I just learned something new! It’s called Range Contraction, and I read all about it from Trader Jamie’s blog.
DRYS has been on my radar in the past few days and this evening, I took some time to study DRYS on a longer time-frame chart. (Part of my New Year Resolution!)
I’ve circled all the points that DRYS reacted to the major Fibonacci Retracement points, and not surprisingly, today’s closing price is exactly at the 50% Fib. Retracement from October High to December Low.
My prediction is that the prices of DRYS will retrace back a bit to the $12.60-ish level, before continuing its upward clime again.
Let’s see how it will turn out. Meanwhile, chime in if you have some feedback to share!
I was in the market today but couldn’t find any trade to execute. I just want to post a few charts to document my thought/selection process on a few set-ups that I thought about going-in, but chose not to. Almost all of them didn’t work out the way I wanted to, so I guess it must be a good thing.
1) I thought about enter long off of the 4 bar hammer-like high, but the upper shadow of the first 3 bars stopped me from doing so. If entered, I would have got stopped-out for a break-even, if not a small lost when prices retraced back to the Opening High. It now looks like the Opening High could be a Pivot Point. As you can see, prices did reach the 138Fib.
2) Next one is TCK. I put significant amount of time debating if I want to move-in with a Long, as prices broke the hammer-like high on the 6th bar on the 3-minute chart.
It still looked somewhat convincing when I flipped over to the 5-minute chart… a Long entry above the high of the 4th bar
But neither the 10, nor the 15 minute chart showed convincing entry point. (See the next 2 charts below.) Therefore, I gave up the move, and as it turned out, it was an excellent decision.
The last one is BBY. Looking the chart now, I don’t even know what I was looking at this chart. I don’t even know what to comment here! (Should I just remove this chart?)
No trades is still better than a losing trade. That’s is what I’ve been telling myself, and I need to add this ‘no-trade’ concept onto my New Year Resolution!
This list is what I’ve came up with in the past few days. I’m hoping this list will help me to be a better Trader in 2009. This list is subject to updates, and I’ll elaborate a bit more on each item as time permits. Meanwhile, if you have comments or suggestions, please feel free to drop me a note.
(I’m having some issues with my charting software this weekend, so please excuse these 2 temporary charts copied from MarketWatch.)
I tried to trade today but I have to admit that I’m still feeling very rusty with everything. I was only able to picked out (DRYS), while everything else seemed to me that they are ‘un-fit’ to be traded.
I almost pulled the trigger shortly before 11am. Although it turned out to be the correct decision, I actually thought that I missed a great run. For the record, the reason why I didn’t pull the trigger was because of all those Upper Shadows formed in every single bar since opening. I interpreted that as resistance-aplenty lying around the Opening High. The second reason why I didn’t pull the trigger is because there weren’t really an Entry Bar at all! Technically, speaking, I shouldn’t even be posting this charts because this set-up is just one of the many that I discarded yesterday morning. But since I want to post something to start-off the year, hence came (DRYS).
The question that pondered me afterwards, was that even though it didn’t hit my 138Fib level, shouldn’t I still somehow find a way to ride that small wave up? If yes, then how?
Anyway, I’m just happy that I started trading again.
Once again, Happy New Year to all my readers!
I traded for the first time in more than a year, today!
It feels so good to be back even though I didn’t execute any trade. I was still getting myself accustom to this forgotten environment again.
There are 2 new things that I tried today. First is using FinViz as a screener, while the second is using Twitter to keep track of what I was monitoring this morning.
FinViz stands for Financial Visualization, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve been using FinViz to keep up-to-date with how the 3 major indices are doing in the past year. So this morning, I though I would give its Screener a try. It turned out that I like it a lot, and I do believe that I will continue to use FinViz to screen for gappers.
As for Twitter, long time reader of my blog knows that I have Twitter gadget installed on my blog almost since day one. I’ve always looked at Twitter as a micro-blogging tool, which is exactly what it is. But today, as I Tweet on the stocks that I’m monitoring, I realized that at the end of the day, I can actually go back to Twitter to review all the stocks that I was monitoring, and maybe to find out if I’ve missed any good set-ups, or simply monitoring the wrong stocks.
With this though in mind, I might even expand Twitter’s real estate on my blog, to give it more exposure. Since I can’t really ‘blog’ all the stocks that I monitor, in detail, I see Twitter as a good alternative. If you haven’t added me onto your Twitter’s friend list, my User Name is simply ClosetDaytrader.
Once again, it’s good to be back! However, there will be no trading for the next 2 days, until the New Year.
Happy New Year to you all!
So what had happened in the past few months? To me, the biggest news in the past few months is to see Trader-X returns to blogging. I’ve been a (so far… poor student) of his approach, and I really enjoy reading his blog. If you haven’t read his blog, I don’t know what you are doing here reading up on mine. Head over to his blog now and check it out!
I also noticed that TradingGoddess sends over a lot of referrals to my site. To that, I want to say a big thank you! Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I might have disappointed quite a few of his readers because of my lack of posting in the past few months. In addition, TradingGoddess is also very active in Twittering. If you have an account with Twitter, you might want to add him to your list.
I also want to give a big hats-off to Trader Jamie. Jamie helped me a lot last year when I tried to kick things off. I’ve been a loyal reader of his blog since day one.
Not only have I been reading a lot of trading blogs in the past few months, I have also been adding a lot of new blogs into my Google Reader. If you check out the "My Blog Roll" section to the left of my blog, you'll see that I have incorporated a few of my most often read blogs/RSSFeeds. If you don't have them in your Reader, you should certainly add them!
I was having a conversation over lunch with a friend of mine recently. He asked if I believe in the concept of ‘infinity’ in mathematics. Since I thought I understood a few infinity-related equations, back in High-School, my answer was ‘Yes, of course!’
So he asked…
If I have to travel from 0 to a 100 meter mark, I have to first past the half way point, 50 meter mark, in order to get to the 100 meter mark. To determine the half way point, I would simply divide 100 by 2. Standing at the 50 meter mark, now, if I have to reach the 100 meter mark, I would have to first past the half way point of, ((100-50)/2)+first50meter= 75 meter mark, in order to reach the 100 meter mark.
Now if the concept of infinity is… legit/valid/true, I would never reach my destination because I will be continuing my ‘dividing’ up to the infinity!
Putting the law of mathematics aside, what I got from my friend’s question is…
1) If you don’t start your mission, you will never reach your goal no matter how poorly you are doing with your mission. In my case, it will be Daytrading, or just trading in general.
2) More importantly, if your goal seems to be un-reachable (like Trading, in my case), almost like an infinity, think about setting sub-goals that will lead you towards your ultimate goal. Even you may still never get there, but it will at least bring you closer, and closer, and closer, and closer.
Your thoughts?
Yes, I’m still here!
I have people emailing me asking if I have ended my closet-daytrading career? More importantly, my sponsor – the one who shared his lottery fortune by providing me with the necessary trading capital, has recently asked, during my son’s 1-year old birthday party, if I am to continue my trading.
So I think it’s time for me to provide my readers with an update.
First and foremost, I have not given up closet-daytrading yet! I wouldn’t say I’m still in the game because I haven’t. But I do still see myself as a student of trading. In the past few months, I have continued to study trading by reading books and blogs. The only thing that I haven’t been doing is the actual paper trading. Come to think of it, it has been more than 1 year since I last paper traded. And the reason I stopped paper trading was because of me being a first-time Dad. Now that my son is a year old, I think it’s time for me to pick it up again. Therefore, I’m excited to announce that… I’m back!
First of all, if you haven't heard/tried, let me introduce you to FinViz.com. I think I've found this tool/page from UglyCharts.com. (Apology ahead of time if I've mis-credited the wrong person.) In simple terms, FinViz.com (FinViz stands for Financial Visualization, I think) is just another Financial Portal. But what I really like about FinViz are 2 things...
1) Mouse over the price of a stock, and it will immediately pop up a 3-month daily candle stick chart. With this feature, I can simple keep a portfolio of stocks that I own/monitoring (you need to open up and account first, before you are allowed to save your own portfolio), and mouse over them for a QUICK glance at the 3-month Daily chart. No more clicking the 'chart' link like all other financial portals. This saves me PLENTY of time especially when all I want, when I'm at work, is a quick look without loading more pages.
2) The second thing that I really like is when you click on the stock symbol, it takes you to the detail page of the stock, with an already plotted technical analysis of the stock. Patterns/analysis like Trendlines, Channels, Double Top/Bottom, Head and Shoulder, and more... are right there, if/when it's applicable to corresponding symbol. Below is a sample chart that I picked at random just to give you an idea.
So, I've been using FinViz for a month of so, and here comes StockTweets! Credit to Howard for mentioning StockTweets on his blog, I learned that StockTweets is created by Soren Macbeth from Oakland. What Soren did was, in simple terms, combinging Tweeter with FinViz (although I should include Yahoo and Tumblr too) to give financial blogger and trader a platform to exchange views and comments.
There has been a lot of posts dicussing StockTweets in the blogosphere so I don't want to repeat (copy) what was praised and mentioned. Besides, if you follow my blog, you should already be reading Howard's. Instead, I'm providing a few links here if you want to read more about it.
But I do want to point out that if you do want to follow StockTweets in Tweeter, do not get mixed up with StockTweet (singular). The one with the 's' in the end is what you want.
Read more...
Howard's original thought on how Tweeter can/should be used to benefit stock traders.
This is the post from Howard where I first learned about StockTweets
Here's Soren's Daily Dopeness page
Here's Soren's comment on improvement suggestions found on Howard's blog
Here's StockTweets' Twitter page
I have recently learned that someone close to me is having financial trouble due to the slowing economy. That was what I was first told. I soon found out that this person, whom I shall name Rick, is more than just having a difficult time with his business. Rick is actually have a major issue financially!
(I'm trying to avoid a long drag-out post with too many paragraphs here, so I'll just highlight the situation and my thoughts.)
That's the highlights in 5 bullet points. I'm sure you all get the picture.
After learning what is happening to Rick, I thought to myself...
Another thought is...
In Rick's situation...
Stop-loss...
So...
PS. My son just turned 6 months old. I'm beginning to get some more sleep. I'm preparing to 'come-back' (more like re-starting from scratch now) soon. I still have a large project involved at work, resulting in plenty of 'meeting room' time during trade hours. I shall return as soon as this project dies down. I can't wait!
Thanks to those who still kept me in their Blogroll! I'm still here! And... I'll be back... soon!
I was told that this restaurant is in Belgium. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It has 22 seats, and it is lifted to 50 meters above ground.
So what if I need to use the restroom in the middle of meal?
My blog posting has been slow in the past few months partly due to my newborn son and my hectic work/travel schedule. And it's a direct indication of how often I've been practicing my trades. All this lack of activity has prompted a call from my sponsor. Not only he wants to find out what is going on with my 'practice' and his money, he also wants to take this opportunity to meet my son for the first time.
It turns out that since the winnings, my sponsor has been doing a lot of exciting things. Focusing mostly on investments of various kinds, my sponsor has been keeping himself very busy.
He's been reading my blog, of course, and he noticed that my postings have died down in the recent weeks. He just wanted some face time with me to make sure that everything is okay. I prepared some spreadsheets of both my (his) real money transactions (which I haven't touched it since switching over to Paper Trading), and my paper trade transactions. He didn't look at my Paper Trade spreadsheet, but just briefly looked at the bottom line of the real-money account.
By spending so much effort with paper trading, I think I have shown him that he can trust me with his money. And that I only want the best out of his trust. He assured me that he's not taking the money away because he doesn't need it at the moment. He also confirmed that I can continue with his investment. Even though it's more like a lack of investment.
Our conversation about his money and my trading was short. He spent most of the time playing my baby.
To my Readers and my Sponsor, I want you to know that I have not given up my goal yet. Life has been unusual for me in the past few months, mostly because of my newborn. I've been spending a lot of time with my son... that I can't even get to work on-time, let alone trading. And when I'm at work, I'm dealing with a few major projects that require me attend many conference call and meetings.
I will continue to attempt paper trading in the next few weeks/months. Yes, my trading/posting will be light. But this 'show' must go on! I still have too much faith and interest in it.
And to all my Readers, thank you for continually visiting my blog, even when there were no new posting. And to those who still haven't dropped me from your RSS reader, thank you too!
Rest assure, I'm still around. I'm still reading all the other trading blogs. And I won't give-up/leave without saying goodbye to you all. So until you see/read my farewell post here, my mission is still on!
