My 2nd consecutive losing day + Best ideas for today!

So today I made 2 trades both of them losers.

The first one was a pre-market entry in $XGTI anticipating a spike on the open which never came. So I cut it quickly for a tiny loss. Wasn't the worst trade in the world but with only $50 risk to work with each day I really shouldn't be trading pre-market!

Then I saw $CLDR which I had been stalking for days and in which I had took a loss in on Monday setting up an OPR play just beneath the $21.75 level with the $22 all-time high magnet just above. Near perfects set-up!! I decided I wanted in but I wanted to wait for the confirmed break of $21.75. So I set a stop limit order at $21.76 but my mistake was not off setting it a few cents to increase my odds of getting a filled. What do you...the stock ripped right through the level; triggered my stop but I never got filled.

Sort of frustrated; I saw $IMGN beneath $5 and thought I'd take this long through $4.95 in anticipation of the break of $5. I had no exit plan for this trade. Then on a rush of blood; I entered it long @ $4.93 without waiting for the confirmed break of the flag and within seconds the stock reversed and was at my stop out level! I took the loss and shut down my platform for day....down a whopping $70 + $20 in commissions!!!

Although my losses were $40 in excess of my max daily loss; its not catastrophic by any means. Plus I am still up from my starting $1,000 balance. My plan going forward is to re-focus and wait for A-quality set-ups. I will stop looking for gap-and-go plays until I have more daily risk to work with. I will let the market open and wait for clean set-ups in either one of the stocks off my night watch list or an "in-play" stock.

With that out of the way; here are my best ideas for today...

$PIRS this is my #1 watcher and I will be eyeing for a red-to-green/OPR break play

Besides this I also have alerts set on:

SHORTS:

$NOMD (below $12.8), $AFSI ( below $12.4), $ACAD (below $28), $WTW (below $24), $BTU (below $23.9), $EXAS (below $31.60)

LONGS:

$EXAS (above $32.60), $CHGG (above $11.72), $BITA (above $31.65)

Just an observation but I am beginning to see a lot more short set-ups than longs. Very stocks have been holding their mornings gains. There have been almost no 50%+ day runners. So taking quick profits especially on longs makes sense at the moment in my opinion.

Best of luck....here's to a solid day of trading...CHEERS!!!

Trade update and my thoughts on the market.

I closed out my $SPWR short position for a small loss and closed out my $SCTY short for a decent profit. Although I was aiming for a 100% gain on my June $45 Put, my lack of patience got the better of me and I closed the position at a 60% gain. $SCTY looks like it still wants lower but will likely bounce soon if not tomorrow. So I don't mind being out of the trade. At the moment I'm in 100% cash and will likely remain that way for the remainder of the week. I explain the reason for this stance below.

I've been leaning bearish on the markets since last week. However, I'm now fully bearish on account of the first chart below:



So as I'm bearish I will stay away from new long swings. However, despite my bearishness, I'm not going to rush to initiate new short positions either as the indicator below (McClellan Oscillator) is suggesting that some sort of bounce is very likely in the near future. Should this bounce materialize; I will then look to be a very aggressive bear whenever the bounce appears to be petering out.

Review of last night's watch list and a few thoughts on the markets

As I stated before, I was unable to trade today due to the cursed PDT rule and had to just watch from the sidelines. In the video below I go over the watches from last night. There were some nice movers in there today...Enjoy!

 

If you want to see what I'll be looking at tomorrow and how I plan to play them in detail; click on the "Current Watch List" tab above. Apart from the watches, I wanted to shares a few notes that I made for myself from observing the past few days price action:

1. The US markets are trend less at the moment. They are stuck in ranges similar to the summer of 2011. So if you're a swing trader like me who looks for 2 - 5 day moves, I recommend keeping high cash and being very selective with trades. In addition, cut your usual per trade risk in half (I have cut mine from 1% to 0.5%). Look to hit singles in stead of home runs, that is, set conservative profit targets and as soon as your profit target is hit book all profits, don't hold partials. Be prepared to hold through steep intra-day pull backs.

2. The health sector is currently leading the market (check out a chart of $XLV). If you look to take any long exposure, make sure most of it is here granted you've done the necessary due diligence before hand of course. DO NOT attempt to short these bio-techs that look over extended! That's a recipe for disaster!

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Good luck and good trading!