NO BLOW UPS!!

Had a good day today. Set a new personal daily high of about $290, $300 depending on how my commissions come out. It's hard to gauge with so many shares that I traded... about 16,000 shares. I was up about $178 yesterday, really, not too shabby for two days of work. Maybe I'll get on that list for top rookies of the week. In order to do that I need to prevent a blow up tomorrow. Every time I have a good winning streak I seem to follow up with a bad losing day and it gets difficult shake that stink. That's what happened last Wednesday, fortunately I was able to get two small up days on Thursday and Friday to end the week in positive territory to be able to trade 400 shares this week.

I feel more comfortable about taking 200 shares to get in a position trade now. The set ups I look for work most of the time. I think I can time it a lot better and get more profit out of the trades. Looking back at some of my trades, it's nice that I have some good winners but I think I've been letting some of my losers get out of hand.

Had a little chat with Chris last week and he showed me this rank report that shows the most active stocks by volume and it'll show how high or low it is relatively to today's range. It's a pretty handy tool to look for reversals, bounces or if the price breaks through the previous level you could follow the trend. I want to take some time and talk to David and Anthony. It'd probably be easier since they took part in my interview.

My Fingers Are Not Listening to My Brain

I'm still trading a lot. In fact, I traded even more than I did on Monday. 12200 shares. Yeesh! That's 3 or 4 times more than what I usually trade. I said at one more in mid morning: "my fingers are not listening to my brain. I can't stop pulling triggers."

I need to practice some discipline and on the really good set ups I'll take 200 shares.

Got into CHL yesterday in my personal account. After an hour of trading I was convinced of the stock and China and the bull market, for now. I sold my DEO for a loss... such pain. Not only it ticks back up but the stock needs to go through settlement for three days so I can't use it for trading. D'oh! I'm still don't fully believed in this rally. If the sellers come back in I might get out...

Gaining Momentum

So I had a good week last week, up about $125 and Monday was another good day, up about $150. I've been trading a lot more shares than usual and I think it's because I've been having good days and I felt a little bit more confidently, maybe overly so, and sometimes just start pulling triggers without really thinking about it. I've definitely chased a few stocks. I got some really good winner that are .50+ and I've also had a few bad losers. I think I'm going to try to fine tune my trading styles and the set ups that I'm looking for and once I do I'll take 200 on the trades instead of 100.

And I want to start talking to different traders and bounce some ideas around. I'm going to talk to Chris, he's the top rookie in the company right now and then maybe David and Anthony since they interviewed me and also Nish.

Breaking the Mental Gap

I seem to have this mental cap on myself. Hopefully I broke it today. I started off the day w/ one for $74 and later on I got one that was $175. I did have a few losses on some of the position trades. There was a part from the Market Wizards book that I remember the trader being interviewed said that people get what they want out of this job. I guess that's my problem up to now. I didn't expect to win big and that's why I'm grinding myself out at like 60 some dollars.

I'm shooting for a profitable Novemeber. Forget trying to trade 400... that stuff will fall in place. I can't let this good day get to my head. I still need to trade w/ discipline, look for my good set up and not chase things. Stop thinking about the money and just make the good trades.

Market Wizards: Final Word

Common demoninators

All those interviewed had a driving desire to become successful traders---in many cases, overcoming significant obstacles to reach their goal.

All reflected confidence that they could continue to win over the long run. Almost invariably, they considered their own trading as the best and safest investment for their money.

Each trader had found a methodology that worked for him and remained true to that approach. is is significant that discipline was the word most frequently mentioned.

the top traders take their trading very seriously; most devote a substantial amount of their waking hours to market analysis and trading strategy.

Rigid risk control is one of the key elements in the trading strategy of virtually all those interviewed.

In a variety of ways, many of the traders stressed the importance of having the patience to wait for the right trading opportunity to present itself.

The importance of acting independent of the crowd was a frequently emphasized point.

All the top traders understand that losing is part of the game.

They all love what they are doing.

Market Wizards: Mark Weinstein

Always do your homework.

Don't be arrogant. When you get arrogant, you forsake risk control. The best traders are the most humble.

Understand your limitations. Everyone has limitations---even the best traders

Be your own person. Think against the herd, as they must lose in time.

Don't trade until an opportunity presents itself. Knowing when to stay out of the markets is as important as knowing when to be in them.

Your strategy has to be flexible enough to change when the environment changes. The mistake most people make is they keep the same strategy all the time. They say, "damn, the market didn't behave the way I thought it would." Why should it? Life and the markets just don't work that way.

Don't get too complacent once yyou have made profits. The toughest thing in the world is holding on to profits. That is because once you have attained a goal, you then set a second goal that is usually the same as the first one: to make more money. Consequently, for many people, attainment of that second goal is not as rewarding. They may begin to question what they really want from trading and trigger a self-destruct process in which they wind up losing.

You have to learn how to lose; it is more important thant learning how to win. If you think you are always going to be a winner, when you lose, you will develop feelings of hostility and end up blaming the market instead of trying to learn why you lost.

More Random Musing

Watching UA, NYX and MO has given me more confidence, but I still think I'm going to get rid of UA and maybe NYX as well before they report earnings.

MO, I was watching that 72.20 price ceiling. It is so obvious that the stock has touched that ceiling twice already and didn't want to break. I don't care if you believe in technical analysis and reading charts but this one is just so apparent you know there's some deeper psychological level there. Now that it broke and the 72.20 level has actually became the floor, I'm holding on to the stock. Plus there's the spin off in January next year of PMI... exciting stuff.

UA, not considering last Friday... it really was almost like magic that it went up couple of points on Monday when the market in general was down. My thinking is that people are starting to buy it on valuation thinking that it is cheap. Meanwhile there are still a lot of people that are bearish on the stock, thinking they're not going to hit their high growth figures. They report next Tuesday. I might get rid of it today or on Monday

NYX popped on Wed when it officially replaced Hilton. I was going to watch it on Tuesday if there's a strong seller but it wasn't, at the same time the buying strength is dwindling. I might get rid of this soon as well if I see some negative signs.

Random Personal Portfolio Musing

I'm thoroughly confused at this moment. There is no clear signal on whether I should be bullish or bearish right now and it's obvious a lot of people feel this way from the way the market has been behaving today. At least we have some sign of stability now after the sell off on Friday. It appear a lot of people are still testing the water before jumping in.

If you want an example of hitting it out of the park, just listen to AAPL's conference call and their numbers. It is just so sick. I don't know if I'd chase it here near the low 180's... actually I probably would as I could see this thing go easily to 200 and potentially 250 or 300. An 80/30 risk-reward ratio. I think I do like it. A lot of people are going to be scared to buy AAPL here, which is fine and logical but those people remind me of my mother... they make me sick. No stock price is too high to buy or too low to short.

AT&T reports tomorrow morning... I'm very interested to see how the iPhone sales number affects them.

People might be bearish on RIMM after the AAPL numbers. I don't believe that's the case. Blackberry's and iPhone are two different markets and I don't think they really compete with each other THAT much. If RIMM dips to the 110 I'd consider going long.

What I was really more interested in was the PC sales figure. AAPL is selling more Mac's but how much more relatively to the overall market. I need to figure out a way to track that. All the PC makers are doing pretty good, ex: HPQ. To me, it matters less that it went up, it matters more that it went up relatively more to other Windows OS PC's, which means Mac's are stealing market share. Plus the profit margin in those are higher, too, I think.

I've been looking at this RIO for a while now. I actually traded it at 32 after a downgrade on valuation... stupid Wall Street analysts. I longed it and it went to 36, so I adjusted my stops. I was going to get out at 38 if it hits new highs and I put in a stop at 34 to lock in my profit. The stock did pull back and my stop got hit, which at first kind of pissed me off b/c it traded back to 36 but I kept telling myself that I need to follow my rules. It's trading around 32.5 now. I would probably long it again if it comes back down to 32. The mining industry is still good and I haven't seen any visual confirmations of the contrary yet.

Now the most interesting stock... UA. It is definitely a growth stock by my definition and therefore it means high volatility. I would watch this with DKS and listen to the conference calls. Ideally I think I'd wait after the earning reports come out but I put a limit order in for UA @ 55 thinking that it's low enough and it wouldn't be hit and if it did it'd be near the support and I wouldn't mind too much. Well, son of a bitch, I forgot about this order and it got filled yesterday... when I could've got at least a point maybe 2 below where I got filled. Today's rally while the market is a good sign though. It means someone out there do believe that this is oversold and people are buying, even when the futures are signaling down. I have to be very careful though. If it gets to 52, or 51 I would be looking to get out. People are bearish on this because of the warm September we've had and UA typically makes a higher margin on its coldgear apparel rather than the heatgear. I'm thinking that's a non-factor at this point. I believe this is a trend breaker (and there's lots of people that believe that)... all the young kids that play football, lacrosse, etc are wearing UA gears. It's becoming a fashion statement much like Nike basketball shoes.

Speaking of NKE, I like NKE as well. I have this untested theory that NKE rises during basketball season and then cools off after the NBA finals. Maybe? Haven't really tested this. I'm just eyeballing the charts right now.

NYX... man, that stock I think is dead. Hopefully it delivers a blow out quarter and the volatility picks up. It went up last Thursday on news that it will be added to the S&P 500 index. Because of that, people that track the index would have to buy it. It has not done much since then. It was hard to gauge it with last Friday's sell off but today it's kind of clear that this thing has no steam, no momentum. I'd wait and see to decide what direction to go on this...

300? Oh no, 400!!!

So I haven't really been updating about my trading for a while mostly because I haven't found anything meaningful to write about. I've been just plugging away and I found myself having another up week last week and I'm starting off this week pretty good, too up about $40 today. I'm feeling slightly in a zone so I'd have to make my reads and trade very carefully and ideally I'll have another up week so I can trade 400 shares!

Caught a really good trade in CTX today. The market was down and I noticed the homebuilders were up. I felt like someone was trying to pick bottoms again like Bear Searns always try to do. I see that it level off on a top and started to go down. Seeing the bids are getting hit hard, meaning people are shorting it, I took 100 shares @ 25.70 and it soon started dropping and I can see people cancelling their bids so I know it'll have quite a bit to run. When the activities died down I got out @ 25.27 although I kind of chumpped it. I tried later with LEN and TOL... TOL didn't work out but I got out with limited damage and LEN was a good winner. I was seeing all the home builders starting to make new highs and I wanted to shorted it so it didn't work out. Later on in the afternoon they started to dip and LEN was the only one that hasn't made the move yet and that's why I shorted it.

KHD... there was news on CNBC about it. The company makes cement and I personally felt that it made a nice run and it was time to reverse. I got in near the whole dollar... the first time I got in I didn't follow my rules. As soon as it broke, I knew that my outs were limited b/c the liquidity was low for a stock that trades about 160,000 shares a day and I got burned in the end. I was playing that big spread a little bit. I would throw my order out below the level 1 offer and if I get hit I'd turn around and throw out a bid to try to get hit there as well or just wait for it to come down itself. It worked couple of time but overall I still lost money on that stock.

Market Wizards: Gary Bielfeldt

You don't just play every hand and stay through every card, because if you do, you will have a much higher prbability of losing. You should play the good hands, and drop out of the poor hands, forfeiting the ante. When more of the cards are on the table and you have a very strong hand---in other words, when you feel the percentages are skewed in your favor---you raise and play that hand to the hilt. If you apply the same principles of poker strategy to trading, it increases your odds of winning significantly. I have always tried to keep the concept of patience in mind by waiting for the right trade, just like you wait for the percentage hand in poker. If a trade doesn't look right, you get out and take a small loss; it's precisely equivalent to forfeiting the ante by dropping out of a poor hand in poker. On the other hand, when the percentages seems to be strongly in your favor, you should be aggressive and really try to leverage the trade similar to the way you raise on the good hands in poker.