$STUDY Yesterday's Winners

Some studying I'm doing for the development of new setups :) I kind of enjoy doing this work although this study is really shitty I suppose because it is full of biases such as of course hindsight bias and a lot of pattern/data mining. I am well aware that what I see in these charts might just be random noise and I might eventually be developing setups out of nothing but nevertheless I also believe that this might lead me into setups that I can work with eventually, if not...then on to the next!

 I like the pre-market action here but mostly it just faded. There is no setup here for me because I will just be picking a bottom here and I'm not good with that.

No pre-market action and really strong price action right outta the gate. Noting the first 10 minute bar here that was tight AF. Setting the trigger buy at just above the highs here would have captured a little meat (not the highs).

Another strong pre-market mover that just traded lower. Sometimes I feel like the returns have already been captured in pre-market action and participants just leave it at that. It is obvious that a lot of speculators in the pre-market thought that this was gonna fly. It was just faded heavily.

This was a nice move out of the gate, I am fully aware that this wouldn't have reached my scans by this point so this is why I'm removing my volume filter for the scans in the morning.

Same story here. right out of the gate we see a gap but the 4% stockbee trigger wouldn't trigger until the second bar. Would have captured some nice meat here as well.

Nice pre-market mover that didn't really do anything. It is starting to look like not all of these pre-market movers have nice smooth moves. This one just basically gapped up and traded sideways for the rest of the day. Just another mental note that it is DIFFICULT to catch trending stocks and pre-market is not the tell that I was hoping it to be.

PBRX didn't have a lot of pre-market action. It is in a sector that is definitely moving right now (Energy). The trigger of this one I think happens in the first 10 minutes so a nice buy trigger above the highs would have gotten me some nice cash.

This is the price action that makes me think that if I was gonna play pre-market movers, I would need to wait for more data otwards the middle of the day. This is obviously not going to work with my schedule.

This one as well. This one I believe broke out with volume towards later in the morning. not as exciting but gets the job done. We see the breakout here happening towards lunch time. It wouldn't have appeared on my scans.

Summary/Action Steps:

• Focus on first 10-minute bar. Stop at some kind of low (or prior day's low)
• I'm sure there will be stops that require me to put at 20% or so below price. Focus on ones that I can trade with a stop of less than 10%. Prior will be too volatile.
• Removing volume scans for now and will embrace the noise. When volume steps in, it might be too late for me.

Gonna apply this to setups later. I'm a little excited to try out something new.

Really tough market - Stopped on BMRA

I've been focusing on pre-market movers. I'm still getting used to trade them, I actually have no definite plan on how to trade them. I was maybe banking on pre-market movers to continue their momentum.

My plan for BMRA was to catch it as it was pulling back. It was a strong pre-market mover last Monday, and was hoping the pullback was a good pocket to enter a position.

I left it there and slept. Woke up to it being slightly above my average cost. Toddi got stopped out as it opened sharply lower.

All in all this trade feels a lot more comfortable than catching the breakouts at the open. Although breakouts at the open might ultimately be more profitable (I have no idea). I'm still thinking about doing that because it fits squarely on my timeline. So it may be a case of, high probability - low profit, or lower probability - higher profit. ???

I also noticed that anything related to health and biotech gets a decent uplift in share prices lately.

KSS

Going to try and play a second day bounce on this stock. Seems like it has some momentum coming from the pre-market session. Hoping to capitalize on that a bit. My stop seems a little too wide but may be appropriate for the volatility we are in now.

Edit: cancelled the trade as it was fading. 

Being cautious

• I guess i'm just a little too scared to go long the past few days. I've only done ONE trade.
• Right now, just focused on pre-market movers.
• Stalking 
• DIS, GILD, KO, NCLH, OXY, SLB, SQ, T, and UAL today.

No setups today :)

Guess I'll just watch the mayhem from the sidelines. Although I am working on researching for some new setups that I don't know how to implement yet.

Nothing

I've got nothing today.

Markets are set to open on the green today. Is this bottom? Probably not. Think US cases are still going to go up, Italy has already closed its doors nationwide. Damn.

Struggling to find anything

• Having a hard time looking for some long setups.
• Market sentiment has been bearish across the board: Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, London...all red. 
• I'm pretty sure that the overall market in the US will be weak and that my pullback setups probably won't be working that much. So I'm quite glad that I don't have any right now.
• I could of course try to short but I already know that this will be a losing proposition for me. First, I don't have experience shorting. Second, there will be a HUGE buying once this COVID thing subsides (who knows when) and I do NOT want to get caught on the wrong side of that (downside is UNLIMITED).

Stopped

Ha. as expected I got stopped out very quickly. The stock gapped lower and traded to my break-even price. I lost a couple more dollars because of slippage but it's all good. Did some scans today but didn't find anything interesting.

Noticed also that a lot of biotech and healthcare services/devices stocks have been going up really well. Probably because of COVID-19. I guess the question is how do I hop in these names before they make their big moves?

Decision: VG

I'm taking a look at the pre-market numbers on the indices and some stocks and things are not looking good. By the looks of it most stocks will be down on the open and might be weak throughout the day. Disappointing.

My VG position is doing quite well. My plan is to not sell it because it has not yet criscrossed the short-term moving average on the 10m timeframe. I am above 1x risk now so I have moved my stop up to break-even. My expectation is that I will get stopped out in the morning session because of the weak numbers shown here as of 8:23am :

 As you can see, things are not looking good for the bulls. One option is for me to take whatever profit I have and just go with it. But in doing so, I'm introducing another variable to my "system" which I don't really want to do because I want to keep my trading as simple as possible. Hence, I am willing to live with being stopped out at breakeven or coming out with a small loss. Only time will tell if this is the correct decision to do not only in this trade but in the many others that will follow.

VG - easy

Finally a name that seems compelling enough. Pull back play in VG. Simple.

10 minute chart looks like it is consolidating and ready to move up. 30 minute chart looks like down trend has temporarily eased. Let's see what happens.

Nothing interesting today

• Nothing interesting on the scans today.
• I feel like I need to revisit the 3-days down scan of Zor.... that might be applicable in today's environment where there are a lot of bounce plays.

Back at it

I was out for 2-3 weeks because of the daily demands of my job. It has really taken a toll on me and my trading. I guess it was dumb luck then that I was able to mostly step aside the sell off that has been happening. Today is the first time i took a look at the SPY and I don't really know what to make of it.

There's a lot of trendlines that were broken by this move in the last week of April. My guess is that it will take time for stocks to setup and to trend again (if at all). Maybe I should be looking at short opportunities...but I'm still too scared to play them.

I took a look at the scans today and none look promising. So I'm just going to give this day a pass and not take any positions today.