Summary
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Added to my Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) position on the breakout above 140 as per plan. However, the sellers showed up later, and the broad based weakness led to Goldman Sachs selling off. I exited my full position at breakeven (140). Will probably need a couple days to determine whether there is any buy support at 136.6.
Started a 1/4 position in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B) as per plan.
long 75.6, stop 73, target 80+
IBM (International Business Machines Corp., NYSE: IBM) has been acting the strongest during this OpEx selloff, along with MacDonald's. I will look to buy both names on weakness.
Another name has caught my eye, and that is American Capital Agency Corp. (NASDAQ: AGNC). This is a mortgage REIT that buys MBS's and CDO's and makes money on the interest rate spread. They pay a 21% dividend. They recently completed a secondary stock offering, which was priced at $25.75. I will monitor this stock to see if it can stay above 25.1 next Friday.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Trade Update, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
sold visa
Summary
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sold Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) at 78.9.
Thought about waiting for a last gasp exhaustion break above 79, but was too busy watching Baidu, so I bailed 78.9 good enough...
Friday, May 14, 2010
bought visa again
Summary
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bought back visa at 76.5
stop 75.65
target 81-82
hold over the weekend unless i get stopped out
exited longs
out Visa (NYSE: V) at 77, will wait for better entry on Visa to swing long
Still holding BIDU, raising sell stop to 72.5
Update:
Exited BIDU 73.35.
Currently no positions.
Was hoping for some buying strength into the close, I don't think that's going to happen.
Wait for next week to see if buyers show up.
Get Ready to Buy - Update part II
bought BIDU, and V
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In my previous post, I discussed a list of stocks that I planned to buy on a correction. One stock in my previous post has triggered, and I bought another which I did not previously discuss.
Long Visa (NYSE:V) 76.67
stop 74.5
target 81-82
Long Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) 72.83
stop 70
target 79
Monday, February 25, 2008
Swing Trade : Agrium Inc. (NYSE:AGU)
Summary
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I've previously talked about the Agricultural Chemical stocks as one of the sectors in a sweet sector-wide uptrend. I've previously traded Potash Corp (NYSE:POT) as a way to take advantage of the sector trend. Well, POT broke out to new ATH's recently, and I was left on the outside looking in. Not wanting to miss the bandwagon, I took a long position this morning in Agrium Inc. (NYSE:AGU).
There were four reasons that I went long:
1. great looking daily chart of a stock in a sector uptrend
2. AGU gapped up and saw follow through buying on Friday.
3. Today's opening drop only partially retraced Friday's follow through buying.
4. Tape looked bullish near the end of today's morning pullback.
Initial stop is at 68.9, I anticipate new ATH's
This was an instance where buying the morning pullback was the right play to make.
UPDATE: moving my stop up to breakeven @71.5
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Trade Update on Ultra QQQ ProShares (AMEX:QLD)
Summary
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As mentioned previously, I bought Ultra QQQ ProShares (ETF) (AMEX:QLD) back on Wednesday @68.
On Friday, I sold it when it broke below 73 the second time in the afternoon session. I could have, and should have sold it when it was trading at 78 in the morning, but I didn't pull the trigger.
The main problem was that I did not have an exit strategy. I think I've got a handle on picking the right time to get into the trade, but I don't put as much time and focus into figuring when to exit the trade.
Wait the for the pop from the FOMC meeting? Fade the gap? Move stop to breakeven and let the profits fall where they may? Look for a break of trend? All of the above thoughts were floating in my head and as a result I was unable to make a decision.
Obviously for the next trade, I will have to work out an exit strategy.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
From the Black Depths of the Abyss
Summary
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As mentioned in the previous post, I went long Ultra QQQ ProShares (AMEX:QLD) @68 today at around 1130am (PST).
Why did I go long in a counter trend and in the midst of a vicious bear market? Because my analysis said that we were due for a bounce. I didn't know when the bounce would occur, and yesterday's attempted rally did not impress. But today was a different story.
I've never seen a 70pt rally in ES before. 25pts, 30pts, sure, but not 70 freakin' points. Reading about it makes me wish I was around to witness it in real-time. Right around 10am (PST), the rally started as an innocent looking countertrend pullback. But then the pullback started to take on a life of its own, and broke above some resistance levels. 
Near the last hour of trading, the heinous hounds of program trading were released to unleash their egregiously rabid fury upon the unsuspecting sellers. No shorts were spared the beatdown. Markets seldom move in such uniform fashion, but when they do, it is a powerful and beautiful thing to watch.
So, where will the markets go from here? Don't really know, but I will be watching the following support/resistance levels:
Current stop has been moved to just under 70, although I might take profits near the 7am reversal time, we'll just have to see what the markets gives us tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Trade Update and Market Notes
Summary
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Got stopped out of my LNN swing trade. Entered @70.4, stopped out @71.
Agribiz stocks (POT,MON,MOS,TNH,TRA, et.al) are all starting to rollover. I am leaning towards not touching them until they have found some definite support level, although TNH's 5.9% div.yield is looking interesting.
Gold stocks gapped down and closed near their lows today, so that sector has sustained a bit of technical damage and will need a week or two of basing to recover.
All the solar stocks looked like someone pushed them off a cliff.
Oil stocks are also taking a beating.
In short, almost every sector that I was looking at before for possible trade ideas are pretty much not worth looking at for the next few days.
SPY still has not closed below Aug/07 lows, so I am open to idea of a bigger bounce occurring when everyone least expects it.
One new sector that I am starting to take an interest in:
Medical Equipment & Supplies:
Also on my watchlist: VMW, FCN, RIMM, OPTT, CPHD, PANL.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Trade Updates
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I got stopped out of SEED today @9.7 for a profit of just over 3.5%.
I was actually watching SEED during the last hour of trading, and as it dropped and dropped, I became more and more undecided and unsure of what to do - sell it before it took out my stop, or keep my stop in place and let the trade play itself out?
I had a stop level in place, and even a profit target objective for seed all planned out ahead of time, but unfortunately, my plan did not account a for a 20% drop in this microcap stock.
Now I look back at all that money I left on the table (over $2/share, yikes!) and wonder what I could have done differently. As a result of this SEED trade, I'm going to have to make a new rule, which is that if current price is more than a certain percentage below the current HoD after gapping up to open, then exit position, no questions asked. In SEED's case, the percentage threshold is 8%. The 8% sounds a bit arbitrary and will vary from stock to stock., but what my intention here is to attempt to quantify the price level at which there is too much technical damage done to the stock, and that the (intraday) sentiment has changed.
Anyways, on a more brighter note, yesterday I provided some trade numbers for some potential swing trades. Today, over half of them triggered, and I decided to play LNN. I got the idea for the LNN from Ugly. The reason I chose to trade LNN instead of the others is because it seemed to me to be the best behaved of the bunch that I highlighted.
My stop was originally at 66, but I have decided to move it up to 69.5. My exit plan is as follows:
1. Exit if current price is over 5% below the current HoD after gapping up to open.
2. Price stays below the manually drawn uptrendline for more than 30min.
Current watchlist: VIP, SDTH, MGPI, PEIX, PVX, RBCN
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Sunday Nite update
Summary
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Still holding TSE:UEX and STM.v, but I am close to giving up on those two losers.
Still holding SEED, moving my stop up to 9.7.
Currently on the watchlist:
MR: buystop@40.25, stoploss @39
SONO: buystop@39, stoploss @37.8
MCK: buystop@68.01, stoploss @66.24
RBCN: buystop@23.01, stoploss @22.44
KG: buystop@11.55, stoploss @11
LNN: buystop@70.4, stoploss @66.2
NSPH: limitbuy@13.8, stoploss @13.3
Another sector that I've noticed acting strong in this market is the medical equipment and supplies sector. Over half of my picks tonight are from this sector. There's actually stocks within this sector that look even better than the ones that I've picked in this watchlist (eg. CPHD, XRAY, CVD)); unfortunately, they have already broken out and are nearing overbought levels.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Swing Trade: Origin Agritech Limited (NASDAQ:SEED)
Summary
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I mentioned some possible trades yesterday, and gave out specific entry and stop loss points.
Well, just as I expected, the Agribusiness sector bounced today, and all of my picks triggered as of this posting (726am PST), with the exception of TNH.
I have chosen only one of them, just because I want to keep a tight control on risk exposure for now, until I get more confidence with swinging the Aggies.
Origin Agritech Limited (NASDAQ:SEED) had the prettiest breakout of the 5 that I picked, plus I think it has a good chance of performing the best out of the bunch, so I bought SEED: buystop@9.30, initial stoploss@8.44.
I am moving my stop up to 8.72.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Lessons from Swinging Potash Corp. (NYSE:POT)
Summary
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I had done almost everything textbook with my swing trade in Potash Corp. (NYSE:POT).
I entered on a pullback, defined my risk, and wait for the trade to play itself out.
Unfortunately, there is the matter of the exit, and here is where I need more work. I mentioned previously that the current run-up in POT was getting a little bit long in the tooth, and the consolidation of the past few days was not enough to relieve overbought conditions.
I knew all along that I wanted to sell into strength. Well, today, that strength came. I saw price action gap up today, and then it proceeded to bounce around between 148 and 149. A 2point gap means nothing to a stock that can move up to 10pts in a day. So the more I watched the price action, the more I got the urge to just sell and be done with it.
Of course, after I sell, POT proceeds to hit my original price target of 150.
I sold too soon, but the bigger issue is that I didn't let the trade play out, as I did not let this winner run.
It may have been watching the tape too much, and reading too much into every tick. I need to practice watching the tape less often, and instead, let my stops and targets do their work.
I am done with POT for now, but will continue to watch it (along with the rest of the Aggies) for more swing trade opportunities, as there will be plenty of them for this year.
More Chart Reviews
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Kind of in danger of overtrading here, so I have to keep my watchlist down to only the best of the best low risk and high probability plays.....
I was stopped out of BPOP @9.94, for a loss of $0.11/share.
So now I have only 2 current Positions:
Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) -
The reason I bought it is because I saw that my risk would be low. But this is not a high probability trade, since RIMM might still try and fill the gap.
My stop is still at 111.
Hoku Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOKU) -
Went long @13.5, initial stop was 13.
I bought this after Brian Shannon's mentioned it in his blog. Interesting to note that HOKU has supply agreements with two solar stocks, STP, and SOLF. HOKU typically reports it earnings in the third week of January, so there is still time for an earnings run-up; in fact it may have already started.
WATCHLIST:
VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW)
The plan for VMW is to wait for evidence that buyers are starting to take control. In retrospect, this is what I also should have done for RIMM.
MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE:MA)
Also watching PANL @21, SXC @40.
There are plenty of bullish stocks to go around. Current hot sectors are the Agricultural Chemicals, Solar, BioFuels, and most commodities. First it was $10 wheat, then $100 WTIC, then $850 Gold, and now, also Uranium is starting to "twitch":
I originally thought tomorrow would be a quiet day, but it looks like now I will have more than plenty to keep me busy.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Trade updates
Summary
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Long MA @214.12, Sold @210.55, loss of $3.57/share.
Long POT @143.1, Sold @148.85, gain of $5.75/share.
Still holding onto BPOP, stop=9.95, target=10.9-ish.
Bought RIMM @113.5, initial stop=111, target 120.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Chart Reviews
Summary
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S&P500 SPDR Trust (AMEX:SPY) -
SPY got dragged down by the financials again. First, the daily view:
Today's volatility was more like an appetizer of what is in store for this month. BPSPX doesn't look too good at this stage. The follow 10day chart describes more the market structure at this point:
The eMini Futures (ES) is creeping back up in the overnight session. Will be watching XLF and my tells for more insight.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) -
Price action was a bit messy, but nonetheless it has to be considered bullish and relatively strong when the rest of the market was failing.
Popular, Inc. (NASDAQ:BPOP) -
BPOP was on my watchlist. I came, I saw, I bought.
The 10d and 50d EMA lines are both between 10.2 and 10.3. Failure to close above that level tomorrow and I will tighten my stop.
MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) -
Because of my indecision, "hopefully" I will not be even given the opportunity to decide whether to add to my half position in MasterCard. Target of 224 still stands.
Potash Corp. (NYSE:POT) -
The longest that POT has been in overbought conditions was for 11 sessions at most. Today was session #8. It is time to look for an exit, perhaps on the next surge of buying.
I've added RIMM, HOKU, OPTT, VMW, VIP, SKF and FXP to my watchlist.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Update: High Dividend Yield Stocks
Summary
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In this previous post, I looked at possible plays of some high yielding financial stocks. I really don't know anything about these stocks, other than the fact that they have a high dividend yield, and most of the charts of this group of stocks look pretty bad. I am pretty much relying on the market to tell me which one of these stocks are worth taking a closer look at.
Take a look at GLAD for instance. When it closed below 19, and couldn't break back above it the next day, brokers couldn't hit the sell button fast enough. Anyone who thinks that is just tax loss selling can be my guest at trying to time the bottom of this piece of crap.
There are some exceptions:
HBAN: if it can close above 15.5, or put in a few higher intraday lows, then there may be some hope for this stock.
CSE: Dec. 17 was the line in the sand for this stock. Any buys here should use the LoD from Dec. 17 as the stop.
CT: starting to look a bit precarious here. Buyers need to follow thru this week and retake 32. A close below 30 (esp. a bearish engulfing candle) invites a re-test of Nov. lows.
BPOP - this stock is the best of the bunch. After the lows in mid-Nov, buyers were able to take control, and price action was not messy on the way to recovery. I'm actually thinking of putting this one onto my watchlist, with a tag of the 20d EMA being the possible entry point.
A couple other high dividend yield stocks have caught my attention:
PCU - the current yield is almost 7.5%, which is pretty decent. However, it is almost impossible to hold this stock for the dividend yield without suffering through a 20% decline. That said however, the volatility also makes this a good daytrading, and even swing trading stock.
TNH - the current yield is at around 5.90%. Since the whole aggie sector is in an uptrend, that makes it easier to hold this one for the yield
So, now I have BPOP, TNH, PCU, AMZN on my watchlist. There are others, and I will discuss them as needed in upcoming posts.
Monday, December 31, 2007
MasterCard, Oh MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) !
One of my favourite stocks to trade.....
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One thing that I have noticed with my trading is that I tend to talk only about my winning trades. The reasons are probably all pyschological, but that has got to change, so now, I will shine the spotlight on my not so great trades as well.
I've been watching MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) for a couple of weeks now. Over the course of these past two weeks, MasterCard has been putting in a classic ascending triangle pattern. It has also shown up on one of the screens in Alan Farley's website.
Conventional wisdom says that the typical way to play an ascending triangle pattern is to wait for the breakout (above the red zone), and buy the breakout.
Well, the way that I like to play it is to buy on the reversal of each higher low. In other words, I buy each time it tags the (upper sloping) blue line in the above chart. The reason I like to play it this way is because it keeps my risk low, super low.
Anyways, that was the theory. Today, I didn't have patience to wait for it to tag 211, so I went ahead and bought when it broke above 214 (my actual entry was 214.12). But I also knew that there was the possibility of it dropping down to 211 and still not violate this pattern, so I only bought a half position. If it does pullback below 212, I will then go long on my other half position if there is a buying surge that takes it back above 212. I will be watching the 10d EMA line as my guide (which is currently at 210.6).
With MasterCard, because my first entry was not ideal, this trade could turn out to be one of those not so great trades. Especially if the market tanks in the first week of 2008.
Long MA @214.12, initial stop=210, target= 224
I am still long POT @143.1, no change to the stop@142.5
Friday, December 28, 2007
Swing Trade: Potash Corp (NYSE: POT)
Summary
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Potash Corp. (NYSE: POT) filled the gap up from 2 days ago, so I have decided to go long again. But this time, it is only a half position, since the market is vulnerable to further downside.
The green zone highlights what I think should be intraday support. The strength of this support zone will likely depend on the overall market, meaning that this is not a defined support/resistance level ( defined support/resistance levels are only truly known in retrospect). In a way, I am betting on a market bounce from here, even if it is a dead cat bounce.
Long POT @143.1, initial stop=142.5, target=150 (and this time I will not be so greedy).
Swing Update: Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN)
"Greed is good."
- Gordon Gekko
...... Oh really?
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I bought Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) yesterday at $94.3, with the initial stop @93.8.
My first thoughts when I saw the above chart this morning was, "Wow, what a sweet trend!". Then the realization that nothing can move upwards without taking a breather sobered me up.
AMZN reached my target of 95.50 (which would have given me over 2R on the trade), and I should have sold, but instead, I got greedy. Despite what Gordon Gekko says, greed is bad, especially bad on thinking and acting objectively with regards to my AMZN trade.
Anyways, I've made enough mistakes to know that I must and will sell when AMZN breaks below the above manual trendline that I drew, and stays below the trendline for more than a couple candles.
UPDATE:
That housing report which led to this morning's 7am reversal gave the bears momentum for the second day. Gap filled, and now many sectors are falling into the red.
I sold AMZN at $94.22, gain of -$0.08, or almost -0.2R.
Will be watching both POT and AMZN for another low risk entry, but will probably need to first wait for this latest round of selling to run its course.
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