06-13-2014 Trading Journal

The market bounced right off the 15 MA line as if on cue.

If price can close higher than today high next week, the bull is still in charge.

Anytime a short-term MA lines like 5 and 15 can act as support, it usually means the bull is still in full force.  What we have is a healthy correction the market needs to take a breath.

Today price action on $GALE reminded me of my sloppiness.  I was looking purely on chart and forgot to consider the fundamental reason why $GALE was down since January.  It only took a reminder from Adam Feurerstein to put some sense back in every head.  Needless to day, I paid for my sloppiness with a larger than expected losses since I added more in the morning.  Oh well, lesson is learned and I’m moving on.

$BIOS could not hold on above $8 so I’m actually taking heat on this one.

From the chart, the 15 MA line served as a good support for now.  Let’s see if price can bounce next week with the 15 MA as the launching pad.  I added a bit more in the morning to round up my investment size.  Hindsight speaking, my impatience had put me in disadvantage position on this stock.  If the 15 MA support hold, I’ll hold onto to the position; if not, I’ll have to decide if I want to take my losses and move on.  However, I’ve a feeling that if the general market is rallying next week, $BIOS will bounce as well.

$AMRN bounced slightly but still stayed on positive upward direction.

Although we had a new high from yesterday spike-up day, I consider the resistance is the high of two days ago at $1.56.  I added some more this morning to round up my investment size.

$KGJI was down slightly today.

Price is still trading inside the consolidation range here.  This stock has strong fundamental so I’m going to hang on to this for awhile with my eyes on the consolidation range.

$LRAD bounced nicely today.

Price is now trading at the edge of the upper consolidation range which also happens to be where the 79 & 89 MA lines are.  It looks like price action is setting up for a strong bounce from here.  Let’s see if this is the case next week.

$DMRC continued to bounce higher.

However, price is now banging its head against the resistance from Tuesday high (6/10) of $33.24.  I feel that it can be easily breached to the upside if the general market continues to bounce.

Thanks to the rally of $DMRC and $LRAD, my two largest position, my port was up 0.55% despite losses from $GALE and minor corrections from some positions.  YTD gain is now 4%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, SWIR, KGJI, BIOS, NMRX, APRI, AMRN and 5% cash.

From my other account:

$TRTC corrected some today.

Price found support at the 5 MA line.  I’ll have to decide what to do with this position next week.

My 2 cents.

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Finally, a correction I’ve been waiting for…

But I was stopped out of my $TZA yesterday; so too bad.  There is a support from the 15 MA line.  If price can bounce from there, the bull is active.

I didn’t do much except to buy a starter position on $GALE with the available cash released from the three days settlement.

Price was above the 79 & 89 MA lines and the 5 and 15 MA lines are both pointing up. Although today closed negative after staying up positive all day, I’m holding this one to see which way the wind blow in the near future.

$DMRC held steady and closed on the positive note and above the 79 & 89 MA lines which was encouraging for the bull side.

Sooner or later, $DMRC will explode upward when retailers start to adopt its barcode format.  Of course, I’m betting that its technology will be adopted.

$BIOS bounced slightly which was an impressive feat giving the market was down.

With a green bar today, I see the uptrend is still intact despite the down red bar yesterday.  I’m still holding my shares I bought yesterday.

$APRI tried to rally but was being dragged down by the bearish market.

Price breached the downtrend line to the upside.  It is important that price do not retrace from here; otherwise, the downtrend line may become a formidable resistance.

Due to correction from $LRAD, my largest position, my port was down 0.7%.  YTD gain is now 3.45%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, SWIR, KGJI, BIOS, APRI, NMRX, AMRN, GALE and 7% cash.

From my other account:

$TRTC was holding well today.

Price advanced cautiously.  Still holding.

My 2 cents.

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Finally, a correction day…

It was interesting ’cause even though it was a down day, $SPY still managed to come out with a green bar.  So, go figure.

With my $TZA opened green, I moved my stop to breakeven not long after the open ’cause I sensed the market wanting to bounce   It wasn’t long before I was stopped out of $TZA.  I was just happy to recover the losses from yesterday down day.

Since $SPY was acting bouncy, I decided to buy the two “Internet of things” stocks that I researched last night- $SWIR and $NMRX.

Both $SWIR and $NMRX are banging its head against the resistance of the 79 & 89 MA lines.

If prices can take out these resistances, it may run hard from here to the upside.  If not, i may have to contemplate taking a losses and look to buy back cheaper.  Regardless, I’ll have to find a way to stay with the “internet of things” stock for the long-ride up.

I learned a lesson on patience today.  After the open, I wanted to buy back some $BIOS. Instead of waiting for its to correct some more before buying, I went and bought when it was still trading higher in the morning.  With the DOW down at the open, I should have known better.  Now, I was sitting on a losses from the morning entry.

I like the strong yesterday up bar.  That was the main reason I bought back in.  I’m going to have to learn to take some heat on this one if I believe it is going up from here.  While today was a red day, price is still on an interim uptrend with price closing above the 5 MA line.

Despite a down day, there were only two stocks in my port that was down:$DMRC and $BIOS.  Fortunately, the rest of my position was either neutral or up slightly which was enough to offset “most” of the losses from $DMRC and $BIOS.  My port dropped slightly by 0.15%..  YTD gain is now 4.15%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, SWIR, KGJI, BIOS, APRI, NMRX, AMRN and 9% cash.

From my other account:

$TRTC held steady for the day and I’m still holding.

My 2 cents.

 

 

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The market simply refused to correct… as much as the bear tried to push it down.

After a brief downward movement that took out yesterday low, the market bounced back up to close even for the day.

Seeing the correction in the morning, I bought a starter position on $TZA with a hard stop below yesterday low.  So far, my stop wasn’t triggered and I’m still holding $TZA. Let’s see if this will bounce back up tomorrow.

Despite giving back gain by day close, $TZA still closed higher than yesterday close.  From the chart, strong support is at $14.30.  It may bounce from here if yesterday low holds.

Continuing with the downward momentum from yesterday in $KGJI, I decided to take advantage of this fall to buy back some of the position I sold last week.  I was able to buy back at similar prices I sold before.

Price was able to bounce back up to even by day close.  Now that I bought back some shares, I’m again ready for this one to take off.

I noticed that $APRI was bouncing off a symmetrical triangle formation in the daily chart; so I immediately bought back a position.

I was fortunate to buy in before the rally continued higher.

$DMRC also performed nicely today.

Price broke out of the downtrend line and moved higher in strong volume.  I like the fact that price closed higher than the high of the last ten days.  The most important thing, from my perspective, is that price closed above the 79 & 89 MA lines.

Fundamentally speaking, someone posted a link to an article on Walmart highlights technology at shareholders event

Below is an excerpt from the article:

In another presentation, Cory Gundberg, VP of strategic planning of Walmart Technology, said the retailer has begun including digital watermarks in store circulars, allowing shoppers to use mobile devices to research items as they peruse ads. The company is also looking into using the technology on product packaging, he added.

While the article did not mention Digimarc’s digital watermarks technology or the Digimarc barcode for product packaging, it is up to us to speculate that it may be it.

Today price advance could also be due to positive review at the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) Connect 2014 show today.  With a much faster check out time using Digimarc barcode compared to conventional barcode system, the technology is just waiting to be taken.

Thus, I’m going to be sitting on this one for a long time.

Thanks to $DMRC rally and a quick gain on $APRI, my port gained 1% today.  YTD gain is now 4.3%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, KGJI, APRI, AMRN, TZA and 26% cash.

From my other account:

I decided to buy some $TRTC for a bounce.  $TRTC was a victim of bear attack from the SeekingAlpha article issued last Friday.  Price sank like a rock after the article.  I bought today ’cause $TRTC announced that it is going to take legal action.  As far as I’m concerned, taking legal action means you can back up your own story and support the libel suit; otherwise, you expose yourself to more attack in the legal system.

Price bounced nicely from the chart.  There is strong support at 34 cents.  Giving the trend of moving toward legalizing medical marijuana, I need to find a cannabis stock to speculate.on.  While $FITX is still waiting for Health Canada to inspect, I like the prospect of $TRTC from here.

My 2 cents.

 

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Market continued higher; but I’m sensing a bit of wearisome here…

Nevertheless, it is only the first day of the week, let’s see where price goes the rest of the week. I’ll be cautiously optimistic from here.

I didn’t have too much cash free up from the three days settlement so I used what I’d available to buy back some $AMRN I sold Friday since price just won’t drop back down like it used to.

Price looked strong from the chart but it is now banging its head against the downtrend line.  However, if price takes out the high of $1.53 from May 28th, I may add more. While I sold too earlier before, I’ve to look at it from a new buyer’s perspective in order to jump back in.  If I was to “regret” my past action, I might not be able to buy back in.  Thus, it is important that we let the past be the past and look at each trade with a fresh eye even though you’ve just cut the trade.  It is all about catching the momentum and flow with it.  It is NEVER about catching the bottom or selling at the top.  Although sometimes catching the bounce at the right time may make it look like you have caught the bottom, the reality is that they are just coincident.

$LRAD continued to struggle in the consolidation range.

In the absence of news, price will be hanging around this area for awhile.  However, I like the fact that price is now climbing back above the 79 & 89 MA lines.

$DMRC bounced some more today.

Price is now climbing back into the 79 & 89 MA lines which, to me, is very positive.  Tomorrow, $DMRC’s Digimarc Barcode will be a showcase at the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) Connect 2014 being held June 10-13 in Chicago, IL.  Let’s see if this will move the stock this week.

Due to $LRAD correction, it offset the gain from $DMRC almost perfectly.  Thus, my port was even for the day. YTD remains at 3.3%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, AMRN, and 42% cash.

My 2 cents.

 

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Away it went… up!

Look at the momentum to the upside!

Meanwhile, some of the my positions didn’t have the same momentum type of up movement…

$CLDX opened and headed lower which triggered my hard stop I placed yesterday.

While price recovered to even before closing; it did not have the same upward momentum to have a new high bar.  So, I did not miss anything by stopping out at small losses.

I bought $KNDI hoping to catch a bounce with a tight stop below yesterday low.

Nope, price did not take off like the $SPY and instead took me out by taking out yesterday low.  Looking that the chart above, You would think that it went out of air…Price also closed below the 79 & 89 MA lines.  So, I didn’t miss this trade for stopping out for small losses.

$BIOS opened higher than yesterday close so I bought back a starter position to test the water.

I even added more during the day; however, by end of day I decided to close out my position for small gain ’cause I didn’t want to hold this over the weekend when price only bounced modestly today.

$CREE went out of air by the close so I sold to lock in small gain as well.

With the $SPY shooting up, I didn’t want to hold any “swing trading” positions if price did not follow the same pattern.  $CREE gave back gain by the close so I sold.

$CLD also did not maintain the same $SPY upward movement; instead, it came back down from the intra-day high to settle back at the opening price to create a doji bar.

Nope, I was not willing to hold this one as well when price did not follow the $SPY so I sold for small gain.  Notice that price could not close above the 89 MA line which meant that these two MAs are still strong resistance.

I searched my emotional connection to selling out my $KGJI and $AMRN earlier last week.  The reason to my action was nothing more than letting the “momentum” of selling of other positions to carry over to these two positions which I actually hesitated to sell.

“Why not?”

A simple “Why not?” pushed me over so I clicked, clicked, and clicked to sell $KGJI and $AMRN to my own chagrin.

Since $LRAD and $DMRC are my long-term fundamental play, I left them alone.

Regardless of my non-stellar performance of the positions I sold, $LRAD and $DMRC both gained enough for me to recapture 1.2% in my port.  YTD gain is now 3.3%.

Current holdings:

$LRAD, $DMRC, and 46% cash.

My 2 cents.

 

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Today is a “Wow” day!

Look at the chart, “Wow!” is all I can say…

But before the “Wow” was to happen, the market actually went down not long after the open.  Thus, I went short with $TZA with a tight hard stop below the intra-day low. Needless to day, I was stopped out for small losses.  It was a good thing I had a hard stop close by; otherwise, I would lose a lot more than I want to if I didn’t pay attention.

Afterward, I looked for candidate to go long now that I had a clean port with plenty of cash.

I selected $CLDX ’cause the chart looked like it was ripe for busting out to the upside.

However, I used a close hard stop below intra-day low to protect myself in case the rally is short-live.

Next, I bought some $CLD for the bounce play as well.

While I was late to the table, the strong upward bar that took out the high of the last ten days reflected a lot of strength in today movement.  As in $CLDX, I also used a tight hard stop below intra-day low in case the rally lost momentum.

I also bought $CREE ’cause today doji bar was finding support at the 15 MA line and the 5 MA was coming to meet it.

I was looking for the 5 MA to turn back up after meeting the 15 MA line.  If price does not bounce from here, my tight stop below yesterday low will take me out for a small losses.

That was all I was willing to do today to test the water.

$DMRC recovered nicely today.

If price can bounce from here, current support has foundation that goes all the way back to February of this year.

$LRAD dropped significantly earlier in the day but recovered nicely by day close with higher than average volume.

If price can take out today high tomorrow, price may head back up above $2 easily.

Thanks to $DMRC recovery, my port also gained back 0.60% point.  YTD gain is now 2.1%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, CREE, CLD, CLDX and 32% cash.

My 2 cents.

 

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The market continued to inch higher…

There was no doubt the bull was in charge today by looking at the daily chart.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for my own trading today.  Instead, I hit the reset button today to cleanse myself of trading chaos in my port.

Trading chaos?

Do you remember those times when everything you did was just not “right”?

Today was such a day for me…

It all started with my dumping $AMRN in the morning and then saw the price climbed back higher without me.  Normally, this wouldn’t bother me ’cause I would just buy them back if I felt the momentum had reversed.  But the thing was that it had been umpteen times I’d been flipping $AMRN and today “missing out” after exiting the trade simply moved me closer to my internal reset switch.

$BIOS was trading higher not long after open so I added more.  It all went fine until in the late afternoon when $BIOS failed to maintain attitude and fell back down from $8.20 twice intra-day.  And when price breached the $8 support and traded below it, I knew I had to sell to protect profit ’cause the daily bar was forming a possible gravestone doji candlestick bar.  This could become bearish if price trades lower than the today low tomorrow. But I preferred to jump the gun and take my money first.

Maybe because seeing $BIOS gave back the gain so easily after what I thought was a strong day, it triggered my sense of “hopelessness” in my perception of the market trend.  It didn’t help when I saw $DMRC continued to deteriorate in price momentum; $NVLX turning back down after CEO and COO interviews; and $KGJI dropping further down despite a stellar earnings report in the last quarter.  It was like the stocks I was holding were defying logic simply to prove me wrong.

Then I questioned myself about buying into $INO in front of the reverse split and the Phase 2 result.

“Holy Smoke! What was you smoking, Z?  Why don’t you go to Vegas for that?  It would be more entertaining…”  

That voice in my head was all I needed to take action to cleanse myself of positions that were trying to tell me I shouldn’t be holding…

Immediately, I dumped $INO at breakeven.  Thanks goodness for the breakeven.

Then I dumped $KGJI to cut losses.  This was a tough one ’cause I was sitting on huge gain I didn’t take after the spike up from the stellar earnings report.  Instead, I added more which caused me to lose money due to higher average price from averaging up.

Then I sold $NVLX.  This one has a story similar to $INO, a technology that has been around a long time but nothing come to fruition yet.  In $INO case, it was synthetic vaccine, in $NVLX, it was “cell-in-the-box”.  Both technologies have the allure of saving the world and yet no one has cracked the code yet.  It was like someone “almost” invent a perpetual motion machine. Needless to day, I fell for the story hook, line, and sinker.  Although I don’t have any position on $NVLX and $INO now, I do want their technologies to succeed.  Well, I guess it is safe to say that everyone wants the perpetual motion machine to exist as well…

Then I sold $SEED.  $SEED’s last quarter earnings was horrible but the news of another China company offering a buy out propped the price back up above $2.00.  What bothered me the most was that there were no news at all from $SEED regarding the status of the offer or any counter-offer.  It was like the offer wasn’t really there.. or is it still there?  Well, with my internal fuse kicked, it didn’t matter if the deal was real or not, it lost its power over me so I sold to lock in whatever gain I had.

NO!  I couldn’t sell $DMRC.  I couldn’t even if I want to.  $DMRC is the “one way ticket” kind of stock, the kind that say, “once you are in, you better be right or you will lose big”.  I can think of it as similar to buying a piece of real estate in the outskirt of the town ’cause you believe the town will eventually grow into the land you have bought.  I’m betting that the future will adopt the Digimarc UPC barcode format, so I’m holding this purely for fundamental reason.

I’ve high hope for $LRAD and its technology.  At least the technology is actually functional and working, unlike $INO and $NVLX.  Like $DMRC, I’m just waiting for the world to adopt the technology.

There you have it, today I woke up and threw out the garbage (don’t worry, my garbage is someone’s treasure… meaning I could be wrong in selling them).

Oh yeah, did I mention that these positions that I’ve had were also draining out my YTD gain?  Seeing that I’m dangerously close to giving back all my gain for the year also contributed to my “kicking the fuse” to sell out.  YTD gain is now down to 1.50% for the year.

Current holdings:

$LRAD, $DMRC and 47% cash.  Yeap, these two positions comprise more than 50% of my portfolio.

My 2 cents.

 

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I’m amazed at the resiliency of the bull in the SP500.

While it was slightly down for the day, the bull possessed strength that the bear couldn’t overcome to make the market drop like a stone.

I bought back $AMRN for the bounce when price started to move up from the low of the day.

Price climbed back up to stay green after creating a lower low bar for the day.  Let’s see if the momentum will continue tomorrow on the upside.

Next, I bought $INO for the bounce.

Price looked like it was bouncing so I bought despite the fact that $INO will be doing a reverse split by end of the week on a 4 to 1 basis.

I think by doing a reverse split, management cover themselves by setting up a base level for the price to react to the coming Phase 2 result. If Phase 2 result is positive, the high price from the reverse split will allow fund managers to buy immediately to join the bandwagon.  And if Phase 2 result is less than expected, price still has a long way before it will drop below $1.00.  Thus, I’m betting on the side of positive result.

Due to corrections from $LRAD and $DMRC, the losses more than offset the gains from $BIOS.  My port gave back 0.50% today.  YTD gain is now 3.5%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, BIOS, KGJI, SEED, INO, AMRN and 9% cash.

From my other account:

$NVLX is holding well so far.

Price is only a stone throw from breaking out of the downtrend line to head back up.

My 2 cents.

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The market decided to start June with an up day despite the pressure from the Bear to bring it back down.

I said the bull won the battle today once again.

While the bull won the SP500, my port lost the battle today.

$DMRC took a hit again which I’ve no choice but to stick with the drawdown.  I’m holding $DMRC for the event play.

What event?

Well, I’m waiting for $DMRC to announce some retailers’ adoption of the Digimarc UPC code format.  While I don’t know if the new format will be adopted at all, all I know is that I’m betting that it will.  While I stand to lose quite a bit of dough if it is not adopted, the reward of being adopted will be mind-blowing.

It was a good thing $LRAD closed back at neutral after being down all day; otherwise, my port would have taken a much bigger hit.

I also sold $AMRN to cut losses in the morning when price failed to hold above $1.40.

Due to correction from $DMRC, $KGJI and $AMRN, my port gave back 1.1%.  YTD gain is now 4%.

Current holdings:

LRAD, DMRC, BIOS, KGJI, SEED and 20% cash.

From my other account:

$NVLX bounced back up today.

I like the fact that the 5 MA line is hooking back up.  Momentum indicators at the bottom are also coming back up from below.

My 2 cents.

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