PDT - Rule

Well I was flagged by my broker as a potential pattern day trader lol So I need to wait for this flag to go away bbefore i can buy new shit.

EQM - Sold

Sold for a small profit, not willing to risk another few days. Disappointing but at least I didn't get out at a loss :P

Breakout names are 2nd/3rd even 4th day plays. Maybe should be on the sidelines for now. Going to check in again in a while or so.

Some new names - Selling INMD and CZR tomorrow

 

Stopped out on the same day in CODX. It looked like it was going to make a nice breakout as seen in the chart below which showed what it looked like in the AM session.

Yeah it looked like it was going to break out here. Nice pullback/flag as well.

Have some hopes that this will continue to push through the next day.

INMD didn't close strong the way I wanted, so I'm going to probably sell this tomorrow.

Caught CZR the other day as it was breaking out. Today's performance was a little lackluster. I will take profits on this one tomorrow as well. I would have preferred that the burst was larger than it was. Earnings coming in next week too, news might have been digested already.

Recent Trades

CEQP trade closed at a profit although i sold near the open so I wasn't able to capture the entirety of the move today. But it was a good setup that I took that worked.

On didn't have a follow through today so I'm considering selling today, ideally i am looking for a multiple consecutive move and I just don't want to risk any further days for this.

ZG didn't have a good day as well so I am considering selling this today on the morning "pop" if any.

Will have to sell PTLA as well since it didn't even closed up from its open.

SAVA was my big catch today, I entered at $5.98 and had put in a LMT sell order at $7.24 just in case. It hit my limit order and I got positively "stopped out" nice profits there for me today. Covered some of my small losses the past few trades. I gotta catch a few more of these biotech moves, they're hot right now.

CEQP

Looks like it's ready to pop. Market is on my side. Let's go.

Observations

• A lot of the good breakouts yesterday happened on nice pullbacks. 
• Focusing on that one for now this week. 
• SPY is still making inroads in its latest swing. 
• Pre-market action seems to be negative, so I need to pick only the strongest stocks with the good volume.

I really don't know what to write

Except that I have been overwhelmed with work lately but I am very grateful that I still have a job. And I still get to do this at night and not having to rely on trading profits for income. Things are difficult now so even if I feel tired and stressed with my day job, I am still thankful I have something to be stressed about (in a weird way).

We really don't know what's going to happen. We should just be grateful for what we have now.

New Style

Sold:

• FLIR
• CGC
• WUBA

The market was pretty weak yesterday, no stock in the watchlist was moving up. I sold these three just because I thought the likelihood of them breaking out yesterday was really low.

Scans:

Today I am trying out another method. I'm only doing this because I've been seeing a LOT of setups that I like for bounces, a lot of similar patterns, etc. That I thought it was useless for me to start picking because everyone looks the same. So I dumped all 380 names in one list and for anticipation setups I did the same.

Yeah, it is a lazy way of doing things but I'll try it out to see if it fits me better. Then from both watchlists I will be picking out names that move in the morning.

Trading Plan: Setups not working edition lol

Existing positions:

1. CGC has some potential so I think I can hold it for today.
2. WUBA - selling this, it failed. Again I entered this one because I hate missing out on a breakout. And this time the breakout failed
3. FLIR - didn't pan out as well so I'm selling this one.

Note to self: Looks like reasonable entry point is a touch of the 20 period moving average on the 10 minute timeframe for the "strong stocks" i am able to identify throughout the day. That means have to wait for setup to materialize as well.

Anticipation Setups

• SU
• UBER
• WUBA
• TNDM
• USFD

These look like the want to form swing highs (consolidating near recent swing highs) or consolidating nice after pulling back slightly. I will have to watch these guys tonight.

3 days down setups

• FANG
• VRS
• HXL
• SLB
• GOLF
• CHRS

Looking for a bounce on these names, most of them are actually just pulling back very few are really down to the shitter.

Market Observations

There are a lot of 4%+ breakouts again yesterday. 644 of them in my scans on good volume. This is quite a lot. I still see the same pattern of stocks having nice breakouts at the top end of their most recent swing. I have been hesitant to get it on these because I don't know when the selling will begin. The SPY is at swing highs too.

This is why i've been wanting to get in the action of a breakout asap. Just a sample: SPCE.

Strong opening from the get go on huge volume. Never even pulled back once to the 20 period average. But then again these names are few and far in between. Should be humble enough to know that I won't know these things in advance.

Trading Plan: missed setups

Bounce Setups:

• SPT
• HLIO
• CTS
• All down 3 days in a row, looking for a bounce from here.

Anticipation Setups:

• CGC
• WUBA
• CNQ
• PZZA
• OSPN
• MLNX - April 23 earnings
• FTI - April 22 earnings
• FLIR - April 23 earnings

Second day play

• CODX - really interesting. +12% day yesterday and the after-market action is encouraging. makes me think it wants another go. My plan is to just get it in the morning. 

Market notes

• Looks like the market indices are slowing down in what looks like to be a short term swing peak.
• Most 10% breakouts are still on their 3rd/4th day of breaking out which I think is short term extended for my time frame.
• BMRA appeared in my breakout scans after the 10 minute mark. I wasn't able to get it as I was playing Borderlands 3 while waiting for something to setup. It was a missed trade but still thinking if i would have gotten it because it didn't pull back. Hindsight is 20/20 at least this allowed me to look into tight anticipation setups as well.

Trading Plan

Selling:

• GSX -Nice strong gap at the open as well but didn't pan out during the rest of the day.

• BNTX - This was a nice gap up in the open but the momentum wasn't sustained. It sold off slowly throughout the day.

• SMPL - I entered this stock way too early, it was right in the middle of a consolidation that didn't pan out well (aka it just stayed there).

Potential Buying:

BMRN - Looks like selling is slowing down a little bit. Looking to catch some momentum on the bounce.

 HLIO - Same thing, looking for a nice strong gap at the open and an opportunity to catch it at the pocket.

SMPL - Selling doesn't seem to be slowing down but I'm betting on this to pop as it has been going down 4 days in a row already. However, what complicates things is that I am selling this today on the pop. SO I might not even take part in this stock.

Market Observations / Color 

One thing that scares me a little bit is the fact that the strong performers are already on their 3rd/4th day of large gains. When I look at the SPY it seems to be peaking on its latest up swing as well. My thinking is that when traders lock in profits on the high flying stocks, it will echo into the other names as well. Sometimes I feel that the market is just waiting for a nice reason to sell off. WE'll see what happens. 

I am okay with trading small sizes just to get a feel of the market.

Update: Sold all of my positions. May anticipation setups are not working. and most breakouts now are highly extended. Maybe better to stay clear for now.

Taking Profits on CIM (hopefully) and a nice missed setup on AXSM

My CM trade is positive and I'm gonna try to take it out on the morning "pop". The profit is quite small but I'm taking it anyway because I want to take some risk off. Hopefully I get out with some sort of profit, the pre-market isn't doing too hot.

AXSM was on my list but I didn't pay much attention to it because at the open it wasn't very strong. However, it staged a really nice trending day beginning 10:40am. I had pretty much closed my charting software at that point. I missed that opportunity. Would have made some nice change in perfect hindsight.

Some names I am looking at for today: BNTX, CARR, GSX, SMPL, and VIR.

A little bit cautious today as the number of breakouts have been really high the past few days. Also taking note of the fact that most of the top 30 performers yesterday are already 3-days in in their upswing. I'm kind of expecting them to pullback a bit as traders take profits.

CIM and ZM

Went long CIM, saw the nice pop on the open. Also have a small limit order on ZM. That hasn't been hit yet.

Nice profits

• Sold CCL into the morning pop, i got out with a 4x risk. 
• I got stopped out on SAVE on the same day.
• I am still long on HXL and PDCO 
• Will clear these positions today as momentum seems to have stalled. 
• Also want to start on some fresh new names: VIE, CORT, AXSM, ZM
• Taking note of a refinement: do not go long stocks that are already +15% on the open gap, my theory is that most of the returns have already been made in these names such as my position in SAVE and JBLU.

Continuation

• Markets likely to continue rally yesterday. 
• Selling CCL into the pop. Already +20% on pre-market here, wish I had more size LOL
• Have 2 airlines on my anticipation list: DAL, SAVE, and a couple of other names like HXL and PDCO. 
• Let's go.

Explosion

Wow the market's really blowing up today and there are over 1,000 stocks that are breaking out. I picked two which I will review tomorrow. I put small sizes in because quite frankly I got confused with the number of opportunities that I was just basically questioning myself whether the stock I picked was the right one. Obviously I can't pick them all. But wow this is a problem that will help me refine my approach because when 1,000+ names appear I don't know what to do.

MONEY: Got out of OXY MEOH

Closed out OXY and MEOH on a positive note, moreso OXY. I took advantage of the morning pop and just called it quits right then and there. I'm glad I was able to get some nice profit out of it. I would have been whipped by the volatility if I had stayed.

I didn't trade on Friday because of gf aggro. I see the S&P futures now popping up +4% and that would have made me some nice coin if I had entered some positions last Friday. The key now is to see if this strength holds or is met with some selling.

Some Oil Names are strong today

Good start to some oil names I bought this morning. I'm not sure why OXY is being halted, several times already, I'm quite nervous. I want to take profits out as well at this point as it rushed 2x my risk already. But I can't sell because I'm still under the PDT and only bought two stocks just in case I get stopped out in both (i day traded yesterday). So I'm hoping nothing happens to these two. At this point I am forced to let them run to whatever direction they wanna go.

Edit: 11am Seems like a good day for longs. Lots of breakouts happening right now. Hope the market can sustain.

APRN worked.

In perhaps a cruel act from the gods of randomness, my first trade of  my new beta set up worked beautifully. I went long on the first 10 minutes and when I saw that the trade has made 1x my risk after a few bars, I decided to take my profit. I'm gonna do that for now. It seems like every up move is being sold down in this market except for some stocks. I don't think I will be lucky enough to pick those stocks.

I'm gonna follow the same setup for today and see if I will be lucky for another round.

One of the things I am thinking of is a time cut off for the setup. It has to happen before the first 30 minutes, otherwise I'm out of the trade. I initially was exploring the idea of NOT using the volume filter as per my previous post but last night, I was seeing names that had 5% spreads on the bid/offer and 1,000 shares volume. That's a little too risky for me and I don't want to be a part of that.