PartTimeSwingTrader

Some swing ideas for tomorrow..

2011-10-11T22:04:00.000-04:00

LONG SET UPS

SHORT SET UPS

Good luck and good trading!

Some hot, hot charts for tmrw!

2011-09-19T21:07:00.000-04:00

BREAK OUTS: (Take these on a break of the level with stop loss @ LOD or below intra day support. They could trigger in the first 15 mins to 1/2 hour of trading depending on the open we get tmrw.)

OTHER IDEAS (These have nice set ups on the daily chart but need to form a base/pattern intra day before I will consider touching them.

LONGS:

SHORTS:

Good luck and good trading!

A few ideas for tmrw...ALL SHORTS!!!

2011-09-18T15:44:00.001-04:00

I am very short biased on the markets for next week and here's why:

If you take a look at the daily chart of the SPY's above, you will that it is now very over bought after 5 not so impressive up days in a row on relatively speaking paltry volume. In addition, this up leg looks the be the start of the right side of a smaller head and shoulders pattern very similar to the larger one that we broke down from in late July/early August. Many of the leading stocks are also now very extended and the $T2106 is in over bought territory. All of these are telling me that some sort of pull back next week is very likely. So I am looking for one of two scenarios: a tap back to the up trending line off the August lows shown above as the yellow line or a pull back all the way to the August lows and possibly an undercut shown above as the blue line. So it should come as no surprise to you that all of my watches for Monday are shorts. Here they are:

Good luck and good trading!

A few ideas for tmrw...

2011-09-16T02:03:00.001-04:00

I like $PRMW short...I think its forming a double top.

Near major resistance...could be a good short if the markets pullback.

Like this short. Look for pull back to $6.00

With the $T2106 nearing over bought levels, the indexes pushing into resistance after a four day run up and most of the leading stocks looking very over extended; I am short biased heading into tomorrow and next week. So I will be looking to book profits on any longs I take in the morning session into momentum and to swing partial positions from short day trades tomorrow if the markets confirm a change of short term trend.

Good luck and good trading!

My 15 best ideas for Wednesday...

2011-09-13T19:41:00.003-04:00

I only played $PANL from last night's watch list and banked a nice $250 gain in a less than 25 mins or so. I longed it @ $52.50 w/ $52.00 stop loss off a tight flag on the 5 min chart (as I highlighted at the bottom of last night's watch...I enter most trades off breaks of levels or consolidations), I added more @ $52.52 and then sold 1/2 the entire position @ $53.50 then the rest @ $54.00. I missed out on another 4 - 5 points of upside but I am still very happy with trade. So I am confident my set ups can make money and will continue to trade them according to the plans I have written on the charts and the entry/exit rules I outlined in last nights post. Hope you find them profitable too.

Good luck and good trading!

15 of the very best!

2011-09-12T19:24:00.003-04:00

Please note that I take my entries off the 5 min chart. I generally make two kinds of entries. Straight take out of levels or off of intra-day consolidation.

If I am looking for a straight break of a level my stop will most likely be the low of the day. I will not take the trade if the distance between my entry and target is not greater than 2 times the distance between my entry and stop loss and preferably greater than 3. For instance, lets say $YOKU opens at about $20.10, consolidates for about 15 - 20 mins with the highs of the consolidation (high of day) being $20.35 and then it starts attacking $20.00 with the markets selling off. Assuming that I am using the next whole number $19.00 as my target, I will take the trade. Because the distance between my entry and target is $1.00 ($20.00 - $19.00) which is more than twice the distance between my entry and stop loss of $0.35 ($20.35 - $20.00). If instead the high of the day were $20.60 meaning my stop loss would be $20.60 then I would pass on the trade since I would be risking 60 cents to make a only dollar. For straight breaks I just set alerts and when they trigger I go through the process outlined above to determine whether or not I take the trade. Most often these trades trigger right off the open with in the first 15 - 30 mins after the open. An example of this which I had on watch last night and tweeted this morning was $ULTA: entry was $68.70 w/ $67.95 stop loss and 1st target of $70.00 and then $71.00. Played out text book! An example of one I did not take because of poor risk/reward was $P take out of $11.00 on the 9/9, because $11.50 stop w/ $11.00 entry and $10.50 target was only 1:1! So I passed!

If I am not looking to play a straight break out then I like to wait for an intra-day set up/consolidation. I often use the top of the consolidation as the entry trigger and the low of the consolidation as my stop loss. I use resistance levels on the daily chart/ 30 min chart and round numbers to determine targets. So again, it the risk/reward is better than 2:1 on the initial target then most times I will take the trade if the markets are also trading in line with the setup. An example of this type of entry/set up would be $GMCR from last night's watch list. After pushing to new highs on the day at 2:45pm it moved sideways for the next 40 mins or so while the overall markets were dipping after breaking their intra-day downtrends. The high of the consolidation was about $108 with the lows being $107. The next level of resistance coincided with the round number $110 which made for a perfect initial target. So the risk/reward on the trade was about 2:1 which met the threshold. Around 3:30pm the stock broke out and tapped the resistance level right at the close. At this point it was prudent to take part of the trade off holding a partial over night as both the stock and the markets were closing right highs.

Hope this helps...Good luck and good trading!

17 Set ups you must watch on Monday!

2011-09-11T14:26:00.000-04:00

Good luck and good trading on Monday!

A few swing set ups to keep an eye on next week...

2011-09-04T17:00:00.000-04:00

Good luck and good trading!

My best swing ideas for the rest of this week...

2011-08-31T08:31:00.001-04:00

With the $T2106 closing near 300 today the odds of a multi-day pull back with in the next few days is very high. However, many of the weaker stocks will start breaking down even as the markets are still pushing higher and then most will follow within a day or two. With that said here are my best swing ideas for this week. All shorts!

My favorite is $STAA. Good luck and good trading!

Update on my journey to 25K...

2011-08-23T20:50:00.005-04:00

I have'nt posted on my progress since I started with $1.5K in late February of this year attempting to turn it into a $25K bank roll by the end of year, for some time now because I have been ashamed of my recent trading. However, I decided to give a quick update none the less.

I managed to get my account as high as $5K at the start of this month with a combination of savings and trading. At that time, I decided that since I had enough to go prop and do away with the horrid PDT rule to join the Bulls Pro Service/Lake Street Trading firm. However, thanks to my horrible efforts at prop trading my account went from $5K at the start of this month and now stands at $3.2K!

You might be saying WTF? How did he do that in only three weeks after growing nicely from $1.5K to $5K in 5 months. The answer is simply this: OVERTRADING! I literally lost control of myself once the PDT restriction was lifted and went on a scalping frenzy one day. Lets just say I lost over $1.3K including commissions from over 24 round trips on my third day of prop trading alone! So as you can see most of the losses came in one day of crazy trading and has nothing to with my plan failing or me bag holding something or any thing like that although most of the other days have been either small losses or slightly smaller gains.

I've been working hard to recover these losses and to be honest I feel like I have lost my trading abilities that I have acquired over the past 4 years. I've gotten impatient, forcing trades with out proper setups, taking random trades with too large size; aborting perfectly fine trades way too early and after starting off most days poorly and in the red with confidence low, I stop looking for set ups and miss out perfect ones. My confidence has really been shot and my account has been slowly bleeding. Maybe I need to take a break and just paper trade for a while. So with the way things are currently going it seems the $25K goal might be a bit further away than the end of this year but hopefully I get my touch back soon and resume the hunt!

Wish me best of luck and good luck in your own trading!

No words...just charts!

2011-08-23T20:38:00.000-04:00

My watches for tomorrow...

2011-08-22T19:43:00.002-04:00

Here are my best ideas to watch after the open for day trades:

Here's a list of weak stocks that I will be looking through during the session to trade based off the intra day chart of the SPY's should it continue selling off: $DANG, $CSIQ, $PDC, $P, $SD, $VHC, $RRR, $ALJ, $MOH, $LNKD, $IMAX, $JRCC, $SHO, $MTW, $JVA, $AMRN, $WTI, $ARIA, $AKS, $DF, $JDSU. These stocks generally mirror the markets intra day but they usually form cleaner intra day patterns, offer better risk/reward and are usually much easier to trade/manage while in them than the SPY's!

Although as I said in the weekend video, I still think we are from the end of the correction, I am anticipating that we are going to get a two to three day bounce soon. For not only are the markets over sold and holding support at the lows set in early August I am also seeing a few nice long set ups that are sure to move up big on a two to three day time frame if and when the markets do bounce. So I implore you to keep an eye on these stocks for swing entries (which means looser stops and small exposure as a % of your account):

Swing ideas: $TUDO, $CARB, $GOL, $STAA, $ABAT

Good luck and good trading!

5 Part Video: My thoughts on the market and watches for Monday!

2011-08-20T20:17:00.000-04:00

7 longs and 7 shorts for Tuesday!

2011-08-15T19:33:00.001-04:00

Three consecutive up days in a row now after a steep decline and the T2106 (McClellan Oscillator shown below) is approaching 200 from which pull backs in the markets often occur.

This in addition to recent history (rip from 5/7/2010 - 5/13/2010) tells me we are likely going to pull back, maybe not below the low set last Tuesday but we are likely to witness a multi-day pull back within a day or two. So don't get carried away with long positions (as long you hold positions over night whether swing or position trader!) if you are currently holding any but do look to start loading up some short positions! Here are some ideas to get you started along with some long set ups that have'nt run yet in case we get another day or two of upside.

LONG WATCHES

SHORT WATCHES

Good luck and good trading!

My watches and some thoughts on the market for Monday...

2011-08-14T11:31:00.000-04:00

Although we are at a very tough juncture in the stock markets all evidence points to continued downside! Look at the daily chart of the SPY's below; we see that the markets are clearly forming lower highs and lower lows in addition to the 10 day SMA being below the 20 day SMA with both pointing sharply lower.

In addition to this, my major market timing indicator of intermediate term trends the T2118 shown below continues to stay red and below a down trending 10 day SMA.

So from a swing trading perspective (I am primarily a swing trader who day trades swing set ups) your focus should be on finding and trading bearish set ups or staying in cash if you are not comfortable doing so. We are in this game to make money not to be heroes. So there is absolutely no need to try to anticipate the bottom. Simply wait for the averages and the markets timing indicators to start showing when trading on the long side will have an edge. Right now for swing traders the edge is in shorting. Just as there are dips in up trends so too are there rips in down trends. Although the rips in down trends might be sharper than the dips are in up trends as a swing trader you'll be better off ignoring these rips and focusing on the intermediate term trend. Trying to time these rips is similar to trying to time the dips in up trends which is very very tough! The money is usually made by focusing long in up trends and the same applies for down trends.

Here is how I am positioning my self, I am bearish biased of course so most of my set ups are bearish but I do have a few reasonably attractive long set ups in case we get a day or two of further up side next week. Here are my watches:

SHORT WATCHES

LONG WATCHES

I also recommend keeping an eye on these ETF's: $DGP for a long if gold bounces and $ERY and $DRV if we get a pull back in the markets.

Good luck and good trading!

Some ideas for tomorrow and few adjustments to my trading plan!

2011-08-09T21:24:00.003-04:00

The close of trading today marked the 7th day of trading prop with Bulls Pro for me. During those 7 days, I have had the freedom to jump in and out of any thing that I feel like since I'm no longer under the PDT rule. I must say it has been a roller coaster ride and unfortunately my account is now down 26% after being down as much as 32%! Now while this is a total drag I am pleased to say that I have learned a lot and will make some adjustments to my strategy accordingly!

Here's what I have learned in bullet points:

Unless a stock has fresh news, it will most likely follow the general trend of the market almost to the minute! So this rule does not only apply on the daily time frame but on the intra day time frames as well.
Stocks with fresh news can trend intensely in one direction even against the markets trend for a significant period of time.
When you're swing trading a stock you need to ignore intra day price movements!

Here at the adjustments that I plan to make:

keep a list of 3X Bull and Bear ETF's and relatively strong and weak (volatile and liquid) stocks to watch for day trades based off the intra day trend and/or technical set ups that I am seeing in the overall markets (I use the 5 minute SPY chart as my proxy)
Cultivate a list of stocks with fresh news from A/H into the pre-market and early trading that are in play to watch for intra-day flag/base break outs/downs.
keep a separate list of stocks that I want to swing trade; if I enter them at the trigger price, set a hard stop and forget about them until they hit my target.

So my watches from now on, will be structured according to the adjustments above. Here they are:

GO TO LIST

Longs: $MAKO, $VHC, $CBOU, $SIMO, $HNSN, $MCHX, $ARIA, $JVA, $HUN, $FTK, $SPPI, $IDCC, $QCOR, $RENN, $GOL (STOCKS) $DRN*, $EDC, $FAS, $TNA (ETF'S)

Shorts: $P (STOCKS) $DRV*, $TZA, $ERY (ETF'S)

*Extra HOT!

STOCKS WITH NEWS

$MOTR down 50% after hours. So should be in play tomorrow. Will try to highlight any interesting ones I add to this list via twitter during the day.

SWING LIST

Longs

Shorts

After days of anticipating a bounce it finally came and I caught part of it using $TNA. Wish I had overnighted a part position in hindsight but I stuck to my plan which was to just day trade although I did exit prematurely and move to cash before the close! I'm very long biased short term so I do not recommended trying to take swing shorts although it will be good to have some short exposure as a hedge if you take some long swings. I'll go as far as saying that I am anticipating a long sided trend day tomorrow in the markets. Please note, however, that this is still a hit and run market in my opinion and with the high levels of volatility I think its better to be day trading as opposed to swinging/over nighting stocks if you can afford to. On that note, I'm off!

Good luck and good trading!

My very best ideas for Monday!

2011-08-07T09:15:00.000-04:00

I'm sure it is very clear to any one who's been around in trading for more than a year or so that we are now at levels that suggest a violent bounce even if for only one day is very very likely. We are all aware that the markets can continue to sell off on Monday and even Tuesday for that matter but the odds of a bounce out weigh this possibility big time if history has an value. So my bias is long and most of my watches for Monday are longs with the exception of one set up that the market may not have gotten to yet but if it continues the way it has for the past week; its gonna get everything eventually! If we do not get a bounce on Monday and the markets continue selling off my plan is to watch the triple inverse ETF's ($TZA, $YANG, $DRV) on the 5 min chart for day trades. If on the other hand, we do get a bounce even if only in the morning and then fade in the afternoon, the following stocks in my opinion have very good odds of making out sized up moves:

LONGS

SHORTS

Good luck and good trading!

Watches for an epic bounce tomorrow!

2011-08-04T21:11:00.000-04:00

So today I manage to draw down my account 30% from losses and commissions trying to scalp the triple ETF's $TNA and $TZA. At the start, during and at the end of the day, I think I had the right idea but my execution was poor, poor, poor! First off, I am used to using the 5 minute chart to time my day trades and not the 1 minute chart...way too random unless you're only planning to be in the trade for a few seconds which is not the case for me. Secondly, I was buying mostly off hope and not solid technical set ups and I went in large, way larger than I should have been. So at the end of the day, I paid the price and got hammered. Lesson learned: DON'T EVER DO THAT SHIT AGAIN....STICK TO UR TRADING PLAN! LOL.

On another note, I think we get an epic bounce tomorrow. Here's how I would like to see this play out tomorrow: we get a flattish open and then a panic drop in the morning session then a bounce and green close in the afternoon. This may not happen so if we get a gap down, it would have to be really huge for me to get bullish otherwise I think we will sell off again. A gap up may be bullish too but I think a gap up leads to a a consolidation day which is not the best for day trading stocks. Hence the reason why I like scenario one best!

With that out of the way, here's what I will be looking at tomorrow:

ALL LONGS:

There are a few other stocks that I did not include in the above list that I will be keeping an eye for over night/swing positions if we do get a bounce tomorrow; will mention them on twitter if things play out according to my plan.

Good luck and good trading!

Markets set to bounce but slim pickings for momentum traders!

2011-08-03T20:19:00.000-04:00

Markets look set to bounce but good pickings for momo traders are slim! Just about all the shorts I had on watch last night worked out beautifully but unfortunately I touched none! Definitely not looking at any shorts tomorrow or Friday unless something freaky happens tomorrow. Anyways, here's what I managed to find:

Good luck and good trading!

Watch list for tomorrow...

2011-08-02T20:14:00.001-04:00

After my first two days of prop trading, I'm down about $350. It may not seem like much to you but its a lot to me when my goal is to make $100 a day! Clearly something is wrong because the stocks on my watches that have triggered have done fairly well for day trading. So whats the problem?

The bulk of the trades I have made so far have not come from my watch list and have been fairly random trades. They have not been well thought out and are not set ups that I am used to trading. Further, in the type of market we have now, you simply can't afford to deviate from your trading plan or you'll get hammered!

With that said, I made a note to my self to guide me back to the right path: "Avoid taking random trades. Trade only set ups that you know. Over 90% of your trades should come from your watch list. Otherwise, if trading stocks with fresh news, let them base intra day first before attempting to trade them. All trades must be well thought out before they are taken! Intended entry, stop loss, position size and initial target must be known well in advance. If not, pass on the trade!"

Here are my watches for tomorrow:

LONG WATCHES

SHORT WATCHES

Good luck and good trading!

My watches for tomorrow...

2011-08-01T16:58:00.002-04:00

The big gap up this morning messed up all of the long set ups on my watch list and so I avoided then until in the afternoon when I took $DTLK long ahead of the $11.00 break out but it later failed and stopped me out for a small loss. Although the markets were in a down trend all morning and I reserved shares in $TAOM and it triggered and broke down; I did not short it. So that was a miss.

In the morning, I made two trades in $SUNH with out any clear set up that fit my trading plan and I paid the price. I lost on the two longs I made although it was not much. I traded it once again in the afternoon and made a smallish profit which offset the earlier losses. The other stock I traded today was $MILL which popped quickly and faded back to my entry price. I missed the opportunity to sell into the pop and was stopped out flattish.

So overall I managed to finish the day gross positive but ended up netting a $35ish loss after commissions. All in all, I'd say it was'nt a bad day considering that the markets ended up closing down big and all of my trades were longs! I'm looking forward to tomorrow as I know I will do a much better job than I did today! On that note, here are my watches for tomorrow:

LONG IDEAS

SHORT IDEAS

OTHER

I'm not sure which direction this stock is going to break but it looks like its setting up for a big move. Keep an eye on it.

Good luck and good trading!

Best ideas I can find for Monday!

2011-07-31T15:00:00.000-04:00

After taking about a month off from trading; I'm finally going to be back live tomorrow. Except this time I'm now prop with Bulls Pro! So no more worrying about violating the PDT rule and having to pick and chose which set ups I take because of limited buying power! I have already set up my platform's desktop and hot keys and prepared my watches so I'm good to go.

From my scans, I have seen lots of nice long set ups and very few good short set ups despite the weakness we have seen in the markets all of last week. I have narrowed down my watches to the very best and anyone of them that triggers tomorrow, I will play!

SWING LONGS

DAY TRADE LONGS

DAY TRADE SHORTS

Wishing everyone a profitable Monday including myself...lol. Good luck and good trading!

Some hot charts for tommorow...

2011-07-27T20:19:00.001-04:00

By several indicators, it now seems that the markets have transitioned into a new downtrend. In addition, I am seeing very few good looking long set ups and a lot of spoiled ones. I am aware that there may be a resolution to the "debt ceiling" issue and which may cause the markets to rip higher. But until then you just have to trade what you see and I see a day or two more of down side! With that in mind, here are my ideas for tomorrow:

LONGS

SHORTS

Good luck and good trading!

Some more ideas for tomorrow...

2011-07-26T19:37:00.000-04:00

LONGS

SHORTS

Good luck and good trading!

Ideas for tomorrow...

2011-07-25T19:36:00.000-04:00

LONGS

SHORTS

Good luck and good trading!