Day Trading Post #35

Ugh!!! That's all I have to say. First of all, the volume seemed to be very low today which was one indicator not to trade much today. Second of all, after I took my first 3 trades of the day where I was up over 50 cents on each only to have them come back down to my entries for each position, I took a total of 52 cents profit. Then, I got burned by the market bad in SPG and then SKF. SPG was thin today and it seemed to me like there was some manipulation going on because there was such light volume. I was trading off the 15 minute chart, and each time I'd catch a move for 50 cents to a point, it would come all the way down to my entry and stop me out for profits of 5, 10, or 20 cents. That got on my nerves a little, and once I believed SPG was going to take off, it reversed on me and I took a 92 cent hit. So, being down 40 cents, I decided to see if I could make it back on SKF pre-imbalances, which was working at first but then came against me horribly! SKF setup nicely for a long position on the 15m chart with the stochastics crossing to the upside. The market was turning over to the downside on the E-minis, so I took it long. Then after a good 20-30 minutes of shaking around from being up 10 cents or down 80 cents, SKF fell apart to and took me with it. I took a hit for $1.66 per share ending the day down $2.06. OUCH!!! That's two days in a row SKF has hurt me for over $1.50... I'm going to hold off from trading him again.

Overall, my strategy does work, but the problem is I need to be able to trade more shares. 1 position with 100 shares is fine, but it would be nice to be able to add to my position on a pullback using fibbonacci retracement points as entries for adding to my position. That way, when I am up 50, 60, 70, 0r even 80 cents, I can scale out part of my position for profit and leave part of my position in as a runner. Unfortunately, the guy who runs the group for whom I trade under doesn't understand this concept and is not accustomed to my style of trading since he is a 'Micro-scalp Trader.' Regardless of my gripes, today wasn't terrible because you learn from your mistakes. I followed my rules but have realized that I need to add a new one: On days when the volume is light, settle for smaller scalps rather than larger trends.

Despite my shortcomings with my day trades today, the market rally at the close helped out my swing trades immensly. Everything pulled back a lot today, but bounced back somewhat at the close. HW is pulling back, but still holding strong in my opinion. PCX looks good! RACK is holding up nicely. Finally, Kraft (KFT) is coming against me at the moment but it is nowhere near my stop. We'll see how the market performs tommorow. The game plan right now is to paper trade a bit tommorow to get back in the flow of things since I had 2 down days in a row with my day trading (thanks to me trading SKF... OUCH!)

With that said, I may have gotten burned by the markets today, but if you really want to feel the heat, I'd recommend you try "Nuckin' Futs!" I went to a place in town today called "So Dam Hot!" and had some wings and chilli with Nuckin' Futs Hot Sauce and wow! Let's just say that made me sweat more than my trades in SKF the past two days!