Day Trading Post #79

Things have been interesting lately, and as I have been increasing my size on positions, I have been taking some more significant hits when stopped out of positions. Still, that won't deter me. That's how it goes... more risk, more reward, but sometimes you'll get burned. Anyway, the airline stocks are taking off and I sold of UAUA and DAL for a decent profit. They are continuing to run, but I sold into strength, maybe a bit to early, but profit is profit. Unfortunately, I took a large hedge... I guess you could say even more than a hedge... more like a heavily bearish position on the Riets yesterday and got burned by it. With the market pushing upwards at these levels, I was expecting a pull back and was looking to profit on it. Too bad I was wrong! I have been bullish this whole time yet I took a bearish position, go figure. The question I asked myself after I ate the loss was "Who was I trying to out smart?" I guess I thought I was smarter than myself LOL!

Anyway, that was another lesson learned. In the mean time I have been doing some research and looking for some setups. Here is what I have on my watchlist:

SKH: smaller valued healthcare stock; double bottom formation on the daily chart; starting to break out; stochastics crossing from oversold region; MACD crossover; looks good for a long (entry @ or under $7 on a pullback / nibble at $7.15 entry and add at $7.30 if no pullback)

RRR: rental and leasing service company; downward channel (close to breakout of top trend line); stochastics crossing over; MACD crossover; looks good for a long (entry @ $6.70; stop @ $6.15; measured move is 65 cents ===> target @ $7.30-.35)

CNO: Conseco; stochastics crossing over; MACD crossover; looks good for a long (entry @ $5.20; stop out under $5.00; 1st target at $5.70 second target @ $6.00


That's it for now. Looking to take 500-1k shares per position. I will post updates later on!

Day Trading Post #78

Today we had a nice gap up in the market, and intraday it was great to short. Many of my longs are playing out nicely, and I managed to catch DRN for 3.10 point long at the close. The market overall is looking very bullish and I would anticipate that we will break 1100 on the S&P Cash soon. We broke through to new 52 week highs on the S&P and on the Dow, but closed shy of the resistance at 1100 for the S&P. My take on this is that we will probably consolidate a bit under the 1100 level and then we'll have an explosive move up. I'm being more cautious this time around since I got burned the last time we came up to these levels.

As for my longs, SPG is playing out nicely and I am sitting nicely in the money. The Airline stocks are consolidating and look as if they may push upwards a bit more. Along with that, the healthcare sector is still going strong. I am holding my last 100 shares in AET and letting it run!

Today's day trade went very well, and I have been watching and waiting for the technicals to setup for the past few days. Sure, I could have broken and bent my rules a few times last week and earlier this week and potentially made some nice gains, but I held off and waited until my indicators all lined up and then I pulled the trigger. I took DRN long at $123.55 and sold it for a gain of $3.10 per share! Chart is below:

Day Trading Post #77

Well, today got me a bit bullish again and I took some long positions. I am only planning on holding for a short period of time. I bought SPG, UAUA, and SKS. Charts with my notes are below:

SKS is an interesting chart. For the past 6 months you can see (from my interpretation of this chart) that we traded in an upward channel with a wide range. Short term, we have a downward channel which brings us to the lower trend line of the long term channel where you see we bounce. Along with that, the Stochastics and MACD have setup for a long. Things look good for about a point move give or take some. 

SPG is one I have been watching for a while. The stochastics and MACD have crossed to the upside and look bullish. There is the potential for it to pull back down into the falling wedge pattern present on the chart, and if that is the case I may cut my losses and wait for a better entry. Although right now it looks as if we may have caught the breakout. Overall, I took small size but will be watching it closely.

UAUA is a trade I took when looking at a bunch of different airline stocks. I honestly think that you could take a basket of airlines and hold for a few days or so with a tight stop and have some decent profits. Many airline stocks look very similar to UAUA and have the stochastics and MACD setup for a buy.

Finally, the S&P cash chart. On the daily, we look really good for a move up, but I am hesitant around the 1100 level since I got burned pretty badly the last time we hit 1100. Mid October, I should have locked in profits but got greedy and held on resulting in many winning positions rolling over and turning into losing positions. This time, I am not going to let that happen. If I see the market stalling out and showing some resistance around 1100 again, I plan to scale out / lock in profits. We will see in the next few days / weeks!