The Student Loan Ranger

Market getting mauled today. Not a single sector even close to being even flat on the day. Lost on 2 positions this morning, small losses in F and TSO. Both were relatively good setups that just ticked at my stop so got out. TSO has dropped another 40 cents from exit so that was nice. I had a very hard stop on F but it just looks way too bearish to be holding just now.

Elsewhere I'm sizing up GM if it drops a little more to $9.92. Also tried to short 350 UAUA at $13.1 but broker said "the share was suspended" so couldn't and it hit $12.2 within the hour. TSO is at a support zone at the moment, but I get burned whenever I enter TSO so I think I will pass that trade up.

CMC complaint part 100:

That's only on 4 S&P contracts, and is only pennies. But that's another lie from CMC. They should really say they are "Nearly commission free, but not quite".

I'm about 3% into scanning the daily charts in the US and UK markets as I shift my focus back to longer term charts in lieu of the new year at college starting next week. It is unbelievabley bearish everywhere. I'm not finding anything worth trading on either side yet, but there are a few interesting little patterns and prices shaping up in a few of the stocks I cover intra-day.

Potential swings in the next 2 weeks so far;

• TSO looks like it is going to re-test the lows of the $14.80 area as it is stuck in a very strong downward trend.
• AAPL on a breakout of $180 will be very interesting given recent resistance
  
• NVDA gap fill recovery after a retracement?
• PAYX showing early signs of descending triangle formation?
• RFMD nice gap support resistance channel
• SNDK beaten down for support at $13.10?
• JNJ to retrace to breakout price at $69?
• Double bottom on TXN around $24

And 3 UK stocks:

• WSH actually looking good for a bounce off 450
• LSE approaching double bottom
• Same setup as LSE on WMH

I'm gonna check these out in more detail just now across a few time frames and I will post anything interesting here later. This could end up as a Crystal Balling thread.#

Monday morning update:
Will post some charts later. I've been thinking about going back to swing trading a lot lately, and for some reason I'm not really looking that forward to it. It will be less stress, but after trading intra-day so much the transition could be difficult! I love 5 min charts so switching to dailies or 60min will be like watching paint dry.

Didn't get behind the desk till after 4pm today. Big $20+ pop in CME this morning, looking good as a medium term hold once it breaks the daily pattern.

GM looking good at support at $9.90, and I'm short TSO at $16.32. Little risk in this short, seems to have fallen off support, and despite the market being up TSO is down at new lows for the day.

Will be spending a lot of time this weekend going over some longer time scale charts. I start back at college next week, and I get Monday and Thursday off for day trading. I will probably trade larger positions through swing setups, as time management will be vital for me this year.

The hourly charts are what I'm going to be looking at. I will still be only trading US stocks and sectors - the only stock I am even considering for the UK is Rio Tinto on size and risk ratios.

Not sure how many charts will be worth posting today, potentially GM but not likely.

19:30 update:
You will not see an easier set up than this. Perfect bounce right up to the profit target without looking back on GM.

I am not waiting for signs of this topping here, as this is actually a triple top not just a double.

Oil soaring pre-open today, Fannie and Freddie in another meltdown. Expecting a big dump in financials and a lot of money moving into materials and oil today. I'm watching RIG, SLB, X and OXY on these plays long. Also watching Nucor and Alcoa.

A nice ascending triangle on MA 5min chart is coming to a head, and support resistance levels on drops over at RIMM, BIDU, GM and TSO could be worth playing later in the day. TSO and GM should really be selling off today if oils momentum continues - however I still view $9.96 as strong support on GM so a break of that could see a sizeable drop.

Today should be a good day to make money, but the market will be moving pretty fast and it will be important to watch oil. I will continue to practice the ultra risk:reward mantra today as it has been successful since I've started to adopt that entry strategy.

15:15 update:
FRE on absolute fire this morning, up 35% from the lows of the day after gapping down 8%. That's an easy $1000 if you had enough plums to get into that this morning. I definately did not!


Gap up in the oil stocks have retraced and are attempting to push higher. Alcoa showing nice strength but still a little too close to the downward trendline.

Not much else showing up this morning yet.

15:30 update:
Really need to start programming an effective alert system. Twice in two days I've missed good moves off prior sup/res areas on UAUA. These types of entries offer very low risk.


19:00 update:
Wow - what a boring day. No real action as most stocks just grind along forming ridiculously elongated patterns (RIG 5 min, pennant all day). Calling it a day, this week has been bad for excitement.

Going to miss the start of the day due to a hospital appointment, and because of that it could be a very interesting day. I'm holding GM into open tomorrow, which is bad enough in itself. However it's made worse by the fact that CMC markets don't allow you to create stop or limit orders when the market is closed - can you believe that? Of course you can.. they're crooks.

My mental stop at $9.9125 has now become a non-existant stop, which even when I can place the order, can only be as tight as $9.82. These are two easy methods that bookies use against you - they say you should not have your stop closer than a few percent away - but that completely eliminates the risk management gospel that they preach in their seminars. Absurd!

Anyway, apart from my GM woes my hitlist is the same as yesterday. I've also found a neat little tool from the NYSE website called MarkeTrac which although delayed, looks quite good.

I won't be back from town probably until 5pm GMT so hopefully the market has stabilised and is showing a few clean entries. Fingers crossed that GM rockets up 4158% too.

15:45 update:
OK GM is moving up so that's all good. My TSO trade from yesterday would have been a nice winner, but I missed the signals there while away. X and RIG showed some strength at open but have tailed off. I'm not seeing much else on the board, waiting mostly to see if GM will get passed $10.11 cleanly with a golden cross and some nice other indicators. Seems to be stalling somewhat at this range today.

15:55 update:
I did not expect this from GM;

I took an early exit from the trade for a confidence boosting profit. I didn't expect that rally at all, and although I believe GM will climb higher, I've got to have a celebration today to get over last week.

17:25 update:
Excellent exit in GM - it's dropped back below my entry price. I'm putting up a chart of GM at the moment because it's interesting. We have a battle between support and indicators. I think every indicator on there says sell, but GM is at the $9.95 support area which has proved to be very strong for the past few days.


Not on the picture but there was just a nice hammer after the selling so that's 1-0 to longs against shorts in this war.

Another tricky day ahead of us here. Lots of selling and some bearish patterns forming in the indices, we will see what happens when this intra-day consolidation is broken. There are a couple of stocks approaching support, but on a day like today this might not hold.

Today I'm watching: GM, CME, BAC, RIMM, TSO and RIG.

BAC has slumped off support and the financials are dragging the rest down. I'm looking for relative strength but I'm not really finding anything.

UAUA from yesterday consolidated out of the flag and has hit $15.50, quite a bit off the target and is currently forming a double top on the 5min. Elsewhere there aren't really and potential trades. Check back later for updates and charts.

16:30 update
Really quiet day today, lots of selling and oil is holding a lot of stocks down. Oil stocks are looking pretty good. I'm really watching GM closely at the moment as it looks like it is showing early signs of a bottom at $10.05. As yet there are no other signals in that besides the consolidation.

CME had an aggresive $5 rally before striking the 100EMA and reclining - however the fastlines have crossed and I'm waiting to see if it holds at $339.

UAUA is about the only representation of decent TA I've seen today;

Nice bounce off previous resistance and moving average for a better than expected rally. Textbook measured move on the failure of support too as it forms a tilting head and shoulders formation.

18:30 update:
I lost a tiny amount on a TSO trade just now, really didn't mind losing that one as the risk reward was essentially 1:20. Only thing annoying about that trade was the amount of time it took my CFD broker to close out, my stop was .69 and my "fill" was .66. CMC markets are a joke when you're trying to close out a trade - they want to extract the maximum amount possible from you, so in a moving market they will just hold back your order. Anyway..

I'm currently waiting for a similar setup to pan out in GM. I took both positions on support and a double bottom. Oil is rising this afternoon so I fear it will be 2-0 for the losses today and 3-0 for the week. Seem to be struggling for follow throughs this week. My trades in GM and TSO are both longs under the MAs so that explains the losses, but with favourable R:R I can deal with the defeats.

Here's the entry/exit on TSO, at the moment at $16.50 so a nice exit


The ratio is effectively 1:30 then in that case, and not 1:20 as I mentioned earlier. If you manage to trade these setups and stick to your targets and stops, in the long run you will be a successful trader.

As I talk GM is trying to break the 50EMA for the second time. I'm riding this one out with a stop at $9.9125 after entry at $10.01 with an initial target around $10.50.

I'm also watching with interest the recovery in the financials post lunchtime. Nice rounding bottom in BAC which I'm looking to get to the opening price before the closing bell.


20:00 update:
GM still stalling around the $10, and it's now a case of evaluating the trade going in to the close as I'm not convinced I should be holding this kind of stock overnight at the moment.

TSO is currently staging a mini-rally, however nothing else oil related is showing up on my other charts so I wonder what's causing the ramp. I am not convinced it will hold given the lack of other rallies in stocks like GM, UAUA, RIG and OXY at the moment.

Elsewhere BAC found resistance at the previous support (green line) and has sold off $0.40. I'm now waiting for a retest of the resistance or a double bottom at around $27.85.

I keep checking back over at UAUA every hour and it is continuing to impress me with the concentration of technical analysis indications in such a short space of time.

Very boring day here, I was watching CME for some action - and entered, closed the trade soon after for a small loss and good thing too because it went into meltdown and has dropped $9 since I sold out.

The only thing decent on my monitor was UAUA, with a textbook rally off the tri-factor of the 200MA, horizontal support and trendline support. Here's a chart that also shows the current bull-flag formation. This move was mainly based on the oil price slumping, and because of that I'm not convinced of it's technical credibility but we'll see what happens.

This chart is UAUA, for some reason I actually wrote on GM.
The numbers I'm looking out for on a bull flag failure are $14.20 on prior resistance support. If the flag holds and there is a nice breakout over $15 then my target is $16.10.

New lines part 3. Was getting bored of the old look and it was getting tired. Still not convinced about the colour scheme so expect that to change soon.

I didn't trade on Thursday and Friday due Wednesdays misfortunes with my hand, but I'm preparing for the week ahead. Haven't spend too long looking at charts, but when I do I'll post up anything interesting up here on Sunday.

Vital lesson here from today:






I experienced the nasty side of trading today - a loss of control and a violent reaction caused by anger. There is a hole in my wall, and I after getting an X-Ray I have suffered a Boxers fracture in my right hand, breaking the bone in the picture.

I lost size on GM after a huge sell-off after a 15-minute 'delayed news /slash/ conveniently timed' downgrade. I lost on X after it moved nicely above the 200EMA, confirmed, and then for absolutely no reason, and I suspect because my broker made it, it gapped down intra-day by $1.50 and stopped me out.

After a bad trade in BARC this morning I'd had enough of this crap and lashed out at my unfortunate wall. I had the foresight to hold a cushion to the wall when I hit it, but I must have been angrier than I thought, as I still punched through the wall and broke a bone.

To rub salt in the wounds... well I bought X at $132.84 and I got stopped out a stick later on a no reason intra-day gap down at $131.5. X closed the day at highs at $138.75 [$236 profit].

Also the trade I didn't enter in RIG closed at $131.5 after highs of $132 after choosing X over RIG when RIG was $126.8 [$188 profit].

The moral of the story:

1. Loosen your stops
2. Stick to your gut feeling
   
3. Do not lose your temper

I gave away over $250 when I should have made near $450.

Charts tomorrow..

It's a real snooze fest this morning, nothing on my radar is even close to an entry point at the moment. I've rotated off BP and EZJ and have drafted in Xstrata this morning. I needed to diversify a little bit off the oil plays today as oil was yo-yo'ing yesterday. Xstrata have good exposure to mining and metals which were buoyant yesterday and it opened up 2.5%. It's the only thing remotely close to an entry as it tails off the early move near resistance with a bull flag at the moment.

Elsewhere, BAY is showing negative divergence on similar lows. It is a long way below even the 20EMA so could be a low risk trade, I'm waiting for a nice candlestick there.

Due to the quiet market I've had an opportunity to scan through some charts in the hopes of finding something decent for a 2-3 day swing trade. I came across Dairy Crest, which I talked about over a 2 week period maybe about 3 months ago. Check out this sensational comeback with a picture perfect cup and handle breakout..

It looks even better on the actual price chart, but the Heikin-Ashi with the great colour scheme is better for the web. Interestingly, the Parabolc SAR more or less called the bottom of the move and gave the 'long for a retest' entry before the engulfing, MA cross or MACD. I just checked the stochastics, they gave an entry the day before the SAR did. I wonder if DCG will struggle at the current price range which has been resistance on the right hand side. This chart is an excellent lesson in technical analysis and pattern spotting.

This move occurred after I changed my trading style from Swing to intra-day. When I start back at college, these are the kind of setups I will be waiting for. The huge sell offs in May and June due to oil have recovered and re-tested. It will be interesting to see if the bottom is re-tested, which could results in some choppy swing trading. I had to change to intra-day from Swing as there was no bottom in place to work off longer term.

Midday update:
Terrible day today, everything is flat. Lost money on BARC with too tight a stop. Both of these factors have brought me to the final decision to stop trading the UK markets. They are an absolute joke and don't deserve my attention.

I will get a nice lie in at least.

Usual hitlist today, although I'm expecting a sizeable sell off in the US today - which is why the UK market is so nervous today.