9/12

Going to try to start updating this more.  Have a few trades from this week so far and want to upload trades from the past couple of months which I'll probably do on a weekend sometime.

Some trades from Week 5/30-6/3

Going to post some trades here from last week.

These trades exhibit a few details which I'm not going to touch on yet, just want to make special note of them.

6/1

6/3

5/31 Trade Dissection

I like examining failed trades as they are the best teachers.

This trade I was waiting for a pullback after the NSH to go long.

We got a pullback to the 50% which subsequently lead to a hammer being formed.  I think I may have been too aggressive here because I entered on a limit 1 tick above the hammer at 778.  Usually I wait for a close above the trigger candle but thought that price would rip up due to the fact we just made a NSH on the short term order flow.

Something of notice also is the wicks showing selling pressure however there are also a few buying wicks there so I took this as a quick changing of hands before a rip up.

More notes on following chart.

5/20 Trade Dissection

This blog post will be about a failed trade I made on 5/20, I took a loss of 2.25 ES points.

Note: Entry markers are correct on the very first image attachment only. Attachments after that the entry markers will not be lined up due to the way Ninja stores its historical data after you close out of your chart.

This trade pissed me off because I thought for sure I had everything timed correctly. I thought the setup was very similar to a YM trade I made last week so that was my basis for the trade. Below is a side-by-side comparison with the 5/20 trade being on the right side:

-Price is bullish
-Makes NSH then comes down very shallow to test support before continuing higher.

There were a ton of buying wicks coming down to the demand zone (chart on right side) and once we closed back above the overnight high with a rotation bar I thought the trade was good to go. Clearly you can see this was not the case however as I was stopped out before it eventually ripped and made the move I was expecting.

So naturally I want to figure out what I did wrong and I see a few details that could have changed the course of this trade, that whole 'hindsight' thing.

1. On the YM trade, price did not close back below the level, it was defended by the bulls and then put in a rotation candle. When compared to the ES trade, price action did close back beneath the overnight high. While the ES did pop up and then trade back below the overnight high again before taking off, this might be one detail to keep in mind for future setups.

2. The pull back was not even close to at least a 382. The YM trade had a little bit of space between the price low and the 382 but big difference in that one is that it never closed back beneath the level. Notes in following chart:

3. See following chart:

4. Setting stop to below the demand zone would have kept me in the trade however that would have been more room than I wanted to give it. I thought with the wicks that I was fine setting the stop to just below the swing low.

5. Arguably the most important - notes on following chart:

All in all, a few different warning signs and better ways to have gone about this however this is why post-mortems are important.

5/22/2016

Think I'm going to bring this blog back to post my thoughts on trades which won't fit on twitter.

Blog update

I suck with keeping up with this, am wondering if it's better to just go back to twitter.

LNKD follow up

LNKD reconnected with weekly 5ema as hypothesized.

TLT

Earlier on in the week I said this could possibly bounce and reconnect with the weekly 5ema and that's exactly what happened.

5/27 inside days

Some inside bars to watch for tomorrow.

LNKD

LNKD looked good today, forming an outside day.  Going to be eyeing some calls at the open tomorrow.

VIX

Overall, should have seen this pullback coming with the VIX at $11-$12.  

LNKD

Still watching this for possible upside. LNKD showed decent strength in a down-tape, ending the day -.22%.

If this decides to find legs then I may try for a weekly 5ema reconnect.

Recap

PCLN - broke out of triangle and tested 50ma / 1195.49 support.

TLT - Wish I played this but was too busy watching others.  I am trying to avoid buying puts.  This would have been a great play on calls.  Approaching 122.96 resistance and also getting close to reconnecting to weekly 5ema.

Recap

So a little recap... The market got melted today.

AAPL - I thought this could see more upside however this puked through support 130.91 and made a touch on the ascending trend line.

FB - This went ahead and broke Friday's low, then tested the 79.46 and melted through that.  Noting gap below as well as 200ma / ascending trend line.

VIX

Approaching support here.

FB

Couple things of interest on this.

Weekly - 5/11 printed outside week, but price was unable to break out week of 5/18.  Instead it printed an inside week.

Daily - Printed pin bar on Friday 5/22, rejecting 81.18 resistance as well as 50ma.

I have a couple hypos - I think that if price can make it above 81.89 then it has a shot of hitting the upper descending trend line, ~82.95.

However, if price takes out Friday's low I think we could see it test Wednesday's low of 79.46, which happens to be the low of the weekly inside bar.

If it falls further, I think it could make an attempt at the 5/14 gap where it could bounce, or just keep falling to test the daily 200ma and ascending trendline.

It's taken a while to burn into my brain that puts during a bull market are not the greatest idea most of the time so I think it'd be best to see if FB takes out overhead resistance, or wait until it bounces somewhere.

Of course, there's always the chance that none of this transpires and FB does something completely different, which is probably the most likely scenario lol.

Option OI for 5/29 expiration

OI for main stocks I follow: AAPL, FB, GS, IWM, QQQ, SPY, VXX

I've been following OI for about a month now as I'm deciding if I want to make it part of my regular stock homework routine.  Needs more research at this time.

TLT

Weekly - buying tails coming in at the 50% fib which is also support from Aug 2014.
Daily - MACD cross

Could see this bounce try and reconnect with weekly 5ema.  Resistance at 122.97

PCLN

Flagging over 50ma and reaching apex.  Gap overhead, support below at 50ma and 1195.49.