I was watching the wrong stocks today. They had high relative volume, and were setting up to break out. But, the trade rate was slow, and they were acting choppy. If you look closely, you can see that all their big volume was at the open, and they had cooled way off. So, I saw this, but I just kept watching them. I was obviously not thinking clearly!

Even when I added more stocks to my lists, I still kept watching the original set that went nowhere. I should have just taken them off my screens altogether.

Now, that’s not to say my watchlist didn’t perform well, on paper. There were a few breakouts, but they happened in such an unusual fashion that I couldn’t get into them like I would like to. In particular CAKE made me mad. It leaned against its number for a long time, then somehow popped over it in a single 2000 share trade. That seemed exactly like a bull trap, where the ask disappears and then comes back on strong. But, buyers stepped in and ran it up, instead. Frustrating!

Then at the end of the day I had a Brilliant Idea(TM), which would have made for an impulse trade. But, it didn’t pan out, either. I thought, even if the Fed news sounds good, it probably wouldn’t be able to push the markets even higher. You know, when a stock is overextended, they look for any excuse to sell it some, even if it’s good news. Any event would do. So, I looked for a knee-jerk push up in the QID (double-stuffed inverse QQQQ). But, it didn’t happen, so I went to sleep.

I seem to do best in flat markets. Big up days have never been my paydays.