_______________
The Psychology of Handling Large Drawdowns
6 days ago
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
BRKR - 080311
This is similar to Gene's trade from Monday, but the signal bar (trigger bar) was better defined (or, a more valid signal). Entry was a break of the trigger bar's low, exit was the Fibonacci extension of the opening range's high/low.
_______________
_______________
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
X, I've learned so much from this site. Thank you for sharing, and everyone else for contributing. One question - I notice you sometimes use an 8 and sometimes a 5EMA. How do you determine which for which chart?
Kevin-
I use the 5 and 8EMAs, but readers complained that it was "too busy" when they were looking at the charts. So, for purposes of posting charts, I only include the EMA that is germane to that particular trade/signal/setup.
But, when I am trading, I have the 5, 8, and 100EMAs on all of my charts.
Nice trade.
I also got BRKR today. It looked just about perfect, as opposed to the recent SOHU setup, where I didn’t like the 2 long lower tails, the wide stop, and the stock’s volatility. BRKR was much more my speed.
Lots of charts to study today; I was very busy.
8/3/11 trades
ACAS 6th 5m bar short
This was a doji at the 5ema and 38 fib. The stop was technically breached, but my stop was .06 above the bar’s high, which wasn’t hit. I partialed at the ORL and wanted to wait for a lower high, but with SPY bouncing nicely from S2, I couldn’t wait and covered the rest at the ORL. The stock did make a lower high and then hit the FE and shortly the nearby whole number before bouncing. It’s tough watching a retrace; how do you hold? I guess I have to BELIEVE. Enter trade, set partials at ORH or ORL and FE, close eyes, exit EOD if I still have shares. Simple, isn’t it?
BRKR 9th 5m bar short
This was a shooting star at the 8ema and 38 fib, plus all previous bars looked just perfect. The stock hit the FE in 6 bars, where I covered. I partialed at the ORL (near the whole number), though I really didn’t have to since it just got run over. I wish all of my trades were like this!
SUPG 9th 5m bar short
This was a narrow shooting star at the 5ema and near the 38 fib. It looked good, but then when the stock started rounding up, I cut it early; it would’ve stopped out anyway. I should’ve done the same with FTR below, but I didn’t.
FNGN 6th 15m bar
This was a narrow hammer-like at the 5ema and above the 38 fib. I sold when the stock faltered at R2. I kicked myself a bit when it soon hit the ORH, but that was the end of its run as it quickly dropped.
CBM 7th 15m bar
This was a hammer at the 5ema and 50 fib, but the 3rd bar was a doji shooting star. I sold when the stock faltered after getting close to the ORH. Later the stock printed 3 rising NR bars at the 8ema and 38 fib then launched from there to the FE, but I didn’t see that at the time.
ERY 9th 15m bar
This was a hammer at the 5ema and 38 fib. I sold when the stock hitched at whole number 16.
FTR 9th 15m bar short
This was a shooting star at the 5ema, but not near the 38 fib. The pullback wasn’t orderly, but I took the trade anyway and got stopped out. The stock didn’t go down far and then started forming a rounding bottom, like in SUPG above, so I should’ve cut it early.
8/3/11 Missed trades
SINA 7th 5m bar short
This was a doji shooting star at the 5ema and 8ema and 38 fib, and the pattern looked very similar to the recent SOHU setup. And like SOHU this was also a spready and volatile stock. I saw it too late by a dollar, but I most likely wouldn’t have wanted to give the trade the required dollar stop. At the bottom, a bit past the FE, it gave $4, just like SOHU did. It looks like I do have to learn to value the pattern and try to ignore the big scary spready stock.
HOG 7th 5m bar short
This was a red spinning-top-like bar at the 8ema and above the 50 fib. I didn’t like that the upper tail went well past the 62 fib, so I passed. It managed to miss the FE by a penny before bouncing like a madman.
NAV 9th 5m bar short
This was a shooting star at S2 and not near the 38 fib. I think I was busy with other trades and wasn’t watching NAV closely. It hit the 162 extension before bouncing.
SIMG 5th 15m bar
I saw this hammer slightly under the 38 fib and with its tail tagging the 5ema too late. The stock couldn’t break the whole number, however, and just flagged for the rest of the day.
OC 7th 15m bar short
This was a shooting star at the 5ema and near the 38 fib. It hit the ORL.
XEC 3rd and 7th 15m bar short
I completely missed these 2 setups. One was a shooting star at the 5ema and 50 fib. After almost hitting the 200 extension, the stock formed another shooting star at the FE and S2, setting up for another 200 extension hit.
IO 13th through 16th 10m bars short
I saw these 4 red bars hugging the 5ema and thought that the stock looked ready to drop, but I was also considering 2 other shorts at the same time and didn’t take this one (I didn’t take the others either; they both failed). The stock made it past the ORL.
Trading Psychology:
1) Believe in yourself.
2) Keep practicing.
3) You will get the hang of it.
4) Thumbs up for rock and roll.
This kid gets it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_864438&v=eaIvk1cSyG8&feature=iv
Songified version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZShmt19uQ&feature=channel_video_title
Wow, I really missed out on a great day (8/3). Had one eye on the markets, and saw a few setups. But now that I'm going over charts, there were great setups all over the place.
Klaorman already have many listed, and I'll add HP 5m 7th bar as one that's similar to BRKR, but not quite as clean. Even the setups that didn't setup very clean still worked. Just one of those days.
For those looking for later day trades, check out WBMD 5m chart right around 3:15 pm. Draw a trend line under the swing lows, and you'll see that when it intersected with the ORH, the consolidation breakout took off. Nice tool for timing.
http://imgur.com/PArFP.png
V also had a similar trendline below the swing lows that helped to time the consolidation breakout at around 1:30. Overall, I thought V was a messy/choppy chart, but the cup and handle pattern that lead to the breakout was pretty clear.
http://imgur.com/CUy8e.png
Some interesting contra setups I'm researching, as well as a late in the day beyond the FE setup in PLCM.
http://imgur.com/HwNE1.png
If only days were more like this...
I assume the stop would have been above the top of the wick?
8/4/11
EMC, 30m, 5ema, Fibs OR (bar 1 to bar 5), short below bars 7 & 8 (smallest bars of the day), exit 1/2 at 3R near OR low, exit 1/2 at 5R near FE, net 4R profit.
Had some other 5m shorts like X, TXT, and SNE in the morning that were stopped out at breakeven because I tightened my stop too soon. Gotta be a little more patient next time.
Addicted to this song (a drop-down menu provides all the lyrics under "Show more"):
http://youtu.be/F2ZShmt19uQ
Post a Comment