SVA worked out to be a great trade today if you played it right. I preface it this way as I made some mistakes today trading this and only ended up about $5 on this stock. But let me explain. As you can recall from my post last night I wanted to buy SVA in the 9.75-9.90 area with a first target of $11. This morning SVA was gapping up in the pre-market at traded as high of 10.27. At this point I knew I had to adjust my plan just a bit. The first trade I put on was at 10.11 and took a sale at 10.16 when the .30's could not lift on the third try. In Reality the third time that SVA could not hold above .30's I should had taken a sale at .32, .31, or .30 depending on how fast I was. Third time is not a charm. This thing was not ready to go and it was going to give you and opportunity to get in at better prices. Then I tried the trade a few more times when I saw it trying to move higher and supporting at prices near 10.10. I took a few small losses. It broke 10 and traded down to 9.90 but never lower. At this point I am thinking, lets get into a really good price and hold this baby unless it trades below its 20 period moving average. So I entered in at 10.02 fearful of SVA not trading below 10 again as I saw this as a way of the big guys shaking out the weak hand longs. I trailed my stop a penny under the 20 period moving average. Up to this point I am very happy with my agressiveness on my execution. At the start of this trade I had a risk of about .14 and was seeking a move of at least .50-1 point to the upside. At one point before I closed my position pre-maturely I had a risk of about .04 because of my trailing stop with the same reward in sight. After I closed out this position it takes off almost .70 and I only catch about .20. But I guess the moral of the story or the big lessoned I learned today is to stick with the trading thesis and if the stock does not hit your stop loss do not hit out early. My stop was never hit. I woul had been long 100 shares and when .20 broke this is where I could had thought to buy a second lot.
However I am not upset with the missed trade, becuase I know for every missed trade there is another trade waiting. I am happy with my trading this morning because I learned something and will be better prepared for a setup like this in the future. I will look to see if this thing has follow through tomorrow.
Thanks for listenting to my thought process.
Good Luck Trading!
Also a few other things that I learned this morning. I caught myself wanting to get into any stock that was called out. It is okay to look and then decide if it is for you or not or if you agree with the thesis. But what I realized this morning is that you should not jump into a stock just because it was called out.
ReplyDeleteAlso this morning I mentioned to Mark that I would not be trading the afternoon session. After re-thinking this I first realized that this is because I made stupid choices in trading the close. But in reality I think the close is a excelent opportunity for me to get more screen time. So I am goint to try and trade the close again today if I can. With the caveat that I will only execute on the best set ups. I will not take on stupid trades.
I really have to reccomend the daily trading coach, as it is really helping me coach myself and identify strengths and weaknesses.
Also a few other things that I learned this morning. I caught myself wanting to get into any stock that was called out. It is okay to look and then decide if it is for you or not or if you agree with the thesis. But what I realized this morning is that you should not jump into a stock just because it was called out.
ReplyDeleteAlso this morning I mentioned to Mark that I would not be trading the afternoon session. After re-thinking this I first realized that this is because I made stupid choices in trading the close. But in reality I think the close is a excelent opportunity for me to get more screen time. So I am goint to try and trade the close again today if I can. With the caveat that I will only execute on the best set ups. I will not take on stupid trades.
I really have to reccomend the daily trading coach, as it is really helping me coach myself and identify strengths and weaknesses.
Hey thanks for the view in to your thoughts and experiences. I know from my past that unless I'm actively trading or at least monitoring, it's hard to build and learn from my mistakes. That's why I haven't wanted to do this things part time or here and there when I can find time. I'm comfortable with waiting a few more months until I can do it full time as my only major concern. Without that clarity I wouldn't be successful. I think I mentioned already that I picked up that trading coach book, it's sitting here in line with others that I need to make time for. Most likely won't happen until January, but perhaps that's a good time if that is indeed when I start trading anyway.
ReplyDeleteJust watching this one out of the corner of my eye. Trying to come up with a plan of attack for this afternoon's session. Looks like it supported the same level from this morning and it may have given you one more chance to get in at really good prices before taking off to 11 and beyone???
ReplyDeleteTook my profits this morning and just playing with lightspeed during the close. Pretty nice day today with SVA mostly. Ironically I had 82 shares in FDX at $77.3 that I closed at $79.2... check my blog for details.
ReplyDeleteI guess the charts that you embed from freestockcharts.com are not static. Not sure how I feel about this as it is not going to provide a snapshot of what we were looking at on the time of the post. Will look to see if there is some kind of option to change. Otherwise I may just do screenshots.
ReplyDelete