083107 - BAC - 10mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: BAC
Type: Long
Result: Lost -1R

• The chart below shows what I was seeing upon entry
• It is a 3min chart and the inside Hammer was what caught my attention
• Now that I look back at this chart again, I noticed that there weren't that much volume to support the hammer
  

• This chart below shows how prices bounced off the Pivot Points
  

• So when I flipped over to the 10mins chart, it was a Hammer that actually bounced off the PP
• A second Hammer followed, although it was a weak hammer
• But it still managed to closed above the 5eMA
• I decided to enter Long when prices go above the high of the second hammer
• My Protective Stop was the low of the 2nd Hammer
  
• Prices quickly retraced after my entry
• I was later Stop Out
• Although prices did climb back up, it never exceed the high of the 4th bar
  

• With this trade, it concludes my trading month of August
• I will post a month-end review over the weekend
• To my 3 readers, have a wonderful long week-end!
  

083007 - KG - 15mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: KG
Type: Long
Result: Gained +0.86R

• Drew a potential Pivot Point (see blue line), which is slightly above the Opening Range High
• Drew Fib from Day low to Day High
• KG painted a Hammer during the 7th bar, closing above the 5eMA, but just slightly below the Day High
• Entered Long when prices break above the Day High
• Continuously adjusted my Stop to the bottom of the previous bar
• Got Stopped-out during the 12pm bar
• A very small gain
  

082807 - AMZN - 15mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: AMZN
Type: Short
Result: Gained +0.63R

• I didn't have much time to pay attention to the market today
• I ran into AMZN this morning, just right after it broke the Opening Range Low
• I quickly entered Short, but the prices retraced sharpely during the next candle forming and long Hammer
• I thought about closing my position for a Break Even trade, but decided to wait till if/when the prices closed above the 5eMA
• It didn't and the prices fell again
• Since I had to leave my desk soon, I decided exit my entire position after seeing the 11:45 bar painted a lower shadow
• A rather small gain
  

082407 - QCOM - 10mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: QCOM
Type: Long
Result: Lost -1R

• QCOM came from Jamie's watchlist from his Pre-Market post here.
• I've read a lot about Jamie's Pivot Point trades, and I decided to give it try today
• I plotted what "I believe" to be Pivot Points (see chart below) at $38.00 (hey, round number too!)
• As the prices closed in to $38.00, my finger was at the finger, ready to fire!
• The chart above is what the chart looks like during entry
• The yellow line (top chart) is the Pivot Point
• When the prices crossed the Pivot Point, it gapped up
• That's why my entry was a bit further away from the Pivot Point
• Unfortunately, I was stopped out during the next bar. (It would have been the same bar if my stop was tighter!)
• I spotted another potential entry at around 12:30, when it painted consecutive Hammers/Twizzer Bottom?
  
• But it also seemed to me that there a long Upper Shadow, Shooting Star like, bar right in front of it. That's why I didn't enter.
• And of course, the ones that you didn't enter, it always get to the 138% Fib!
  
• Thanks for reading my blog!
  
• Have a wonderful weekend!
  

082307 - CFC - 10mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: CFC
Type: Short
Result: Lost -1R

• I am very trigger-happy today!
  
• This is my 4th entry of the day and also my 4th losses for the day
• I entered Long on CFC after the prices fell through a mini-base (see yellow line)
• But the prices didn't drop much
• Enough for the day!
  

082307 - ZGEN - 5mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: ZGEN
Type: Short and Long
Results: Lost -2R total

• The Inverted Hammer formed shortly after noon caught my attention
• It also broke below the base that was formed during the past 30 minutes
• I entered Short with my initial target at the Day's Low
• I was Stopped-out less than an hour later
• Soon after I was Stopped-out, the prices formed an extremely narrow-range base
• I set a Long Entry just above the $12.00 mark, and it was triggered shortly after 2pm
• It didn't move much after my entry, and I existed the trade later when the prices started to drop
• Below is the zoomed-in view of my 2nd entry
  

082307 - SFD - 5mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: SFD
Type: Long
Result: Lost -1R

• The Hammer formed on the 9th bar, with increased volume, caught my attention
• In addition, the prices also closed above the 5eMA
• Although the Upper Shadow from the 6th bar did bother me, I decided to enter Long
• I should have listened to my inner self because the prcies didn't rise that far
• I was Stopped-out shortly after
  

082207 - PBR - 10mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: PBR
Type: Long
Result: Lost -1R

• A Hammer was painted during the 10:30 bar
• With the 5eMA relatively nearby, I decided to enter Long when the prices on the next bar breaks the high of the Hammer
• My initial target is the Day High, while the Protective Stop was set to just underneath the Hammer
• Don't know what happened, but during the 11:00 bar, almost all the stocks on my screen began to drop
• The Dow actually dropped 30 points during that period too!
• And during this time, my Stop was triggered
• I thought about re-entering right after the 11am bar completed
• But that Upper Shadow formed at the 10:45 candle (see chart below) turned me away
• More importantly, I have tons of meetings today so I won't be able to pay much attention to it
• Below is the full-day chart for review
  

082107 - ASN - 10min - Loss*Paper

Symbol: ASN
Type: Long
Result: Lost -1R

• Well, I missed the first entry, and I was hoping that there will be a 2nd round of run
• I entered Long as prices crossed the yellow line (see first chart)
  
• It did made a very-mini-run, but failed
• I thought about exiting earlier to avoid a full 1R loss, but I was too optimistic... thinking that it might bounce
• I was wrong and my Stop was triggered
• Below is the full day view of ASN

082007 - AA - 15mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: AA
Type: Long
Result: Gained +0.37R

• Although I made a very small profit from this trade, this trade should not have materialized to begin with
• First, the 10:00 and 10:15 bars have very long Upper Shadows
• Second, the risk to rewards is questionable
• Third, the Hammer bar (4th in chart) had no significance volume
• Anyway, my target was at Day's High
• I knew, upon entry, that this is a less-than-ideal entry, therefore, I was cautious
• As soon as the prices broke below the 11:15 & 11:30 low, I exited the trade
• A very small gain on a poor trade... considered myself lucky on this one!

PS. Blogger is saying that there's a scheduled outage beginning at 7p EST. I don't know how long it will be out. Just so you know.

082007 - CROX - 10mins - Lost*Paper

Symbol: CROX
Type: Short
Result: Lost -1R

• I was hoping to play a little reversal here with CROX
• I saw that the 8th & 9th bar were signaling a potential reversal
• The 10th bar confirmed the reversal, but failed to close below the 5eMA
• The 11th bar opened below the 5eMA, and I entered Short
• My Target was the 61.8% Fib, from Day Low to Day High
  
• My Protective Stop was set to just above the 5eMA, which we can see now that it was a little too tight
• I was Stopped-out almost immediately
• Although I didn't profit from this trade, it's good to see that I did reach my target had I manage to stay in the trade
  

• Here's the full day view of CROX
• What a nice move!
• I looked and looked and I still couldn't see an entry to go Long
• Please share if you see anything
  

No entries today!

I tried but didn't spot any decent entry. Instead of forcing it, I rather just sit back and observe. I hope all of you had a great trading week, and a nice weekend.

081607 - CFC - 10mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: CFC
Type: Short
Result: Gained 4.06R

• Today's shortlist was long... so long that I almost didn't want to deal with it because of my other work load
• I left the screen up, and paid attention to a few that haven't tanked!
• At around noon, CFC's prices fell to covered the lower shadows of the previous bars
• Earlier, I saw an inverted Hammer from the 5mins chart, but I decided against it because of those lower shadows
• I entered Short at $17.47, with my Protective Stop set at the high of the same bar
• Prices then hit Day Low, followed by a Gap-Down
• I was hoping that the prices will hit the 138% Fib.
• It didn't, but I exited just in time before the rebound
• Another gain! I'm happy!
  

081507 - PAYX - 10mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: PAYX
Type: Short
Result: Gained +0.87R

• PAYX came from Trader Jamie's Watch List as posted on his blog here
• The reason why this is on his Watch List is because (I think) there is a potential that PAYX can fall through a major Pivot Point at $44.00 (see yellow line)
• Prices reached the Pivot Point at 1000hrs and retraced
  
• I saw a mini-base forming at around 1000hrs, and I entered when the prices breached the base
• But once I have entered Short, I realized that my trade was (almost) pointless!
  
• Because if I already knew that a Pivot Point (a potential support!!) is at $0.19 cents away, it really makes my Rewards to Risk ratio of this trade looks poor! (My Protective Stop was at the Entry Bar's High)
  
• With this knowledge in mind, I became more cautious with my trade management, and prepared to exit my trade at any moment!
• Since I (or no one) knows if the prices will go through the Pivot Point, with force and authority, I long decided to exit half of my position when it reaches the Opening Low
• I watched closely after my first half exit, and re-adjusted my Stop
• I was Stop-out during the next bar
• Although the prices did managed to breach the Pivot Point, several times, it failed to dive further
• PAYX will be on top of my Watch List tomorrow!
• A 0.8R gain is still better than nothing!
  

081507 - ASML - Observation

• This is just a 'after-the-fact' type of observation
• I doubt that I will be making an entry because of the previous Lower Shadows that painted between 1200hrs and 1300hrs, with some of them go as further as touching the next Fib.
• Even with the Inverted Hammer carved at 1400hrs, there weren't any volume to support the this potential entry point
• Still, I just want to put this chart up for future reference, and maybe my readers see some things that I didn't
  

081407 - MAT - 10mins - Gain*Paper

Symbol: MAT
Type: Short
Result: Gained +3.14R

• First of all, I almost entered Long during the 12:50 candle, when the prices broke the Day-high.
  
• But I decided to wait for the completion of the candle, as a confirmation, but it failed to close above Day-High
• I stayed tune to MAT see which way it was going to go
• It painted consecutive NR7's and Inside Bar (does zero price movement even considered as NR, or IB?), setting up a Base.
  
• Then at 13:50, it fell below the Base
• My Protective Stop was set to the high of the 1pm bar
• As the prices fell, I adjusted my Stop to follow the previous bar High
• My initial target was the next Fib. Level. But looking at the Historical chart, it appears that there's a potential Pivot point around the $22.76 level (see yellow line)
  
• Therefore, I adjusted my primary Cover point to $22.76, which it did get there
• I was Stopped-out during the next bar
• A 3R+ gains... I'm happy!
  

081407 - FOSL - Observation

• I was watching FOSL as it approached the Opening Low, and I just couldn't pick out an Entry!
• Because I was ONLY looking at the 10mins chart!
• Now that I have switched back to the 5mins chart, I did see a potential entry
• But as noted on the chart, I would have stopped out almost immediately, and would have felt discouraged to re-enter the trade (5mins)
• As for the 10mins chart, the 7th candle (inverted hammer) was tempting! It closed below the 5eMA, but failing to close below the Opening Range Low was the reason why I didn't enter the trade
• By the time the 10th candle closed 'way' below the Opening Range Low, I thought the move was over and gave up on FOSL
  

Weekend Video - Living in the world of 1/1,000,000th seconds

Although this video is in Japanese, but you don't really need to understand what they are talking about, to enjoy what they are presenting. Basically, this college professor has invented a camera that can capture images, specifically video images, at 1/1,000,000th of a second. What it means is that you can literally see how a drop of water goes flat when it hits the ground, or a detail process of puncturing a water balloon. This video is 9:30 minutes long, but I think it's worth it. Especially if you have some extra time on the weekend. Tell me what you think!

All I want is an accurate feed!

I mentioned it once before in my blog that I am getting conflicting chart data when comparing Quote Tracker (using Ameritrade feed) against eTrade.

In that post, I pointed the finger at Ameritrade, accusing Ameritrade's feed was wrong. One of my 3 readers left me a comment, questioning how I came to that conclusion? I didn't document enough evidence to support my accusation! Since then, I haven't cross referenced any chart until today.

I did not go to work today and I'm trading from home. Whenever I'm trading from home, I like to run my eTrade console, in addition to the QT, to practice my paper trades.

I zoomed in on RFMD this morning. I plotted a Pivot Point/Support right at $6.00. So I thought if the prices break through the $6 barrier, we/I may have a setup there. At that moment, my QT shows that my Day-Low for RFMD was $6.02. But when I look over to eTrade, the Day-Low was $6.00!!

What the hell!!!?? Is it that difficult to just give me a MATCHING DAY-LOW of a stock???? And I'm only less than 2 hours into the market! How difficult could that be?

Discouraged and upset... I decided to do some research and this is what I've found:

Setup: 5min Candle
Comparison: On the first 12 candles


eTrade

• Since this is a steaming data feed, I'm going use this graph as a baseline for comparison (I no long know which feed/chart/company/site is correct anymore! I just need to pick up and use it for comparison.)
  

Yahoo

• I was NOT able to find 1 single identical candle between eTrade and Yahoo during the first 12 candles
• They are ALL different between the 2 charts!!!
  

www.MarketWatch.com

• MarketWatch only showed 4 bars with discrepancies when compare to the eTrade's chart
• The good news is, the first 4 bars are identical
• The 5th bar showed an Upper shadow on MarketWatch, but a Lower shadow on eTrade instead
• The 6th bar is a long Hammer with no Upper shadow on Marketwatch, but Upper shadow exists in eTrade

TD Ameritrade (Website)

• Not a single identical bar between Ameritrade, eTrade, and Yahoo!
  
• Better yet, just compare the 1st bar and you'll see that the Opening Price of the day from Ameritrade is way 'different' from eTrdae and Yahoo
• I suspect that this chart is time-shifted, or something, because the 6th bar falls at the 10am x-axis, while all the charts has the 7th bar that falls on the 10am x-axis
• Looking at this chart left me 'speechless'! (Actually, I said 'what the hell?'... and then went speechless.)

QuoteTracker (with Ameritrade Feed)

• Strangely, my QT (w/ Ameritrade feed) chart is quite different from the Ameritrade Web chart, as you can tell my just looking at the first bar
• The first 4 bars were in-sync with the eTrade chart
• But the 6th bar is where the impact is! By 10:05am, the Day Low for RFMD is at $6.00, formed by the low of the 6th bar, but QT shows that the Opening Bar low, is still the Day-Low!
• And from the 6th bar onward, all the bars were different between QT and eTrade

Comments
I no longer know which feed/chart is right/wrong anymore! I never thought that getting a matching chart on the same stock and timeframe between different platform/site could be so difficult! I am only a newbie who is just trying to learn daytrading. I shouldn't have to worry about the integrity of my data. After all, these data are provided by some very well known companies. I do not know what to do now. Shall I continue to practice my trading using the same feed? Or is it pointless now because the set-up that I based my entry/exist decisions on, are no longer real?

If my readers have any suggestion or recommendation, I would lik to hear from you. Because right now, I feel very discouraged and lost! :-(


Updates
(@ 9:11pm EST)
Mom, look what I've found! A Pepsi (PEP) that shows different prices!

The first chart below supposed to be the historical chart on PEP as of Day-close today. According to this first chart, the closing price of PEP is just a little bit under $69.50



This chart below is today's (1day, 10mins) chart of PEP. It shows that the closing prices is $68.50!!! I've check MarketWatch.com and the closing matches this 1day chart below.

Pivot Points Exercise

I got some time on hand this evening, and I decided to try preparing some "Pivot Point" set-ups (see Wall St. Warriors for additional samples) for tomorrow's session. I didn't come up much, but LVS seems like something that can be considered. Let's see if LVS can break $109.5 tomorrow.

080808 - Obersvation

• I thought about trading FRPT but I didn't see any significant change in volume
• By the time the 11am bar completed (with increased volume), I thought the 'move' was over, and I didn't want to chase it
• What's your thoughts?
  

080808 - LEAP - 15mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: LEAP
Type: Short
Result: -0.67R

• Let me first admit that I was uncertain even before entering this trade
• I just wanted to try it out to see if it works
• I first spot this Shooting Star on the 5mins chart (first chart) , with increased volume
• A shooting star was also patined in the 3mins chart (not shown)
  
• I have to admit that the 15mins Reversal signal was less than ideal. Therefore I wanted to wait for a confirmation for the reversal signal.
  
• Once I got it, I entered short (see 2nd chart for prices)
• I exited before my Protective Stop to avoid a full 1R loss
• There was just no volume there!
• Another good learning experience!
  

080808 - HLT - 5mins - Loss*Paper

Symbol: HLT
Type: Short
Result: Loss -1R

• I think my mistake here was that I didn't wait for the next bar to break above the Hammer?
• Looking at the full-day chart now, my entry this morning looks really stupid!
  

080707 - No-trade Review

I didn't make any trade today. Today seems to me a very tricky day for newbies like me. (In my case, it seems like just everyday is tricky!) Anyway, I made some observation throughout the day... and there were a few 'almost traded' scenarios that I want to keep a record, for future reference. (or maybe for your reference too!) I commented directly on the charts. You may click on the chart to enlarge the image if you cannot see my comments clearly.

I'm learning to be selective with my entries. I think I did an 'okay' job today in that aspect!

DWA

• I think Jamie mentioned this stock this morning, and it was also included in Briefing's gapper.
• I have no idea how to trade the big rise up.
  
• I see a potential Base and Break for Short though.
  

IPG

• Thought about it but the 5eMA was too far away
  

LVS

• Both LVS and WYNN had some movements today
• But I decided against it
  

WYNN

• I'm trying to be very selective (picky) with my entry.
• It appears that I have accomplished my goal for today!
  

080607 - RIO - 5mins - Loss*Paper

• My shortlist came up unusually short today
• Out of boredom, I decided to see if this kind of setup/trade will work (this is the only trade that I did today.)
  
• RIO gapped down today and formed a long Hammer on the 3rd bar (5mins), which is not really a good sign for Short to begin with (hey, at least I was aware of it.)
• The 6th bar painted an upside down Hammer. But the Hammer didn't close below the 5eMA
• I thought the price was consolidating and forming a base, and I decided to give it a shot during the 10:50 bar
• My target was the Day-Low, but I already got stopped-out 2 bars later
• The final chart is to show how RIO finished the day
• Oh well, I'm experimenting, and that's why I'm paper trading!