Dog-a-thon

I have not posted in while. There is the obvious reason that I am most likely busy. That is true but there is also another reason: Losing Streak. Everything I have touched has turned to junk. Paralyzed by my human-ness, I was unable to turn that junk into gold.
AXE, TIE, DRIV, WOOF, the list goes on that is not posted.
So then you try to shake it off and get back in and it even gets worse as you try to "make up" lost ground. Not gonna happen.

Okay, the market is acting a little suspicious with all these one day pullbacks. Not normal over the long run. Despite an indifferent market, there are lots of bullish and thank goodness, bearish trades.



PCU looks like a great entry.

OMG looks bullish to me

Carmax looks like there is plenty of room for fall. The only question is how long will it take.

There are so many real estate companies that are falling like rocks, AVB is just one that put some quick cash in my account. A great entry could be had right now.

There are so many I just don't have the energy to get all the charts up.

Long -anr, cdwc, do, grp, mlm, omg, pcar, pcu, pot, wcg, x.

Short -hni, kim, infy, kmx

Prophet

I was in church this past weekend and the Pastor was talking about the role of Saints, Disciples, Pastors, Teachers, Prophets and the such. He went on to say that the Prophet would predict the future. It was interesting to say the least, you would have had to been there. I started thinking about how I use Prophet to make a living. Am I a Prophet? Not like my Pastor was talking about, that's for sure.
Learning how to chart really well will give you an edge on predicting future price action. It would appear that this learning process goes on forever. I have not seen a better charting system than Prophet Charts along with the great book by the founder, Tim Knight. Both will empower you to profit from the market.

This past week has been busier than most for me. I have started some Posts but wasn't able to get them completed. So I will include some charts that are few days old and some new ones.

WCG - This was an excellent set up mentioned a week ago. As always, click on any chart to enlarge.

ICE - experiment strangle turned out to be a big hit. Well over a 100% return on investment.

CRR - mentioned as a short idea turned out to be a great idea. A break any further and it could fall fast, as there is a lack of support until 39ish.

CMGI - If you took this trade prior to the breakout, you would be up 15%. Not too bad in just a week. Earnings are in the first week of June and if we can get past 2.50, $3 might come fast.

DRIV - Thought I would have had my bounce by now. Still in the trade and waiting. The doji on Friday is a sign of indecision. It is either ready to continue the recent uptrend or investors have changed their mind about this one.

JEF - A favorite of mine recently has just started to breakout of the flag on Friday. I loaded up on Thursday and believe we will make it to 34 which was the original target.

MEOH - Another good play has been consolidating and ready to make a run to 27 plus. A great stock.

WOOF - Can't say I follow this one but looks like a flag to me. Not a tough trade as support is close by.

HOG - Been following all year long and I took a trade a few days ago and this is the chart of a perfect entry. Inverted Head & Shoulders pattern, plus higher highs and higher lows, the most basic concept of a trend.

This is where it ended on Friday. Sorry I did not get my post up mid week.

TIE - Has fallen off most peoples radar. I saw this nice re test of its break out on huge volume and loaded up on calls Thursday.

I needed the 'Easy Button' for this one. If only they all worked out this way!!

AXE - a new one on the radar that was passed along to me by my friend, Silvia, is looking like it is ready for 5-7 point move.

FSLR - Sort of a trendy play. In its short trading history, it has proved to be a mover when it breaks out. 12 points is not out of the question at all. 7 is a much more reasonable request.

I will have a much better watch list for Monday. This last week was normal and odd all at the same time. Investors pushed prices up waiting for Fed news and reports in the beginning of the week. Sold on the news and scared a lot of people out ( including me ) and then drove prices back up to close the week out. I would look for next week to be a bullish week, going for new all time highs. The tone on Monday and Tuesday will be interesting.

I really Hate being a Bear and not having enough bearish trades to post. I live for days like Thursday when the market falls hard and I failed miserably. My most disappointing day of the year by far. I missed the whole move making one mistake after another. Have you ever just wanted another chance?

Happy Mothers Day.

Pigs?

When do you take profits? How do you remove the emotions that you are feeling when you have a trade that is going just like you wanted? In an earlier post I had mentioned AH, and was thinking at the time about the fall of 2007 time period. Thursday the stock rocketed up on strong volume and I know many would just cash in. But it looked like it was going to have a strong close and it did. Closing at the high for the day! Doesn't that mean the only thing keeping it from going higher is the Bell ringing?

That's what I thought it meant. It tacked on another 5%. Pigs get slaughtered. That's what they say. So how do you determine when you are a pig and when you are letting your winners run? I chose to hang on and took no profits. I am sure emotions will have me second guessing myself as profit taking comes in, but I think there is a little more buying to come, I like 89.

So this was sort of a "live" test as I did a strangle 4 days prior to earnings. The stock has moved 15 points in the last 3 days and I closed out my Puts for 10 cent loss and the overall trade is up 39%. This is not an example of a good trader, but rather a gambler that put the odds in his favor AND got lucky. I had original been attracted to this trade because of how tight the bollinger bands were, the stock is all the way outside of them right now.

AKAM - A lot of people are watching this one, I don't think the selling is all over and picked up some PUTs on what I hope is just a bear flag. The risk to reward is there.

CRR - not a real liquid stock but that does not make it untradeable. If this rolls over, this would be a great short candidate.

WHQ- nothing can go straight up with out taking a breather. Those two spinning tops with the second one getting smaller could be a signal of a little retracement right around the corner.

WCG - This stock was channeling up real nice and I played a couple times for a nice profit. For no reason at all, it took a huge dump. I have to wonder if this old trend line will hold up and bullish trade could be placed. The risk to reward is defiantly there, a stop is clear, a close below 80 and watch out below.

NDX - I can not say that I have ever traded a broadening top pattern, but I can say that I am about to. I don't know when it is going to break out and a partial retracement is likely first. Just have to watch it every day.

I seem to have more bearish things on the watch list than bullish. That is only natural after having another super bullish week. I think there are a ton of stocks and equities that are showing over bought. Time to tighten up the stops and look out below.

Frustrated

I had a mentally tough day today. I started to update the blog last night and was feeling like every chart I was looking at was giving a buy signal. I only got off a couple of weak orders prior to the close and just failed at getting it done. There were some nice trades to be entered and I just did not pull the trigger.

BVN- I spent some serious time researching this before the bell closed yesterday and was frustrated with the option selection. Poor liquidity and I left the chart thinking I would come back later and make a decision. I should have just bought the stock and moved on.

I already had some options on Peabody and did manage to add to the position on that nice hammer.

ANR - I did get this trade off yesterday and it was kind enough to fill my account with some green.

CG - mentioned here before, stays in the channel like a good boy. I bought on the highlighted area and have been waiting patiently.

RATE - I was dead wrong on this one and I hold a bunch of worthless out of the money PUTs at this point. The last two days candle sticks look like it might have run out of gas, but could be too late for me.

TTI - Stopped out two days ago, got back in today, still think it might move.

RS - Entered this today as it can easily move $5 to $8. The whole stock market looked like "flag city"




IIG - This has been a great low risk trade. If only they were all this easy.

JEF - never closed the position, just riding it to the target.

CMGI- I thought I would throw out a cheapy! Price patterns work on all stocks, this stock use to be like 160 in the dot.com era.

HERO - I sold my options on earnings release but still have the stock, watch it for a flag.

KIM - I got this from Jeff Kohler's Blog as a short idea and was all over it. Hoping that earnings are poor.

RUT - I think this was the most frustrating for me today. I wanted to load up on calls yesterday at the close but just chickened out for no real reason other than fear. bock bock, I laid an egg.
Well, I really hate chasing the breakouts, I like to get in prior to, just my style. Hopefully a small pullback on some of these will give a second chance. Other wise it will be best to wait for better entries on the next run.