I took my second real trade off point-and-figure charts today, for a second win. Like my GSF trade yesterday, I second-guessed it and got out early. If I had left my original stop in place, and stuck with it longer, I would have made a bit more money. Oh well!
It was in SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR). As you can see by the daily PnF, I’ve marked the overall trend as up, though it does look like it may be about to turn over. So, I think I’d take any setup long, and I’d take a short setup through the big daily support I outlined. This is how I do all my trades… I pick which direction(s) and levels I think are safe, based on the daily charts first. Then I look for entries on the intraday charts. Anyway…
To be honest, though, I don’t like SPWR’s spread (it’s not obscene, but it can get to 10 cents at times), so I wasn’t paying too much attention to it. Well, as it happens, on wallstreak, stock traders started talking about how it was too bad there were no short shares available. I think it was a short candidate for highchartpatterns.com, too. This got my attention, and made me think, “I’ve gotta get in long, if this one turns around!”
Well, sure enough, near the 55.25 support area on the daily chart, I got the turnaround I was looking for. Then, I hoped, some percentage of the people already positioned short would give up and drive the stock higher. I think that’s exactly what happened, but I didn’t wait long enough! Here’s the intraday chart:
I saw it having trouble getting above yesterday’s low (I’ve drawn a blue line to illustrate that). So, I got out as near that level as I could, given the 4 to 7 cent spread I was dealing with. Oh well, I made money, and got another PnF trade under my belt.
Read on if you want to see several more trades I spotted. I think I will do my best to be more aggressive tomorrow, as long as the market environment is sane enough:
Some More Trades
CAL
CAL daily… overall trend is DOWN:
Prospectus pointed out CAL was falling. I did not notice in time to actually take this trade, but I was already halfway preparing to call it a day by this point. Perhaps if I were more alert, I would have seen it. Here’s the intraday chart:
Nice short after a weak move up faltered ad reversed. It trended down the rest of the day, and though I didn’t draw it in, you could trail your stop against the green boxes as it falls.
MR
Here’s one in MR, where I did draw in the trailing stop method. First, the daily PnF, which shows that it’s been pretty stagnant. Since it gapped up on volume, it’s safe for long trades (and the newly-positive PPO helps back that idea up).
And, the trade itself:
By the way, you might notice an earlier chance for entry on the 2nd green column of the day, which would have been stopped out. I’ve noticed that a lot of entries in the first 10 minutes would need a stop twice as wide to be viable. You have to take that crazy opening volatility into account!
WINN
I saw this one in time to trade it, but I couldn’t fathom a $1 stop on a day trade on a $20 stock. Would’ve worked, though….
… and the intraday chart:
Note that the green column before the entry I marked would have made more profit. But, it was in that first 10 minutes of trading… not to mention, I didn’t spot that one in time. I was lucky to even see the second one in time.
HTLD
This one would have fizzled out, but still yielded a profit.
IR
This one would have fizzled out and stopped you out for -0.5R. I spotted this one, and passed based on the way it was acting. It gave me three chances to enter at my desired price. I thought that was one chance too many… a stronger stock would have moved on by then. First, the daily:
… and now the intraday chart:
I’ve marked the chart strictly, but if you check that last red column, you’ll see it took quite a bit of clock time (hours, in fact). I think any reasonable trader would have gotten out at breakeven or better, after such a long wait.
There was a profitable long trade on the left side of the chart, but if you check the timestamps, you’ll see that was all early action, and I didn’t see it in time, anyway.
| Stocks Mentioned In This Article | |
|---|---|
| Stock | Links |
| SPWR |  |  |  |