Didn’t I say thin?

You can never be too rich, but you can be too thin.

I have been mentioning that this market feels thin for some days and today it showed a bit of that svelteness. The set-ups that were working did not last long and the new set-ups had no desire to make anything of themselves.

I felt it early in the trading day and my instinct was to lighten up and wait for a better entry. I had no intention of selling out as I am not one to get caught selling with the masses in a panic, but I saw no reason to stay in set-ups that were on the weak side. Anyone who reads my blogs knows I am a bull for 2011, but as I brought up my concern to fellow traders this morning, they pushed back and I took pause.

To make matters worse, my new trading platform with TradeKing crashed. At 10:30 AM, I found myself posting the following in the Pelican room: “
Woa!!! How fucked up is this? My Trade King window just went to: ” Our website is temporarily unavailable due to technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please contact us at 877.495.5464 (Available 8am – 6pm ET, Monday – Friday) for assistance. ”

As such, I am looking to change brokers again for the second time this month/year and consequently, I did very little to lighten up, negating my strong instincts. Fate seemed to be in charge.

I had commitments mid-day.

By the time I returned to the market, it had turned for the worse. I cautioned myself not to get caught in panic selling but I saw no reason to just sit back and take it. Some names were definitely breaking down, while a few were not. I held strong, for example, in $RTN, $PH and $NILE (thank you Sir Fly).

The RUT looked nasty. I bought some $TZA for a quick scalp of .21cents. This helped, all in all, to keep my balance at a reasonable level. I sold all but 30% of it before the end of day because I am smart enough to know that it can reverse quickly in either direction and I never hold piece of shit inverse ETF‘s for any length of time…always a short leash. Maybe you have seen my rants about the evil that is $VXX in The PPT. This is one I will not touch, but $TZA for a short term scalp, I will play.  I also preserved some profits by doing some selling in names that were not doing as I bade them to. As a result, I was down only 1% on the day. I have heard other traders speak of being down  3-4% on the day.

The moral of the story:
Don‘t let the losers get you down. If you have a losing trade, Get The Fuck Out Early!

OR…

ALWAYS TRUST TheWife’s INSTINCTS!

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Good Morning! I hope you are all well rested and ready to tackle the day.

I would like to share a couple of ideas that I have been mulling over with my morning coffee.

The first one is $ROK. From Reuters, “Rockwell Automation, Inc. (Rockwell Automation), incorporated in 1996, is a global provider of industrial automation power, control and information solutions. The Company has two segments: Architecture & Software, and Control Products & Solutions. Products for both segments are marketed primarily under the Allen-Bradley, A-B, Rockwell Software, ICS Triplex and FactoryTalk brand names. Major markets served by both segments include food and beverage, transportation, oil and gas, metals, mining, home and personal care, pulp and paper and life sciences.”

$ROK has been tracking well with $PH, another ticker that is currently in my port. Note the classic bullish flag that is breaking to the upside in the chart below and the strong buying volume. There is a strong base around $72.75, so downside risk is only about 3%.
Also, $IMGN, ImmunoGen Inc., develops antibody based therapeutics to fight cancer. How cool is that? While I normally have a “just say no” to bio-tech and drug companies, I am pretty excited about the work these guys are doing. If the price action dictates and I decide to get in, I will be very careful and I advise the same to anyone who considers playing this name. Any drug company is still volatile just because Wall Street is fearful of them, so a very close watch would be in order. I have posted the chart showing a breakout above the bullish ascending triangle and strong buying volume, with a base around $9.40. Note that this name is also on RaginCajun’s Atomic Bombs screen.

I will reiterate that this market feels thin in the short term so be careful out there. I am still a bull for 2011 but I am prepared for a pull back in the near term.

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No, I am not talking about your hairline, though some of you may relate.

I am talking about something I have been noticing as of late, which is that I am finding a plethora of set-ups, but not many of them are performing. The ones that do, don’t move for long. This tells me that momentum trading is thinning out in the near term. Don’t worry, I am not becoming a bear, but I am feeling cautious. I am prepared for a pull back in this market. Make no mistake, I am a still a major bull for 2011.

Today, I blew out of $RBCN, not because it was downgraded, because I found the downgrade to be without merit. The Piper Jaffray analyst lowered the multiple. He didn’t lower his estimates or speak with company management, so although he reduced his price target from $50 to $25, I didn’t feel this alone was a reason to give up on the name. I vowed to watch it for price action and initially it stayed on its trend line and above its base. Not much time passed before it broke down below the 50 day moving average and broke downward through its up trend line. This was my tell and I dropped it.

While I don’t like to trade a stock on another ticker in the sector, leds have been taking some heat lately. $CREE punted and affected $RBCN after hours. I made the right decision.

A name I am stalking in the near term is $UA. It has a nice base around 54.60 and is starting to break out above it’s ascending triangle. As you can see in the chart below, the MACD is breaking to the upside. Some of you may know that I spend my weekends shuttling my daughter to her ski race training and races. I have noticed that everyone on the ski mountains are wearing Under Armour. The ski shops are selling this brand as the best thermal products for skiers to stay warm during icy conditions. While I believe the ticker will be held back this week by options expiration and will not close above $60, the moment it breaks above its 52 week high of $60.14, the sky is the limit. I expect this company to be strong in the coming months.

Another set-up I will be watching closely is $ORCL.
For one thing, I like that they don’t report earnings until March and for another I like the upside in earnings in the sector. The chart below shows a breakout from a falling bullish wedge as well as momentum in buying volume.

Lastly, I am seeing a lot of set-ups in a number of real estate names, so I will be keeping my eye on this sector.

For now, good night and I hope to see some of you trading in 12631’s Pelican Stadium where we are flushing out the best trades available.

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One-two-three
One-two-three
One-two
And now that we’re dancing
Who cares if we ever stop

I am struggling to find the time to get everything done. I have the work of scanning charts and researching fundamentals, the work of fundraising commitments to my daughter’s school, the work of being a parent with a child on a ski team that requires much support and time on the road, the work of keeping my household in check and the work of writing this blog, which I want desperately to do. Never mind that I need to give SOME attention to thehusband, who while supportive, struggles to help with the parenting and household duties himself as he is committed to his own fairly new corporate job in finance and is bogged down by earnings season.

I need a wife!

That said, I would like to share with you the comings and goings of the past week in my portfolio. If you read my last post, you will note that I was dealing the resignation of AMD’s CEO. This was a stock I purchased on a bullish chart with a perfect cup and handle pattern that I also felt confident about fundamentally. I waited until the following morning to decide what to do with this position. As I watched it first thing yesterday morning, I saw it sell off with plenty of volume and decided that the best decision was to sell out and deal with the fundamentals later. As it turned out, it was a good thing I did. I actually made out with a profit and it quickly dropped below my entry point thereafter.

Meanwhile, I have moved on, as is my style. I do not like to wallow in what could have been. When I sell a stock, I move it to the bottom of my screen so that I don’t have to see what it does in the near future. This is not to say that I won’t revisit it later, but I see no point in spending time wondering if I made the right decision. Once I make a decision and act upon it, the right thing is to find the next set-up that will bank me some coin and thus I did.

With the help of chessNwine and Ragin Cajun, I have developed a skill for spotting set-ups on my own. I had long since made a vow to stop following traders blindly into stocks but I am now more confident about leading my own way.

As such, I have plowed into set-ups that have included $KLIC & $BSQR which I bought and sold for huge profits. This is not to say that every set up I find and get into works, but I am quick to get out of the ones that don’t and ride the ones that do. Today, I was profitable in a day trade with $CVD and while I managed to get out right at the peak toward the end of the day, I must admit that this was because of my firm motto to keep pharma and biotech on a very short leash if I get into them at all. It worked well.

I am sitting on some other wonderful gains in $OSK, $MSCC and $ALU and feel both proud and grateful that they worked well as several other subs in 12631 have begun following me into some of these names, which puts the pressure on.

While I find that I am following the great traders of this site into trades less and less, it is only because I am so busy finding and tracking my own, that it is difficult to pay attention to all the wonderful ideas that are being presented.  I will admit that I have taken on some names by other pro-traders, however, not the least of whom is the magnificent Sir Fly, although I did not do so blindly. I joined in the party in The PPT and 12631 in $HRBN, $RBCN, & $IMAX, because frankly, I could find no reason to skip these great set-ups when I saw them, even if I wasn’t the one who found them.

If you saw my quick snow post which I posted earlier in the day, you will note the headline that stated that we have snow in 49 of 50 states. I repeated this headline in 12631 to which Fly responded aptly that snow begets the need for rock salt and he is in $CMP. Indeed the ticker has reached $90 and is now also ripe for a $100 roll. As such, I have determined to stalk an entry tomorrow.

I will also share with you my biggest mistake of the day. If you have been reading my blogs, you will know that I recently made a brokerage change. I have now been trading with TradeKing since the beginning of the week. It takes time to get used to a new platform and much to my chagrin, in my newbie status with them, I made a mistake that was rather frustrating. I hopped back into $OXY for the $100 roll. I did so rather early and the stock pulled back from there. Since I had only bought a very small position and since I have confidence that it will go to $100, I decided to add more at the lower price. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the screen automatically put on a sell order. Apparently, when re-trading a ticker that is already in the port, the program assumes you wish to close it out, so instead of adding to my $OXY, I sold it for a loss. This really annoyed me and I found myself dealing with the brokerage, wasting way too much of my time but vowing never to make this mistake again. A supervisor was smart enough to offer me 5 free trades and a free upgrade to a more efficient platform.  The upgrade was not due only to my complaints, I am sure, but more in response to seeing just how much trading I do. I was relieved to see that they made the effort to keep my business. I have heard horror stories of the same nature from other traders about other platforms. I will spare you the details.

I leave you tonight with a little more insight into my life as a trader, a Mom, a fundraiser, a blogger and a wife who needs a wife. I love this work and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I will see many of you tomorrow in my home on the internet trading the whims of Mr. Market and I promise to get the series of simple fundamental posts finished and posted soon. Stay tuned but for tomorrow…we’ll be dancing.

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Just want to share the headline and this photo.

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I sit at the computer this evening on the heels of the resignation of $AMD‘s CEO. This was a trade I made last week on a combination of fundamentals and a bullish chart. It had everything going for it and was working its way up a steady trend line, just about the way I thought it would. Some of you followed me into this trade and while I don’t think all is lost, we have certainly lost some serious ground.

After a dual upgrade by Nomura and Morgan Stanley, the stock was up over 4% on the day to a close of $9.19. Nomura upgraded to Buy from Neutral and Morgan Stanley went to Equalweight from Overweight. A positive rating also came from Gleacher who reiterated its “Buy” with a $12 price target.

Then, unexpectedly, the CEO resigns. Argh! Suddenly the headline reads, “Goldman Sachs price target on $AMD $5”. Really?? Of course, the stock initially lost all it’s gains for the day. But in a new twist of fate, $AMD comes out after hours and says they expect revenue above guidance. So what do we know from all this? Nothing. We have no way of knowing why the CEO resigned any more than we could have predicted that it would happen.

This is something we have to be willing to accept as traders. No matter how proficient our due diligence, we cannot legally know the inner workings of a company if they do not tell us. Perhaps the CEO has an issue that has nothing to do with the performance of the company. No explanation has been given as yet, so we can only surmise. I am somewhat comforted by the fact the CFO was named the interim CEO. After all, who better to guide the company’s financials? If the CFO is willing to take over, he must have some confidence in the numbers.

Tomorrow I will watch diligently for price action. I do not know if I will sell it pre-market or give it a chance to explain itself as I will have to make that decision when the time comes. Since I pride myself on being nimble, I will be ready for either outcome.

I will post my decisions as I make them in both The PPT and 12631 for the benefit of those of you who may be interested.

See you tomorrow in the great soap opera that is Mr. Market and his minions.

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