Last week's exits and one entry in PDCO.

Just hanging onto my trades last week. I exited AMZN early...but should have exited even earlier, near b/e when 20 EMA broke by large bar. Same thing with LOJN. Before these two there were a couple of teeny tiny gains from other early exits. If i had been watching the channel lines for resistance i would have either skipped these trades or exited for nice gains....doh.

I entered PDCO on tuesday and exited ALTR on wednesday because it closed past its 20 ema, my trailing stop. I didnt draw it but the entry bar on PDCO has broken up above what i would consider a decent daily channel...puuuurrrrfect.

Bring on the new week so we can see if that Egyptian down day on friday is for real.... i really want to get into new trades that include rules for channel lines along with everything else.

I love you Gaby, thanks for helping me so much.

ARW long entry, /DX long entry

ARW looks really good to me in all the aspects im looking for. It has weekly ema's and tl's and channel lines out of the way with tiny consolidation and a hug entry bar/volume.

Just felt like playing with /DX. it looked like it was in a solid no-trend and just became oversold, why not?

i exited BCR for a 2% gain and FL for a .01% gain, both early. i wanted to try and follow my new rules about using channel lines/tl's as targets as well. i think i have been focusing too much on just the 200 ema and recent hi/lo targets. tl's matter too! it might be just enough edge to let me do great during a trend. could always get even stricter later if i wanted, maybe throw in bollinger bands or something. or maybe not.

i think i will put my stop losses at the farthest end of the entry bars from now on. that should cut my risk in half. the trades that work well for me seem to rarely dip more than halfway through entry bar. mainly the terrible trades go to the farthest end of the entry bar.

currently my LOJN, KBH, AMZN, NCTY, JAZZ and ALTR are looking great overall. And they should since my crappy trades have all been stopped out by now. be a good addition ARW.

quiet holiday

its MLK day so the stocks are closed, but the sp500 futures is still inching along. i think i will use channel lines as a target if i cant use recent hi's/lo's or 200 ema. any major form of resistance would work. i noticed i have a couple trades right now that look like they should have been exited already and have fallen a lot since then. my other trades are looking good with a couple near their targets. the best trades that i have do not have channel lines in the way, but the worst ones and the ones that have fallen off do. i think i will draw channels again for my stocks. so now my potential targets are: 200 ema, recent hi's/lo's and channel lines.

ill try to trade the sp500 futures when a setup happens to appear but its so rare. on the daily chart i would be lucky to get 4 or 5 entries all year......thats why i switched to stocks the first year i was trading. but i can be ready to trade the market if and when a setup does occur.

ALTR long entry

Stopped out of AIG today, an 8.4% loss. AIG's consolidation was a little wierd. Entered ALTR at the close. I still see a couple of lousy indicators in the stocks im already holding. Usually my worst trades have lousy indicators too.

Im still going full-force with entries using strong ema trends with consolidation breakouts, or no ema trends with 20 ema breaks. I think i could exit everything early if its a strong trend but market makes a large bar closing past 50 ema or if its no trend and market makes a large bar closing past 20 ema. If no trend then i probably should instantly trade the opposite direction. Basically, i still want to trade with strong market trends, or with market oscillations in no trends. Thats all market timing.

I have had several stop outs, but with individual stocks i am giving up sp500 futures stability for more volatility/potential for higher gains. If i were to feel really confident in timing the market, i might try trading futures again. long time ago i learned how much simpler it is to focus on futures alone, i only left cuz at the time i need more assets to filter through. It should equate to lower % gains but much easier. i favor easy. trading individual stocks i am always hoping that my gains will be much better than my losses so i gain overall, since i will usually have losses mixed in. i think i will also put on futures trades from now on when there is a setup. happy birthday dad.

Finally got a target hit. VLO gave me a 12.2% gain. Market has been sluggish but i have patience. VLO should cover a couple of the stop outs i got in the beginning of the current uptrend. I also quit my CVBF trade since it was doing nothing and was not in a strong trend at entry like i want now, it was a 3.2% loss.

JAZZ long entry

Entered JAZZ around 2:15pm today, early but ill be at the gym around 3. Really like the consolidation and the strong trend. No clear target to use so ill just exit after a break of the 20 ema. no resistance at all going up.
Now im holding 10 long trades going into tomorrow. Basically a flat day overall for my portfolio. One more solid up day might give me a couple of targets. we'll see. my girlfriend is beautiful!

NCTY long entry

Overall my stocks are holding up or moving up. After browsing for a couple minutes i found this setup. Everything looks extreme so i wanted to try it. Tiny consolidation, huge entry bar, huge reward, huge volume bar. These are the kind of signals i should always have in my trades.

STZ was stopped out for a 5% loss. its entry bar was not that impressive....why did i get into it? i probably really liked the consolidation/strong uptrend setup but i hope i never get into something like that again. Overall, the really good setups do better than the so-so setups. Yesterday's AIG entry has a huge bar! (improvement)

AIG long entry

Market finally came back to life this week and i bought AIG today at the close. This is another one of those trades that doesnt seem to have a nice target for me to aim for, so ill just wing it and probably wait for a 20 EMA break.

Holding 9 long trades now. Overall everything is looking good. Just a few are questionable right now but ill stick with the trend no matter what they do.

Gaby is beautiful