Category: Trades

I’m just posting one chart today, because it’s a peach. This was a late trade for lazy old me, who is usually done by lunchtime, but the tech stocks were a-tumbling, and opportunity was everywhere.

There’s a certain amount of luck in trading, I’ll be honest. Or rather, a certain amount of bad luck. It can often be the case that we miss a great trade because we’re in another not so good one, or because we just didn’t have that stock on our watchlist. FB is one of my core stocks so I’m always keeping an eye on it. And because this was a late trade, I was out of everything else by the time it happened, so could give it my full attention. In other words bad luck did not afflict me, and because I was prepared I was able to capitalize on the opportunity when it came along.

As it turned out, my attention was only required for about five minutes. By then we were heading north again. A pause, or a reversal? Nobody knows, so it was time to get out.

Had I gone for the second entry about ten minutes later, I could have almost doubled my profit. Was that a mistake? Maybe. But the momentum on the second part of the move was less, and I’d made more than enough money for the day to deal with the risk.

Trading in a week with a bank holiday is often a bit odd. A lot of traders take the whole week off, and the market has a different feel. Sometimes trades happen a bit later than usual, as though everyone is relaxing and taking their time. There’s always plenty of opportunity though. Here’s a nice little trade on DKS, a stock I haven’t posted here for a couple of months.

All pretty textbook stuff. The setup wasn’t the greatest ever, but the drop when it came was fast and furious — just the way we like them. The exit was signaled by a clear shift in momentum on the tape.

It’s been a while since I posted a two-biter on this blog. Here’s one that happened on QCOM, an old friend (by which I mean a stock that’s been on my core list for years, not a favourite, because of course we don’t have favourites!):

This trade was never great from the start, with the price dithering and going sideways. Still, QCOM is a stock I’ve traded for many years and is generally quite predictable and reliable. Also, chip makers were heading south in general (we never look at a chart in isolation). So the entry was worth the risk, and indeed for a few minutes it all looked okay.

Then momentum faded. Rather than hope it might turn around, the strategy says exit (and the golden rule says never let a profitable trade turn into a losing one). So I was out with a paltry 14 cents / share. Still, $140 is better than a kick in the teeth, and provides a buffer for another entry should one come along.

And indeed one did come along, less than ten minutes later. With momentum picking up again, and the buffer of the previous trade, the risk on the new trade was very low. This time things dropped further and faster. The final exit came when momentum turned, giving a profit on the second bite of 74 cents, so $880 combined.

People often tell me they get stopped out of trades (which is a problem, because we shouldn’t use stops as exits), and that they then watch in horror as a few minutes later the price goes their way. I’m always puzzled by this. It’s as if people have some kind of rule that says when you’ve had a losing trade on a stock you can’t trade it again for the rest of the session. It’s like a loss (or break even, or smaller than expected win) somehow makes a stock temporarily toxic — to be avoided until the poison wears off. But that’s a folly. A good setup is a good setup regardless of what came before. I never rule out a stock because I might have taken a loss on it earlier. There are many other reasons I might miss a second bite at the cherry, but a disappointing first entry is never one of them.

No massive winners today. Tesla could have been interesting but volume was high and it was too choppy for me. Facebook had a lovely setup, but that happened at lunchtime so I was long gone. We don’t need four-figure trades every day to make a good living though. Indeed we don’t need them at all. Just stack up a few modest wins like this one on ROKU and our account balances will grow.

Strictly speaking the entry here could have been quite a bit earlier because we had a lovely triangle pattern and an obvious exit. I went with the classic entry, and the obvious exit when momentum dropped away.

$500 won’t set the world alight, but as I say, stack up a few modest wins like this each day and we can make a decent wage.

A couple of good’uns today. First up, ARRY:

This was well signaled and worthy of the earlier entry. That meant there was enough profit in the pot to ride out the ending a little. Had I gone in later I probably would have exited around the $24 mark. As it is, this yielded $1,330 per thousand shares traded, making it by far the most profitable trade of the day.

The magic of margin means just $6000 in a trading account would be sufficient to have traded a thousand shares of ARRY. Math isn’t my strong point (as we know), but assuming such an account size, I make that a 22% return on investment — in one day. Well, one morning. Well, about half an hour, really. Spellbinding stuff.

Next up, AAPL, because we haven’t checked in with that stock for a while:

The entry here wasn’t quite so gob-smackingly obvious, so I was more conservative on the exit, getting out at the first target for $600. Holding longer would have got us over the $1000 mark, but hindsight is 20/20 and recklessness can cost us a lot more than missed opportunity. All in all, not a bad day at all.

A couple of very nice trades to start the week. First up was DISH, which was just screaming out to be shorted.

It was only decent to oblige, and fifteen minutes later when things calmed down and momentum shifted, it was time to get out. $1,030 profit on that one. It wasn’t the most profitable trade of the day in pure profit terms, but it was the most profitable by another measure — more on that in a moment. The accolade of most profitable trade of the day in dollars gained went to Tesla (again).

This was right at the end of the morning so I nearly missed it. But with all that volatility around the important $200 price point, a trade was always going to be on the cards.

As I’ve mentioned, Tesla is a stock I’m learning the nuances of. Which is why I got out without hesitating at the point I did. That made for $1,110 in about six minutes or so (not that the timing matters).

Tesla continues then, to offer hefty rewards to the bold. It’s a high-priced stock, but we can always adjust our position size to something suitable to the price tag. Even cutting the size of this trade by ten would have yielded an easy hundred bucks for a few minutes in the trade. And of course, margin is there to help leverage these moves.

However, if we look at the profit gained for every dollar risked in the market, the DISH trade blew Tesla out of the water. For the same capital that was put on the line to trade 1,000 Tesla shares, it would have been possible to trade 6,000 Dish shares. That’s theoretical as the slippage on such size would have been something to take into account. Still, even if we assumed five times the size, that makes the Dish trade potentially worth more than five grand.

One of the great things about trading stocks is that ability to size up and down according to budget and risk. It’s easy to start small with tiny risk and work up to much larger sums as an account and experience grow. It means stocks are accessible to traders of any level of experience.

A quick one to end the week’s trading. Here’s BIDU:

This trade was slightly unusual in that I traded into the EMA, which is something I generally avoid. But the EMA is only a yellow flag, not a red one. With plenty of other green flags around, I judged that the odds and probability were sufficiently in my favour.

As always, I was ready for a very fast exit. The advantage of these kinds of trades is that you know very soon after entering if it’s working out or not. If it starts going against me right away, I’m gone.

In this case, I was on the right side of the momentum and out as soon as that faltered around a logical exit.

A couple of nice wholesome textbook trades today. The first one was not the largest winner of the day, despite producing a healthy $840 profit. Here’s the chart for FTCH:

The early drop was precipitous and a trader more on the ball than myself could well have taken the earlier entry to more than double their profit. I made do with the regular signal and took my profit at the first sign of trouble. 

There was lots around to trade (AAPL and ROKU doing it for the core stocks for example), but this one at the end of my morning was worthy of inclusion here:

Regular readers know I like to be done by midday, so taking a relatively late entry like this is less common for me. But hey, momentum was wild as the price dropped off a cliff. There was a high probability that it would all be over in a matter of minutes, and indeed it was all over in a matter of minutes. About ten. So that was a $100/minute trade right there, and still out in time for lunch.

There are excellent, easy trades to be had in every session when we trades stocks. Never a dull day.

It’s been a while since I posted a Facebook trade, so let’s rectify that situation:

All standard stuff here, with a clean entry and an exit when momentum dried up. Another four-figure profit from a single trade. There’s a lot around at the moment, and core stocks like FB, TSLA, and ROKU are bringing home the bacon. But we must never become complacent — pre-market research is still the order of the day; we cannot rely on core stocks to provide the goods every day. 

Here’s another Tesla trade, this time to the long side:

As with yesterday’s TSLA trade, I probably could have squeezed a bit more by getting out a tad earlier. Still, $1,730 profit isn’t bad, even if this time it took almost ten minutes to get there.

Before anyone asks, I didn’t enter earlier because the momentum wasn’t really there.