This video may be a little harder to read than most, because I went over the length limit that youtube enforces. So, I had to copy the file over to my mac, and transcode it in the process. Somewhere along the line, the aspect ratio go “preserved” which put black bars on both sides. Oh well… it may help to view the video at the youtube site, in full-screen mode.

Four trades, none of which had a big payoff. yawn.

After the recent Livermore smackdown at ugly’s blog, I thought I should re-read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. So, I picked up a copy today, and will read it over the next couple days. Last time I read it was a long time ago, and I know a lot more about trading now than I did then. It will be interesting to see where my opinion on him ends up now.

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I took a loss in CNE this morning at the open. I was expecting it to be choppy today, so I knew I wanted a slower, thicker stock. CNE fit the bill, and was pushing up against round number 16 yesterday. I am happy with the trade… it just didn’t work out.

When we hit 16, I saw a low number of shares on the ask, and then I saw prints at 16.02 and 16.04. Seemed like the real deal. I entered, and got filled back at 16.00. Hmmm… Suddenly, there were 20k shares on the ask at 16. Either those few higher prints were bad data (they didn’t show up on my charts later in the day, but they did show up on another data provider’s charts…) or someone crafty waited for the level to break and flooded the market with shares.

My initial stop was a somewhat arbitrary 10 cents. When I saw the big seller, I didn’t immediately get out, because the stock didn’t break down. I just raised my stop to the LOD, at 15.95. Give it a chance!

It held up well, and did break through 16. Unfortunately, the same thing happened again. A few higher prints, and then, out of nowhere, 10k shares were offered at 16. So, once again I’m at breakeven. Two reasons not to get out. (1) by this time, the dow was positively surging upward, and the TICKs were happy. (2) since the surprise offer was half as thick as last time, I thought maybe we’d still make it through.

But, we didn’t. When the market got less rosy, I sold half for 15.96 and half for 15.95, for a little less than -0.5R.

I was out most of the rest of the day (as I am every Thursday), and didn’t see much I liked when I got back. I called a late day rally on BOL on Wallstreak, in time for someone to catch almost a dollar. But, I didn’t take it because I thought it lacked enthusiasm when it got to my buy point. I thought TOL might do the same, but it never broke out above its consolidation range.