Mental stop loss set at 20.47 and mental stop profit at 23.22.
May 052010
May 052010
Hit mental stop loss of 23.28.
I bought my first IBD 100 stock 13 days ago close to it’s buy point and am already up 10%. Not a bad return for such a fundamentally “safe” buy!
Apr 132010
VIT pulled back a bit this morning so I put in my order at $24.00. My mental stop loss (mental stop loss = alert + price level line on chart) is at a standard 8% loss of 22.10 and my mental profit stop is at 28.80.
If the market holds I’m hoping for a nice ride on this one!
I also got an alert that CTSH just hit it’s 52.78 buy point this morning. I might buy if i had the funds available.
Mar 302010
The market handed me my ass today. I lost close to $700 in about five minutes in a single buy, which was well beyond my mental 1 day loss limit, but I couldn’t get out of the position fast enough… Trading with this much buying power can be scary and it was an expensive lesson, but at least I managed to close out before my loss got too out of control.
So, I’m going to take a break from penny stocks for a couple months… I know I just started, but I want to reassess my strategy, do some more paper trading and maybe do a little swing trading on the side using the tried and true CAN SLIM method, created by the founder of the Investor’s Business Daily. I’ll still be posting, but I’ll be staying away from penny stocks for a bit.
Stocks traded (updated): SOMX, MRNA, LYJN, FAZ
Daily Profits: -$853
Here are the entries and exits for each stock:
SOMX: tried playing the dips on this one, but got it all backwards. Actually, the second buy would have been great, but at this point I was discouraged by my other trades kicking my ass so I sold and went back to bed.
LYJN: bought this one on it’s way up. Sold it on its way back down. I tried selling much earlier while I still had profit, but NITEFAN wouldn’t give me a fill.
FAZ: I’m not sure why I sold this one so quickly. I was probably pretty shaken up by MRNA going south on me. I should have had a bit more patience but I got cynical and started thinking that everything I touched was going south.
MRNA: This was my big mistake of the day. Bought at the high of the day. I thought to myself as I bought that it was breaking the premarket high so it was bound to go big. I think my mistake was I just put too much into the position when I take into consideration the risk of the buy.
Mar 262010
Stocks traded today: SOMX and ABIO
crap. I did a screen capture, but it had my TOS account # in it so I took it down. Next video I will figure out a way to obfuscate that.
Total shares traded: 53,000
Total orders: 83
Gross profit: $226.54
I scalped a lot today. Did a lot of buying and selling immediately on confirmed uptrends. Sat on my hands as much as I could during downtrends. It’s amazing not having to pay commissions on each trade. 83 trades would have cost me nearly $830 at Ameritrade or $415 at ThinkorSwim.
Mar 102010
Wow… What a day! I finally got my shares of WAMUQ into my ThinkorSwim account and BAM! The stock dropped 50%. I sold right at the bottom and it bounced back up but still closed in the red. Will keep watching it for action but will not trust it like I did today. I’m still net a few hundred in gains. Can’t be too mad.
I can definitely see how it would be hard to make money at this game if you’re trading in an account under $25,000 and having to adhere to the 3 round trips max rule. It’s damned near impossible because you can’t cut your losses or lock in profits when you need to the most. You have 3 chances per week to get it right, which makes the process very time consuming.
I’m going to take some time and add to my capital until I can get together $5k, which at that point I can join a trading group and use their capital to trade with. I’ve been talking with Worldwide Trading Capital and they seem like a solid group. Direct trading is still a little confusing to me. I can’t figure out what exactly the trading costs would be, but it seems like it will be much cheaper than going with a broker if you’re trading a lot. There’s no commission, and there are ECN rebates. You end up paying some sort of fees per trade, but they’re nominal. The software is free with the monthly fee.
Mar 092010
First off I’d like to pat myself on the back for my watchlist from the weekend. You can see the updated charts in the previous post – I didn’t realize they were updated in real time so those will always be changing. From hear on out, I will be saving a copy of my watchlist charts locally so they won’t constantly update. So I nailed 3 of the 4 stocks and the 4th was obvious not to buy as it went red right out of the gate.
BBAN – had good volume this morning and increased 80% over the day. I missed the action because I was paying more attention to other peoples alerts than to my own watchlist. BAD!
IDCN – was a good hold over night and it bumped up another 50%. Stockchaser was pumping it more today so going to hold on for the ride.
WAMUQ – gained another 41% after a nice gap up this morning. Those shares are still in ACATS limbo so nothing I can do there but hope for more big gains tomorrow.
CTIC – bumped up 28%… holding it for a bit longer i think.
MDHI – bought because it was pretty active in the pre market, but it quickly tanked. Cut my losses at around $43 and used up a round trip. Jumped the gun on this one.
BBI – started going down again so I sold it for a $6 loss today, $35 total including yesterday.
ZANE – bought 150 shares of ZANE in the AM at 2.54 and sold it at 3.04 for a quick $75 profit. It’s been a fun roller coaster… Used up my last round trip, though.
VSTNQ – sold the shares I held overnight for an overall loss of $95.
Total Profit for Monday: $168.25 (not including WAMUQ)
Mar 062010
I got beat hard today, considering the size of my trades… I’m constantly trying to avoid the PDT rule, but I ended up hitting a stop loss today which forced me into a round-trip. Probably a good thing in the long run. I’m down (316.75) for the day and (365.95) for the week in my ThinkorSwim account.
Another fiasco with my ThinkorSwim account caused me to execute a trade much later than I wanted on buying GLRP. I started trying to buy at .65 when ThinkorSwim Desktop told me I couldn’t open a position on this stock. I called the trade desk and the first agent I spoke with told me that the stock was on a list of stocks known for fraudulent activity and was too high of a risk to let their clients trade freely, so they would only let me buy it if I called in. I told him that I understood the risk of the stocks I was buying and didn’t want to have to call in to execute any trades in the future. At this point, the stock was already over .80 so I didn’t want him to put in the order, but I wanted him to make sure the restriction was lifted. He said that it wasn’t possible to lift this restriction, it was for my own protection. I asked to speak with a manager and the manager gladly lifted the restriction. GLRP continued to run, so I bought the stock on my own at a almost-high price of 1.19. I didn’t buy much, but it ate away its capital for a while in an afternoon fade until it tanked and hit my stop loss at under a dollar.
ZANE, my play from yesterday, spiked a bit on open, then dropped to the red. I sold to cut my losses and as I was on the way to the office I noticed it was up 50% from the previous day’s close.
VSTNQ spiked up over 1.00 in the early AM. I held through the spike and the correction and some pretty heavy ups and downs. Could be a bad move, because Q stocks, as I was reminded this afternoon, are all worth 0. I’m hoping it spikes up again on Monday…. We will see. It finished with some heavy volume today so maybe there’s a chance?
Holding on to BBI. It didn’t do much today so not worth trading. Good volume, though, so possible accumulation?
I bought WAVE near the top at .578… Seems to be a pattern with me, and a common one with a lot of beginners. Dropped a little at the end of the day, but not enough to trigger my stop loss. Is there hope for this one?
I’m still holding WAMUQ against my will, but it’s not a bad thing because it surged up 20% today! Hopefully TOS will get those transferred over soon… I think that will actually put me net positive for this week.
IDCN… It’s a subpenny that’s getting pumped by stockchaser. I may have entered a little late. Holding over the weekend… I am an idiot.
CTIC – bought for a swing… lots of volume today. let’s see what happens.
Moral of the day: DON’T CHASE THE RUNNERS! If I don’t get in early, I shouldn’t get in at all.
Mar 052010
I’m still working on getting this blog thing set up… Please be patient with me.
Introductions are in order. My name is Gabe. I am completely new to trading, so do not take anything I write in the blog or eventually say in videos as investment advice or seriously in any way, shape or form. I know not what I’m doing. This is only a journal to keep my trades transparent and hopefully make myself a better trader. So, in other words, this is for entertainment purposes only, so as Tim Sykes says, “That’s my disclaimer, now I can say anything I want.”
Today was fun… Watching ZANE run from 0.60 up to its high of 2.50. My hands were tied as I was transferring funds from my original account at Ameritrade to ThinkorSwim. They got my ACATS transfer finished right as ZANE hit it’s high. I knew better than to buy in at this point, but I did get a small position. Only to watch it go back down to 2.12 at close.
I bought a small lot of VSTNQ around the same time. It closed strong, so I’m hoping for a morning gap.
I bought BBI right at the top… There was a big video released of the CEO pumping it mid day on CNBC that caused it to spike and I snagged some up right when my account funds were available to trade…. right at the top.
I bought a few hundred shares of MCLN early in the morning and am pretty much a wash with it at the end of the day. Nothing exciting. Might hold on to it until it goes big or dies out.
I’m holding on a bit of WAMUQ as well, from my old TD Ameritrade account. It hasn’t been transferred over to ToS yet so I’m forced to hold it. It had a pretty good day today so I’m not complaining. Hopefully they will get all that worked out tomorrow.
I started my account with about $2000. I got that up to about $2500 in the last couple weeks with a couple lucky trades. Until I’m over the PDT limit, I make small trades that I intend to hold over night unless the bottom craps out on me. I’ll make a couple larger trades every week when I see something running really big, like ZANE was today… I don’t know if this strategy will work, but until it doesn’t, that’s what I’m doing.
Thanks for checking out PennyShack.com!
Recent Comments