Today was a reaction day as well as a sad day.
Market opened down and I immediately sold $DDD before it fell apart as 3D printers’ stocks are prompted to do in a down day. My losses were small compared to if I had hold. This is another positive feedback and reinforcement to me that taking losses quickly is the way to go when I’m swing trading.
$PPC was disappointing as well but then you wouldn’t expect any breakout of significance without news and without the support of the general market. This one was a no brainer, out it went.
Speaking of breakout, $S had a strong breakout due to takeover news. Well, since I was no longer in it, there was no point in discussing this. No, I did not kick myself for this miss since I had no plan for $S as of Friday. So, this gap up would be like any gap up of stocks I never heard of. If the tree fell on the forest and I wasn’t there to hear the noise, did the tree really fall? Meditate on this and you will not be bothered by “missed” gain when you are not “in”.
I also began to sell off some $APRI and $CERS to minimize exposure because these high-beta stocks can drop quickly when the sentimental changes. All it takes is one of the big holders to start dumping and you have a domino effect of everyone fighting for the last musical chair. Later on, for fear of this domino effect, I sold the rest of my shares in $APRI and $CERS while prices were still holding well. Since I bought these stocks as much lower average entry prices, I made some money instead of taking losses.
At the time I reduced position size on $APRI & $CERS, I also started to reduce position size on $SZYM as well. Thanks goodness I did giving the waterfall price action later on. As price continued to fall, I continued to unload more $SZYM. By the time I sold all my $SZYM, I gave back about 70% of the profit from my last entry. But all was not lost, price continued to head further down my from last sales and I was able to pick back up about 60% of my original position at the bottom 10% of today price range.
I was watching $DUST from the get go trying to gauge the right time to take profit. I started to trail my stop using the low of 3 min bar chart when the price started to consolidate; by the time I stopped out, I was able to squeeze a few more points out of it as opposed to selling it at open. Yes, before you jump in and say that I could have make more points by holding my position thru the end-of-the-day; let me remind you that you have the hindsight to work with while I only had a sure profit facing me.
Instead of taking the risk of giving back some of my profit, which happened to me often when I overstayed my welcome, I chose to take profit first. Remember, I had about 26% gain starring at my face after only a weekend hold; so I really should not be too greedy. After I sold, I daytraded $DUST with 1/3 of my original position and made a few more bucks. However, I did not participate in the late hour run-up to the close because I did not want to push my luck. Often times, when I tried to push my luck, I often ended up giving back too much profit.
Seeing that the market was down big and momentum did not slow down during the morning hours, I looked at $SDS and $FAZ and decided to make a daytrade out of it. I was not committed to holding it more than today because these inverse ETF had poor track record of continuing a run. Besides, I didn’t want to risk losing money on a late day rally. Knowing the trades were for the day only allowed me to see this trade as a quick profit and nothing more. When price went up to the point where the momentum indicators started to turn back down, I took profit and left it alone. One of my rule is that if I make a decent sum in daytrading, don’t go back in after I’ve closed the position. 7/10 I would give the profit back if i do. Therefore, yes, I missed the late day rally of these two ETF as well. No big deal.
Then later on, I discovered my big mistakes. While I was busy managing my $DUST, $SDS, and $FAZ trades during the morning hours, I completely forgot about my $PACB and $DNDN positions. By the time I remembered these two positions, I was disappointed that $PACB was already down a whopping 8%. Darn! I would have dumped this in the morning if I had not skipped this one. Seeing that it was already down 8%; I decided to give it more room to bounce. If price doesn’t bounce tomorrow, I will probably dump it for a much bigger losses than I will like; but then, I’ve to own up to my mistake. $DNDN, on the other hands, did not have a hold on me the way $PACB did; therefore, I dumped it pronto.
$BCRX gapped up and I was thrilled. However, in the morning, I elected to sell half for profit when prices trekked back down to $2.00 price support. Later on, when prices headed back to $2.04, I decided to buy back shares I sold. Well, prices didn’t always followed my direction; and I decided to sit this one out since any sudden news from the Asia could spark this one up. Besides, I’m only at breakeven point now even after price had trekked down to the close.
I was oblivious to the Boston bombing until I saw the posts from ChessNWine and The Fly. I usually don’t pay attention to outside noise when I’m trading. The bombing was so nonsensical but it also reminded us that life could be so fleeting. One moment you were having a cup of coffee and the next you were either gone or sans a body part. The best way to beat this is to live our life fuller and stop sweating the small stuff.
Current holdings:
LRAD, AMRN, TINY, SZYM, PACB, BCRX and 54% cash.
My 2 cents.
The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter
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