 in one day, now that is disgusting. That is when all plans, rules and everything else goes down the drain.

Here is how I operate: 

I have a $70 Risk per trade. I consider this my "R"

Which means if I lose -$70 on a trade I am down -1R for that trade.
If I win $70 on a trade I am positive +1R for that trade.

Below is an example of a trade I took last week displaying the R system. In this trade I made +2.11R which means if my R was $70 the trade would have been a +$147 trade in dollar terms. And these types of trades are the normal trades, if they are managed right it is possible to be pulling in 1.5R-2R plays at least daily. But it is all in the management.

This is where it gets FANCY: 

If I operate at a 50% success rate in my trades and I make about 20 trades a month here are the stats for
that:

So right away I know that out of 20 trades I am going to have 10 losers. Now if I cap my losers to $70 that means I lost about -$700 on my losers. That means on my losers I am down -7Rs.

Now here is where it gets fancier, if for example I have 10 winners and all of my winners are say average +$130 which is about +1.85Rs then my winning trades amount to +$1295 or +18.2Rs

Do the math I can operate at 50% success rate, with 10 losers and 10 winners a month I can still be in the positive: $1295 - $700 = $595 Profit or about +8.5Rs 

The thing with trading is you DO NOT have to be right 100% of the time, the stats show that I only have to be right 50% of the time and all I need to do is manage my winners and not worry about my losers because I know I will not lose more than -$70 ever on a trade.

Trading is very statistical, one must understand what level is he or she operating at and then develop a strategy.

Here is today's trade!

I tried to long it above the red line but the trade didn't follow through, so I cut it.

Trade tickets + daily P/L for today. -1R

$BBRY - BlackBerry & Bananas & TV shows

So I'm sure we've all heard about the $BBRY chatter lately, not even lately people, I'm talking its been time since $BBRY has been failing. I don't know what to say, I feel bad almost because there are people working for the company and its sad that from what I see the company doesn't have a direction (BUT that doesn't stop me from trying to profit from it). So please I urge someone who works at BlackBerry to clarify the situation for me, what is going on? Why has this company with like 11000 patents gone from trading at $180 a share to all the way to almost $6 a few months ago? 

Whatever that's way tooooo senti-menti for me at this time. But I do however have feelings for anyone who grew up or went to Waterloo university with the intentions of "ima work at $BBRY one day and just kill it there, thats my dream" you know what if you're that person and you got in and you're living it up and living your dream, good! Ima cheer you and Blackberrry with you homies! Lets get this company either back on track or bought out so it does better! 

Why did I decide to go long $BBRY? 

I don't want to get emotionally attached to $BBRY but honestly I want to see it succeed again! As you can see in the chart, black berry legit died from the last time it reported earnings, I'm sure it made a lot of people pray at night! I know I would! But after the decline from last quarters earnings I started to see a pattern develop on the weekly chart below. Do you see how the the bowl shape developed? That nice curve! It fell and just started curving and smoothing out? Don't think of a hyperbola from grade 12 math, nah, that's toooo much of a curve, I'm talking just a nice little

Banana curve!  I saw the classic "LONG setup" $BBRY gapped down, it died all the way to 8.57 into a previous buying zone and then went side ways for about 2 weeks and BAM, on August 2nd 2013 I put in an order to buy 170 shares if $BBRY printed 8.93, and what happened? It printed 8.93 people! Sandeep officially owned $BBRY! And I wasn't too worried and I wasn't really expecting a whole lot, I was thinking this would be a month or so long trade because $BBRY is such a slow mover it's annoying. 

Surprise: This little stock is a drama queen 

I didn't know $BBRY was such a drama queen, I was expecting again NOT too much excitement, just was expecting my pattern to do the trick for me I already had my exits and profit taking areas in my head and targets set in place according to my trade so I was pretty calm. But all you SEE in the news is headline after headline "BLACKBERRY planning to go Private" and "BLACKBERRY buyout potential" and "BLACKBERRY up for sale" and all this non sense that I totally THREW my trade off in the good way. I purchased 170 shares at 8.93 and $BBRY closed today at 10.70 ish and it's only been 7 trading days since I bought the shares! It moved crazy fast!! This bad boy so crazy that I had to get rid of some shares pre-market last Friday, I was like O M G what just happened I need to take some profits and keep my pants on! 

Below: Weekly $BBRY Chart

So on Friday August 9th, around 8 AM I see $BBRY is at like $10.33 I was blown away, I'm like WOAOOO what just happened!? Remember I had 170 shares at 8.93, so I wanted to take my gains, I wanted to put some money in my pocket, protect my position and then go back go sleep. I saw $BBRY pre-market just get hammered and slaughtered down to $10.03 and I'm thinking to myself it's already above my target 1 profit taking zone might as well take profits, and I wanted to sell 70 shares at 10.03, and remember I'm on my phone and in my bed and half asleep, instead of selling 70 shares I accidentally PURCHASED 70 more!!!' AHHHhhhhhh this is the second time I did this, so now I own 240 shares of $BBRY! I was so upset like ahhhhh I felt like crying, so in a rush I didn't even care I didn't want price breaking 10 because I knew once it did it would be a wrap so then I sold 140 shares at 10.03, and which means I had a total of 100 shares remaining in my position. Let me the do math:

Friday August 2: Buy 170 shares @ 8.93

Friday August 9: Buy 70 shares @ 10.04 accidentally 

Friday August 9: Sell 140 shares at 10.03

Total shares remaining: 100 shares 

And let me tell you, because I messed up and accidentally bought shares my average purchase price went up, originally I had purchased shares at 8.93 after the commotion my average purchase price went up to 9.707, that's an ENTIRE almost $1 away! I don't know WHAT happened but when I saw the break down of my shares it says I have remaining 30 shares purchased at 8.93 and 70 shares purchased at 10.03 and that average works out to be 9.707, which is possibly the biggest torture to even occur to me! That's like buying a banana at 8.93 and then accidentally buying another banana the next week at 10.03! LIKE I WANNNA SELL MY BANANA AT 10.03 to the public not BUY!! I already bought the BANANA and wanna get rid of a piece of it! BUT NO, I instead BUY another BANANA for THE current more expensive market price and THEN now I have 2 BANANAS and I can't make as much profit any MORE because my purchase price just got closer to the market price! 

So what am I hoping for now!? I am hoping $BBRY blows UP and explodes in price, I really have to follow this stock now like a TV show! I tell PEOPLE I don't watch TV but try following the market and follow the stocks you invest / trade it is exciting, it's dramatic, there are twists and turns, there are set backs, surprises, there's money to be made!! Where as Sons of Anarchy, MadMen or Suits...ok they do all of the above but don't make you money!  NO (I'm not saying those shows suck or are bad, I'm just saying I got my own sitcom going) respect to all forms of entertainment!! 

So lets see what happens! Review the chart below! I'm hoping $BBRY prints an 11.01 and it'll be gone, cover the gap and shoot back up into the mid teens and ill be happy! Go go go! 

$AMD - Where is it headed?

$AMD Thoughts

Update: August 27 2013 

So $AMD did exactly what I said (read the article below) 

Current price of $AMD 3.39 remember that I said short if $AMD goes below 3.75

I would have shorted this insanely myself but I have a long position in $AMD 1000 shares at 2.91! And you know what they say about longing / shorting a stock at the same time! It's illegal! I coulda let go at 4.65 Ish and then shorted but honestly I don't want to mess with my position, ill leave it as is! Hopefully someone tried it out! 

Read below for the original article! 

So this is what I think will happen in the say next 1 month or so...lets see what plays out.

What I would do: (this is not investment advice, read the writing on the top of my blog if you have not yet)

Option 1) Buy above 3.90 

Option 2) Short below 3.75

Example Situation:

Say you want to risk $1000, what that means is you don't care if you lose $1000 if this trade goes wrong, now also you have to know when this trade goes wrong, so have a quick look at the chart and follow me closely. You need to know the following things:

1) How much you are willing to lose ($1000)

2) When will you know you are wrong?

3) When and where can you take profits?

So if your in this trade, if you think $AMD is going to die and go below 3.75 then you should understand that 3.90 and 3.75 has a difference of .15 cents. 

So if you are willing to risk $1000 this is what you do:

$1000 divided by .15 cents (risk in the trade) = 6666

What does the 6666 mean? It means you can short 6666 shares at 3.75 or 3.74 and lose approx $1000 if the trade does not go your way! What is not your way? If price goes up and shoots to 3.90 you are negative $1000.  So you know you will not LOSE more than $1000!

Now when do you take your profits? What I normally do is I take profits when the price of my stock has moved doubled my risk, so my risk was .15 cents, so I need a .30 cent drop in price to take out half my position (which is 3333 shares) and I will make approx $1000.

Example:

Short 6666 shares at 3.74

Once $AMD goes to 3.44 I cover 3333 shares and lock in $1000 in gains, IN ma POCKET

I still have remaining 3333 shares in the position that I will let ride, because I have already locked in $1000 I don't care what happens, the price can come all the way back up to 3.74 but I still locked in my $1000.

Read the chart! Classic Short Setup on the daily, lets see if $AMD has enough bull power to keep it up...markets just ripped into new highs will they hold this bad boy up or will the bears pound on $AMD and bring it lower? 

Right Click Chart, Open in New Tab

P.S.

No Trading for August since I am a busy man, my blog will hopefully be filled with updates about the market, possibly commodities and any thing that I see developing.

Please visit the links below for other information:

About Me, Click Here 

My Trading Journey, Click Here

How I almost burnt down my house, Click Here

Addicted to Trading - $QCOR

Again, I am NOT supposed to be trading but its just too tooooo hard for me to not, I honestly have a problem, I need TO just STOP! NO trading for August, I am shutting down my system, temporarily closing my accounts and that is it! What is the only reason? I don't get to do anything else! Haha! August is going to be a busy month for me, I am trying to get into shape, I need to work out and have a ton of other things on my mind! But hey.

Here is my trade!

$QCOR - I let it go early because I need to do some work around the house. I would have kept this in there, but right now I am not comfortable with leaving my stocks alone, I need to be watching them, orders get skipped sometimes and I cannot afford a risk like that. So I let it go! $69 in ma Pocket!

I bought about 43 shares at 61.11 and another 43 shares at 62.21, I wanted $QCOR to break a some price targets that is why I went half half in, first to test the first breaking point then the next. Right now as I am typing $QCOR is at 65...LOL that is $3 away from where I bought it almost. Beautiful play, but again I was looking for a quicki!

Chart below:

Below: My Prints (Trade Tickets) As you can see first transaction at 09:38 and I was done trading 09:48

Below: Profit for the Morning! - I kind of regret letting it go, but hey that is the life of a trader! +$69

$HMA - What a Short! Wish I Managed it Better though!

$HMA

Traded this beauty, it got slaughtered right out the open! It fell like a rock and BAM! I first shorted 650 shares then I was like NAH, thats too large of a position for me, then right covered 150 and rounded my position to 500 shares short. I was not expecting this to die this quick and with such force! I wish I had taken more gains around 13 area and maximized my profits but hey, still $100 on this is great for the day!

Here is the chart! $HMA

Right click chart, Open in New Tab!

Below: are the trade tickets, try to look at the times on the trade tickets and then look at the time on the chart above to match up what I did! I don't have time to update and draw on the chart today! 

Below: Profit/Loss for the day! $100

Enjoy your Tuesday everyone!

My 4 Minute Trade - $AAPL

Again, I was not really going to trade today, but because of my problem and addiction to trading I ended up sitting on the computer and just looking looking and looking even more. I noticed yesterday after the market $AAPL had some positive news (woohoo) (not) and so I was curious how it would trade today so that is why I turned on my computer. In the end the trade lasted 4 minutes and I managed to profit a nice $44 from it. At about 09:45 I was done trading for the day.

Here is what happened! Look at the charts!

Right Click Chart, Open in New Tab

Here are my trade tickets and P/L for today!

Now I will do my other favourite pass time activity, which is painting! Click Here to see what I am painting!

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

Lucky Text Message!

I been telling myself that I don't want to be trading because I have a lot of things going on but when  you wake up with a text message as juicy as the following it is very very difficult to stop yourself.

And that is exactly what I did today! I put $AAPL on my radar and watched it die. Big thank you to my friend, I hope you traded $AAPL too!

Underneath is the proof. This text message made me $69.31! haha

Well today was an odd day, 2 losers and 2 winners, so my batting average is 50% but whats the key to trading? Make sure you cut your losers right away and make sure you take advantage of your winners! Treat each trade the same! One way or another, you will profit!

If you want to know what a dying $AAPL looks like, look at the chart below: $AAPL basically opened at 426 ish and died all the way down to 421.5 ish! BOOOYAA!

Now since I have some art work to do I can't do an in depth analysis of all my trades, here is $AMD and how I watched this die too! haha!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday!! 

What I anticipate with $AMD - I have butterflies in my tummy

So today after the market closes $AMD will report 

I see only 3 things happening:

1) $AMD exceeding expectations and popping up to say $5 

2) $AMD doing okay or meeting expectations and popping to $4.50+ 

3) $AMD not meeting expectations and falling, possibly below $3.79

I don't care what happens, I will try to trade $AMD tomorrow. 

If it pops up I will look for a long opportunity for an Intra-day trade. If it drops I will let it relax and see if it goes near the $3 mark and increase my position in my other account. 

Lets see what happens! Can't wait :) 

Trust Issues

So I told you how I was chicken in trade $AXP, I told you how it faked me out so hard and it went BLAM and I lost -$18 right away.

People below is how a trade can GO EXTREMELY wrong, now if I was in the yellow zone and I was short this stock (which means I am hoping it goes down down down) that way I can make money money money. If I was in the yellow zone short and this happened to me and I didn't have my orders preset into my system to get me out of my position if something wrong happens, I would totally be SCREWED! Look at what happened. This bad boy SHOT UP in seconds! Look at how many shares were traded! HOLY MOLY!

This is honestly scary. I will never ever ever ever be the same trader after seeing this.

Now this is WHY trading can be dangerous!

Right click Chart, Open in New Tab! OMGGGG

Being Chicken and Trading Don't Mix - Feel Blessed

I just want to highlight that I feel very blessed today that I came out with a positive return, I normally don't right senti-menti stuff but I really do. Let me tell you what happened.

1. My Order did not get filled for what would have been a beautiful trade - $YHOO
2. I got desperate and went after $YHOO trade, broke a few of my trading rules and didn't know how to manage my trade because I was not familiar with what I had just done
3. My second trade I made failed, right away I was out $-18, so because of this I let go of my $YHOO because I did not want a negative Profit / Loss on my screen for today. 
4. RIGHT after I sold $YHOO it shot up like a rocket (this got me upset) but you know what? I walked out of $YHOO with a gain and it was a trade that wasn't in my plan so I was proud
5. I went in for round 2 on $AXP and won, but again because of my worry that I did not want a negative P/L for the day I let that go early. 

What have I learned?

• Treat each trade separately, do not look at your profit / loss for the day. If you try to manage your profit and loss you will end up being a break even trader, that is why I am happy today to walk away with +$28 instead of a $0.
• Manage your trades not your profit / loss
• Do Not BE a....

 Chicken!

Now lets concentrate on my trades:

Trade 1: $YHOO

Right Click Image, Open in New Tab

Read the commentary in the picture to get a better understanding of what happened.

$YHOO Trade Tickets - LOOK where I SOLD!!! SO upset!

Trade 2: $AXP 

Round 1: 

$AXP moved so fast I immediately got out of my position and took a loss. I did not like it at all.

Right Click Chart ,Open in New Tab

Read the commentary in the picture to get a better understanding of what happened.

Round 2: 

Again I was still scared and still thinking about my profit and loss rather than managing my trade, I took profits way to early and did not give $AXP the space it needed. I guess I am a little obsessed.

Right Click Chart ,Open in New Tab

Read the commentary in the picture to get a better understanding of what happened.

$AXP Trade Tickets - Look where I covered and LOOK where price went!! Profits is in the management people, companies need good management, your life needs good management and so does trading, I did not manage these 2 trades with confidence, I wanted my money.

Profit / Loss for the Day: +$27

Click on the Links below to read my previous Trades!

Oh Charlie...$SCHW

First Long Trade in a Long Long Time - Beauty 

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