Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Wednesday Epilogue - Protecting Gains

3:32pm Did a good job of protecting gains and not getting chopped up in the afternoon slop. Didn't make a trade since the last post and frankly only glanced at the market a couple of times after noon. Kings and Aces were dealt in the morning and had to be bet strong before the marginal hands got dealt.

I'm especially pleased with the results given I'm dealing with a whopper of a summer head cold ... which is often a recipe for unfocused disaster.

Yet today is done and must be forgotten (aside from yet another mental reinforcement of the day after trend day concept) and tomorrow is a clean slate.

Whether ES weakens further longer-term after the morning blow-off top is anyone's guess. Anything is possible ... especially during earnings week.

So let the game begin anew.

4 comments:

nocved said...

Hi Don

8:45am short@1280.75
9:42am cover@1276.25

Unfilled sales@1292.00
(right idea got cute)

12:36pm long@1279.00
1:04pm sell@1281.25

Fade extremes after big trend day up. Buy first corrective pull back. Even 49yo ex-floor trader can learn. There's hope.

Thanks
Tom

Don Miller said...

Outstanding :-).

That first pre-open short is tough as it seems 50/50 whether there's more steam left when volume hits at open. The last week or so have good examples of seeing it occur both ways. I was waiting for a better post-open move up or down, but of course there's no right or wrong. Last Thursday of course I had that pre-market short that I had to sweat out more than I would have liked.

Outstanding cover on that though and great read on the subsequent pop (no biggie on the non-fill ... you went after it). I think I re-entered my post-stop long around 12:35 or so about the same time you did and took it out on the pop.

Maybe we're getting better with age. Nicely done.

Don Miller said...

Just one more observation on the day after trend. There have been days -- albeit pretty rare -- where the second day move is another extreme in the direction of the trend with barely any retracement. It's rare, but I've seen it happen especially with the first day's move is at the end of an extreme longer-term trend.

Years ago, I think CSCO came out with earnings after a prolonged bear trend and the second day was another huge sustained pop.

Of course that's where stops and size management comes into play. If I had a choice, I prefer to buy the first strong dip as that has the immediate trend support, but sometimes you have to take what the market gives. [Make that all the time!]

nocved said...

My rookie untrained eye thought process on pre market short was:

*Above yest highs
*Above BBands
*Had MACD divergence
*1281-1285 res
*Hard stop globex highs

Two months ago I would have been long at 1290:) Only a couple trades yesterday then stopped.

Goals for first year:
*Trade small
*Don't traumatize myself
*Cover my trading costs
*Survive learning curve

Yes, echos of Dr. Brett, thank god for him.