Today was a lack of conviction day.

Market open negative but that was just the outer appearance only.

However $AAPL looked strong pre-market so I was ready to “get-the-hell” out of my put option at market open.  Lo and behold, $AAPL opening price actually dropped at open so I was able to get out with only a scratch.  Whew!

$MNKD looked strong pre-market even after a strong Friday up day.  After reviewing the chart, I can see more potential on the upside; therefore I decided to “chase” this one.  I bought starter position not too long after open.

$CERS opened strong and I wanted to buy in.  But the price was high at open so I waited.  I didn’t have to wait long since price dropped back down to the low $4.9x rather quickly.  I took the opportunity to buy a starter position and then continued to add as price climbed.  I am in the money by end-of-day.  Let’s see if I’m corrected to buy this one when tomorrow comes.

Since $AAPL opened strong, I bought a starter position.  But being mindful of the negative DOW, I placed a stop order below intra-day low and it was taken out soon afterward.

I also placed a stop order on $IMMR below Friday low and got stopped out as well for small losses.  Unlike The Fly who believes in $IMMR to the core, I did not have the conviction to hold.  By end of the day, The Fly wins again on $IMMR.  His conviction is strong and unparalleled.

Regarding $SZYM, please read my previous post since I covered my trading log there.  The quick summary is simply that I didn’t have the required conviction to hold this one thru volatility.

I stumbled on $CUR during chart browsing and I liked the cup & handle chart formation.  Price action looked like it wanted to go break out soon so I bought a starter position and later added more.

$KERX also looked promising and I had been watching this one for awhile.  I finally bite the bullet and bought a starter position. By end of day, I am in the money.  Thank you!

Except for $AMRN who continued to rally nicely today, I did not have a banner day like The Fly or others.  My portfolio gain today was modest. However, my portfolio is a sum total of my decisions and I feel that, in due time, I will have my days.  Both $AMRN and $LRAD will be the highlight of my portfolio by year-end.

While the rabbits are running fast and fury ahead of me, I’m a tortoise who just keep on moving despite some minor setback.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, CERS, CUR, KERX, MNKD and 37% gain.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a recovery day.

Market opened with a yoyo fashion.

I like The Fly’s thesis on $IMMR and the chart looked good.  I bought after the open.  As price continued to advance, I added more.  Alas, it didn’t last.  As price started to turn and took out the $14 support line, I began to wonder if I had bought too early.  Once price dropped below $13.80, I had it.  I reduced position size to cut losses and wait for better climate before jumping back in with both hands.  I like the fundamental thesis but not enough to hold it as a position trade even though this is a position trade for The Fly.  In summary, even though I picked a stock somebody like, I still need to trade it according to my own style.

$SZYM continued to run higher after open and I added without hesitation.  When it took out the $10 resistance price line, I added more as well.  Seeing that price action is still positive after the cup and handle breakout, I feel more comfortable holding this one without taking quick profit for now.  I may hold this as position trade if price continue to advance higher.

I saw RaginCajun’s alert on $TSL and $YGE in twitter and decided to jump in on $YGE because I traded this one before.  The risk was low with stop below yesterday low; hence my easy quick decision to jump in after seeing the alert.  Price continued to advance after I got in so I added more.  I started using a trailing stop to protect profit seeing that today is Friday and I was fearful of an en masse profit-taking that would take away my profit when I wasn’t looking.   After getting stopped out, $YGE headed back up before close.  Oh well.  I’m not going to complain about taking profit from a swing trade.

$TINY earnings report reflected that their book value is higher than its current market cap.  Seeing that the market would eventually take price action back to the book value, I added more.  Unfortunately, price action decided to take a yawn and went back to sleep.  Oh well, since this is my long-term position trade, I left it alone.

I saw $AAPL price action tracking in negative territory even though the DOW had recovered back to positive area; this was not a good sign per my book.  I decided to buy a June 7th 455 put option for a roll-the-dice play.  Let’s see where my dice rolls Monday morning.

Meanwhile, $AMRN, $LRAD, and $SZYM were all trending higher today.  Because I’ve large position on these three stocks, my portfolio recovers nicely today.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, SZYM, TINY, IMMR and 38% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a shake-out day.

Market opened with a negative bias and my swing-trade alerting mode kicked in.

The problem with my swing-trade alert mode is that I like to “get the hell” out of a position when the overall general market condition is negative.  Since I hadn’t designated $BIDU as a position trade, it was a prime candidate for me to take the money and run.  I did exactly that in the morning and lo and behold, I found out later I was shaken out of my position.  A few rattle on the bottle of $BIDU and out popped Zenhunter’s position.  Oop!  Of course, $BIDU continued higher for the day without me.  Nevethless, this was different from $CVI which I got out when price was higher; $BIDU was down when I got out.  Therefore, $BIDU was business as normal for my trading mind while $CVI was a pure ego play which it chose to ignore my trading mind to put a stop in lieu of jumping the gun.

After getting out of $BIDU, it was naturally that I also wanted to get out of $YNDX.  Price action was on the defensive at the time so I sold $YNDX for tiny losses.

$CTSH was holding well so I decided to move my stop to breakeven just in case.  It was holding well for awhile but eventually price pressure brought the price down and I was stopped out.

$SZYM opened higher after earnings announcement.  I wanted to get back in so I waited a bit.  Price eventually came down a bit and I bought a starter position.  Later in the day, (I was away for awhile), price shot up and settled back down at $9.45 area.  I added more at that level.

IMHO, $AMRN’s earnings report was in line.  After hour price was holding steady; but the real reaction will be based on tomorrow price action.

All in all, I was shaken out of my three swing trade positions- $BIDU, $YNDX, and $CTSH with my cash raised to 48% which wasn’t a bad thing to end the day with DJIA taking a breather here.  I’ll be looking to buy back some names at cheaper prices if I can.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, SZYM and 48% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

 

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Today was a sleepy day.

Market opened with a positive bias but that was the last thing I was concerned.

$DUST opened down and I waited a bit to see if there were any bounce.  After the first 5m bar was over, the 2nd bar did not do any better; so I sold to cut loss pronto.  And it was a good thing I did, $DUST continued to head south afterward.  Again, this is further proof that it pays to cut your loss quickly.  While I had to swallow the loss of $5 per share on my trade, it was much better than to sit on $15 dollars per share loss by the end of the day.

$NFLX had an orgasmic moment after a couple of 5m bar movements and I was not going to argue against such a strong burst.  I immediately took profit on my put option when there were still some to take.

$BAC was moving up so I added more.  Later, when $BAC began to show weakness after the burst, I moved my stop to breakeven and it was hit.  The reason why I moved my stop to breakeven so quickly was because I felt that $BAC movement somehow was limited in its range of movement given the money I had to tie up with it.  So, I was not disappointed when I was stopped out at breakeven to free up my cash.

$BIDU was moving up and I added more.  Although $BIDU did correct a bit in the morning after a burst, it did not correct the way $BAC did; therefore, I was more comfortable holding $BIDU since its potential range of movement was much larger, imo.

Seeing $BIDU was doing well, it reminded me of the Russian version $YNDX.  I took a look at the chart and realized I missed the $7 run from the last two weeks.  Seeing that they had good earnings result, I decided this was the catalyst we needed to see for future upward movement.  I bought a starter position and later added a bit more.

$SZYM was not fairing well, so I sold 1/3 of my position to reduce position.  Later, I sold the rest just to get some peace of mind from the earnings result that would come after the close.

While browsing thru some chart, I came across $CTSH that I used to trade many years ago.  This stock acted like it was ready to bounce back up from good earnings report.  I bought a starter position to see if it would work.

There wasn’t much action on my end for the day and I took a nap during market hours; hence a sleepy day.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, BIDU, TINY, YNDX, CTSH and  33% cash

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a turnover day.

Market opened higher and then went thru a yoyo action in the morning before heading back up.

Meanwhile, a lot of my positions were being attacked.

After $BCRX earnings report, I woke up to the fact that this stock price was support entirely by the bird flu scare.  Without it, the fear of dilution will tank it pronto.  Thus, I sold my whole lot at breakeven and washed my hand off this one.

$GLUU was under attack on the get go and I immediately sold 70% of my position.  When price dropped below the support line at $2.75, I sold the rest without hesitation.  As far as I’m concerned, price action for $GLUU is broken.

$CREE was on the defensive all morning and I moved my stop to breakeven initially; but seeing that it was having a hard time staying put, I cancelled my stop and sold at the market to lock in some gain.  Good thing I did since price action would have taken out my stop eventually.

$CVI was up and I was sitting on a gain from 2 days of running.  I told myself to put a stop below intra-day low and let the stock worked it out on its own.  Unfortunately, I did not listen to myself but instead chose to jump the gun to take the money and run.  Oh well, price continued another strong up day; only this time without me on board.

I moved my stop on my $NFLX June 215 put option to breakeven so I didn’t have to worry about it.  So far, I haven’t been stopped out yet.

$SZYM was under attack again so I unloaded 80% of my position to reduce my risk.  I also didn’t want to give back too much gain from the recent run up.  However, later on when price stabilized, I bought back some below my sales price but still holding less than I came in this morning.

I’ve been looking at $DUST and after the gapped up today, I believe it was time to go back in.  I bought a starter position in the low $96.xx and wished that I had more patience to wait a bit longer.  Oh well, let’s see if I’m on the right track tomorrow.  Since this is a 3x ETF, I will let tomorrow price action to help me decide if I want to keep it or cut it.

I also like the $BAC price action and bought a starter position.  Unfortunately, right after I bought, price started a mini-waterfall price action so I sold 2/3 of my starter position to reduce risk and take small losses.

A friend alerted me of $BIDU so I took a look.  I like the fact that it is now at 50% retracement from its historical price range; thus, I bought a starter position to see if it will work.

Basically, today I’ve turned over my old swing-trade positions and replaced them with new ones.

Current holding:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, DUST, BIDU, SZYM, BAC and 39% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a quiet day.

Market opened neutral with an upward bias and $APRI looked good at the open.  It wanted to go higher so I bought some to nudge it along.  Nope, $APRI price action collapsed not long after I bought so I sold it to cut losses pronto.

Both $SZYM and $BCRX were under attack from the get go so I reduced my position size on both to reduce risk.

Meanwhile, $CREE was showing strength by taking out Friday high so I added more.

$VECO, unfortunately, was also under attack and price went below the mid-point of Friday bar so I sold to take the small losses.

$CVI showed strength and I added more to get the full size position.

Later, $BCRX was stabilizing and looked like it was bouncing, I bought back a bit to bring my position to 50% of original size.  Earlier, I sold down to 1/3 position size.

I’ve been looking at $NFLX for short and today might be the day to start.  I bought the June 215 put option to start.

Both $AMRN and $TINY had healthy upside movement today.  Let’s see if the uptrend can continue from here.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, CVI, SZYM, CREE, GLUU, BCRX and 25% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a lucky day.

Market gapped up with job numbers and almost every stocks went along with the upside bias except for $FB that I happened to own.

Hey, fella, you’re going the wrong way!  Did you get the memo about the job numbers?

I guess not.  $FB continued to head south and when it passed thru the mid-point of yesterday up bar, I placed my stop below the intra-day low and got stopped out shortly after for a small losses.  Good riddance was what I said to $FB.

Anyway, first order of the day was for me to buy back $GLUU I sold yesterday since the earnings report from the previous day did not result in a gap down situation.  To me, if there is no gap down after earnings, it means the stock passes the test and the on going chart pattern can continue on.  I’m still positive on $GLUU as long as its long-term support at $2.75 is not breached.

$CVI opened a bit higher and I added some more.  So far, the chart looks good and is on track to test the $62 area.

$SZYM was also acting good in the morning so I added a bit more to round out my position size number.  Later on, price action began to trek down but I decided I wasn’t going to mess around daytrading this stock.  Sensing that it might come back up later in the day, I left it alone.

I wanted to invest in the LED market so I picked two of the LED related companies from The Fly’s LED list.  I chose $VECO and $CREE because they are heavy players in the field.  Indirectly, I also own stock in LED by way of $TINY.  $TINY has venture capital investment in BridgeLux that focuses on more cost efficient LED manufacturing with better lighting.  An IPO on BridgeLux (or buyout) once it has proven itself in the LED marketplace will stimulate $TINY price action in a very nice way is my 2 cents.  In the meantime, I prefer $CREE and $VECO over $RVLT and $LEDS.  One look at $LEDS and $RVLT SEC filings of Income statements and I know why $TINY’s BridgeLux will succeed.  In $LEDS, the cost of revenues was twice the size of revenues itself!  How do you make money when your cost is twice the size of your revenues?  In $RVLT’s case, cost of revenues was still larger than revenues itself but not to the extent of $LEDS.

Note to self- keep an eyes on $RVLT and $LEDS for possible short.

$AAPL had been trying to hypnotize me to fall asleep by trading around $450 and $451 all day.  Nevertheless, the small spinning top with relatively low volume looked like a recipe for an island top reversal candlestick pattern.  Of course, it needs to be confirmed with a down day on Monday but I’m not going to chance it.  Therefore, I moved my stop close to $AAPL intra-day low and got stopped out for profit pronto.

$BCRX had a hiccup day when price trekked down below $1.90; however, I’ve since made up my mind to hold this one over the weekend.  It is a good thing that price came back up to neutral by closing bell.

Today was my lucky day because $AMRN did not trekked down to my swing trade entry point.  After an earlier false start in developing a bullish harami in the morning on the daily chart, price action weakened later and traded back down to negative territory.  If there was anything that could dull the excitement of a strong DOW day, this was it.

Yesterday, I talked about how it was so easy to mix up your swing trade do’s and don’t’s with the position trade’s on the same stock.  The fact of the matter should be how I had decided to play the swing trade.  If I decided that I would play the swing trade using only the stop to cut losses and ride the trend with the core position; then that would be my rules to go by.  I should NEVER contradict myself by suggesting that I “should have” taken profit like any swing trade position.  Sometimes, it is SO EASY to slap yourself around by applying your swing trade rule against a decision you originally made that deviated from the swing trade rules.  Having seen the light, I accept my earlier decision on my $AMRN swing trade and is now feeling good about my position.  No more feeling bad about what I “should’ve, could’ve” done with my “supposedly” profit-taking scenario.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, SZYM, TINY, VECO, CVI, BCRX, GLUU, CREE and 20% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a wake-up call day.

Market opened higher and I saw $FB opened higher as well.  I’ve been watching $FB for the last few days but decide to hold off buying until earning comes out.  With good positive AD revenues increase, price action may as well begin an uptrend from here.  Giving positive price action today, I bought a starter position in the morning and added more later.

$AAPL was looking strong so I bought a starter position.  With trend continuing on the upside, I added more later.  However, by end of day, I’m back to breakeven position.  I’ll see what happen tomorrow before deciding to keep or sell.

I think I’ve a fixation on $BCRX.  Somehow, I keep thinking that this one will just blow up to the upside one day without warning; so I keep looking for reason to buy back shares I’ve sold to cut losses.  I added a few times again today ’cause price was acting like it wanted to go up all morning.  I’m still holding the positions I added today.

$GLUU gapped down and continued to go lower until it bounces off the support level at $2.75.  I bought starter position and later added more.  However, by market close, I got nervous over the earnings announcement (thanks to $MELA), I decided to unload 70% of my holdings from today purchase just to be on the safe side.

I was stopped out of my $$RBCN today for small losses.

$SZYM was acting very strong near the end of the day and I bought more when price went over $9.00.  This stock is now my third largest position in the portfolio.

After reviewing the smart money top pick list, I found $CVI to be an attractive buy; therefore, I bought a starter position to see if price can climb back up to the $60 area.  I’ll add more if price action continue to climb.

$AMRN was the big elephant today.  Practically, the gain for the last three days was completely removed today.  Pretty soon, I will have to face the prospect of selling out my swing trade position.  What I had forgotten was that while I bought the swing trade position at the $6.4x area, I didn’t sell the swing trade position for profit when price action started to turn from $7.5x..  There is always the danger of mixing the swing trade with long-term position trade. I tend to get a bit more “greedy” to ride the swing trade beyond the proper swing trade protocol.  Looking back, if I never have any position trade, I’ll be doing really good for the year.  But then, I won’t be hitting any big win anytime soon either.  It is so easy for my mind(s) to play the doubting game; thus it is important that I write down all my thought here so that I can see what is going on here.

Anyway, the focus is on what I need to do when $AMRN continues to head lower.  I need to protect myself by getting out of my swing trade when my stops are hit.  This is the wake-up call.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, SZYM, TINY, AAPL, FB, BCRX, CVI, GLUU and 26% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

 

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Today was a puke out day.

Market opened down and everything else followed thru.

First order of the day, I checked $MELA to see if there were support to drive the price backup from a gap down.  After a few minutes, I decided there were not enough buyers to push it up; so I sold my shares for losses.  Again, I picked the wrong horse so I had to accept this as part of the loss.  This loss was not a small losses like the normal quick losses I took since I was holding it thru the earning play.  Nevertheless, it was still an acceptable loss that I could put it behind me easily.  It was a good thing I sold 50% of the position before close yesterday.

Next, I sold $GLUU and $CERS since their price action was horrible in the morning.

$BCRX was also not acting well and I was way overloaded from the breakout above $2 yesterday.  Thus, I’ve no choice but to reduce my position size to cut losses and minimize exposure.  I’m still keeping  1/3 of the original position size on this one.

$SZYM proved me wrong again for jumping back in two days ago.  Oh well, I need to accept my own responsibility for being “impatient and greedy”; so I dumped 85% of my position early in the morning to cut losses and minimize exposure.  Later on when price stabilized, I bought some back to maintain a mid-size position on this one.

$AAPL was strong at first but it couldn’t handle the overall bearish sentiment; after looking at the chart, I decided to take my profit and run for now.

$RBCN looked very attractive at $6.9x level and price seemed stabilized around there; I decided to take this opportunity to jump back in for a starter position.  So far, I’m still in the green.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, SZYM, TINY, RBCN, BCRX and 42% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

 

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Today was a big hug and a slap on the face.

Market was down in the morning but I seemed to pay less attention to what $SPY was doing these days.

My focus was on $GLUU and $BCRX.

$GLUU opened a little bit higher and I felt the urge to buy back my shares.  I noticed that even though yesterday was a down day, it still has a higher low compared to the day before.  With this kind of thinking, I decided to buy back $GLUU with a stop below yesterday low which was a low risk trade for me.  By end of day, I was not stopped out.

$BCRX was acting strong and I added twice during the day.  Somehow, the momentum went out of gas but price still closed above $2.00.  I’ll decide what to do with this one tomorrow.

After browsing around the watchlist, I decided to buy starter position on $DNDN and $DNN.  $DNDN because the chart looked bouncy and $DNN because $CCJ was up at the time and the Russian supply of military grade uranium for conversion to commercial use would cease to be available sometimes in the 2nd half of the year.  I later added a bit more to $DNN.

$AMRN was going strong all morning and when it took out the high made in April 23rd, I added a bit more to my swing trade position.

$AAPL was doing great so I left it alone.

$SZYM was on a defensive all day and I wasn’t thrilled about the price action at all.  I sold out my position two days ago to lock in some nice gain but then I felt the urge to buy them back.  Now I have to deal with this correction all over again.  Why did I have to buy them back? Why?  Why?  Ok, enough of my whining.  Sometimes, I’ve to let my ego complains a bit so that it can settle back into the background. (grin)

$MELA.  Mela, Mela…  what’ve I done to you that you’ve to slap me on the face?  Before closing, price dropped quite a bit when I wasn’t looking.  However, after I was made aware of it, I dumped 50% of my position to cut my losses.  With the earnings numbers out, after hours price tanked quite a bit.  Somehow, I thought their business model was starting to kick in gear.  Depend on price action tomorrow morning, I may just buy back some share for intermediate term hold.  Let’s see how it goes tomorrow morning.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, SZYM, TINY, AAPL, BCRX, GLUU, DNN, MELA, CERS, DNDN and 21% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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