Slow grind up continues

Visitors and being ill has slowed me down for a spell.

From my vantage point, those who have chosen the right stocks (not the hard part) and held on to them as swings or longs (the hard part for me) are the ones reaping the gains in this market. My daytrading has been a mixed bag, resulting in lots of work for little gain over the last 2 weeks. My long positions have been, of course, going great. Everyone is waiting for the inevitable correction. It may come on Monday, or it may come on a Monday in 2012. I will slowly attempt to add to longer term holdings, as I am beginning to suspect that this slow uptrend will last a long time, even if we a get a 3 day to 3 week or greater pullback. Is long term investing back? Could be, certainly has been working. No one seems to talk of this or expects this, making it a plausible contrarian view. The market is here to cause the most pain to the most people possible... this would really hurt people as scared money sits on the sidelines waiting to get in the and market just does not quit.

What else? TRADE THE BULL MARKETS!!! Precious metal have been in a long term bull market, and in the last couple months have offered ample opportunity to reinvest during a pullback and consolidation. Silver is leading gold and the miners. The miners are the underachieves, so why the bargain part of me says this will be the next part of the puzzle in the PM's bull run, the technical analyst part of me says that we need to see more obvious setups and some validation of strength before stepping in. Stick with the leaders and the good technical setups. Most mining charts are still messy, but showing promise.

Enough now, succumbing to body aches and coughing fits... yuk.

slow days

Slow up days in the market, and slow days for me as we have had company that has made my trading days erratic. No great gains, no great losses, just a quiet time for me after the productive first 5 weeks.

Wh-EEE!

Closed the last of my EEE swing, my second swing in this name for the year. Both times I took large daytrading size positions and ended holding 1/4 of the original size for swings. Previous post with detailed entry here for the first part.

ARAY trade review

Good week with a nice ending. Though SIMG was the big dollar gainer for me today, I traded ARAY with a little less mechanical entry than SIMG. If you look at the SIMG intraday, I just bought the new high break at ~ 12 mins into the day and sold on the way up to highs. Simple, half the trading room was in it.

ARAY will be worth watching on Monday, as it has not completely broken out yet. It may just start forming a larger pattern that will take many more days, or it may just keep running.

Here is how I played it today.

Day of little gain

Lots of running to nowhere today, a positive day in spite of myself. After yesterday, that is fine, but I was just feeling too defensive today, not wanting to tarnish yesterday. If I had just let my remainder positions in ARMH and CRUS work, along with EEE I would have done as well or better, without all the thrashing about, but you have to be in to catch a good one, so that is the price you pay sometimes. I traded ESRX, CELL, TA, HNSN, and SFD. TA could have been a huge winner, but I went too small and my limit order did not get fully filled. Another vote against limit vs market buys. I made over a buck, but the size was so small, it had to get that far to matter. It did. The daily looks gorgeous, but was too hot for me to be effective. What is does prove is to stick with the high quality setups. What a flag, and what a result.

Benefits of trading within a group

I had a very good day, and part of my success was being in a room (virtual) where someone shouted out a ticker that was setting up, and I was in the right spot to take the trade. Thanks Cuda for the ARMH shoutout! Also, being around other people allows you to see other peoples trading styles; it expands your strategy base. The CGW room has traders that trade 10 shares and traders that trade 10,000 shares, and a very large range of experience. It can be a little overwhelming, but ultimately, by example, you see what works consistently over time. You see many more trades than you can actually make, so you get a boost of market experience. If you are interested in CGW, ask me about it. No, I get no commission or benefit by you joining.

I traded CRUS and ARMH, and sold off some EEE from last week, big plays for me; I took a very large position in ARMH. My only dud was PQ, and I had some boring trades with XING, of which I am swinging a touch, and NM. Good start to the month.

Worst trade of the day, Tuesday, February 1st

Today was defined, unfortunately, by my first and worst trade, ADM. I also traded MTW, which I had to get in and out of twice (first for a loss), so that watered down my gain, coupled with my small size second entry and so I really did not hit it out of the park on the big run it took; but it helped a lot. SIMO I had to trade in and out twice also, and really only for a single both times. I had profitable little trades in KWK and VG, call them singles too, and a whiff in CRUS, and there is the whole day, a big hole with ADM and then scratching and clawing my way out for an ok day. I'll take it, but I might not like it.

Watch CRUS over the next day or two, nice setup.