Watch list 12/20

Here are the new names I am watching for tomorrow

MOMO---I believe that with this one we see another down day. My scenarios here are as follows. If we see a slight gap down we can set up an orb play. If we gap down slightly we may also pullback some and cover the gap before the move lower. A g/r scenario is also possible. I will not prepare myself for any long scenarios today unless I see a ton of strength at the open which I doubt

TRIP---Support is seen at around 46. I would like to see a G/R move here. If we push down past 46 that may also be a good short set up. I will not go short in this heading into 46 though. Maybe a tad risky. As always , watch for the price action at 46.

WTI---This is one that is getting quite extended now. I’m not sure its ready to be a short just yet, may have one more push to short on a lower high. I just know  I will not long is at this point! So just wait for the short set up.

TSEM---This is one that could have some more upside potential here. R/G could be the set up here.

PIR---r/g look here or a push higher through 9.14 for the long set up.

ATW---We have a clear area of support here. Flagging looking to push higher through 14. Either on a r/g set up or push out of the open and flag for the long

GME---liking this one for a long on a r/g set up, we could also see a gap up and pullback for the long. I am not looking to short anything here. Too soon  

Watchlist review 12/19

Good evening everyone! This is my second watchlist review. This review will be done on the stocks I had on my list for today Monday the 19th of December 

MOMO---I had a couple different scenarios for this stock. I had mentioned that the ma200 was not too far down below and that we needed to watch it carefully. My main idea was for a second day continuation long if we showed some strength in the morning. However as you can see intraday right away weakness is strong. There is no entry opportunity since the move is fast and down to support near the ma200. From this spot you could even take a long trade if you so wished. However remember the strong downtrend the stock was originally in. As you can see it eventually tops out at prior support from Friday , now resistance and a great short ( farther away from the ma200) can be taken. OUt of my plan I do like that I incorporated both a long and short situation. I just think I should have put some extra weight on the short play since the long candle on Friday was not extremely bullish. I may have been too focused on longing at the ma200 over the bigger play with trend once the long got faded. Here is a look at the intraday action 

AKAO---Ok this one was tricky. I had placed more weight on a short play since it seemed to be a pump and dump on its way down. And there was a short play in there, eventually , but not in the way I expected. AKAO was sitting at support and for a short play to occur I would have liked to see either a break of this support or a g/r style move that began away from support. My idea for a long was if we held support and set up long which is exactly what happened. On this one as the last name I liked that I had both scenarios accounted for short and long. I also wish I had placed a bit more emphasis on a potential long scenario since we were at a strong support. Here is an intraday snap shot of the action 

M---Here is one I got wrong.My idea here was for a long set up. I had no plans whatsoever for a short play since I saw we were at support levels. We saw an attempted weak move at the open to go higher that was getting faded over and over until eventually a crack to lower lows was seen. I liked being disciplined on this one and not getting in simply because it looked weak but maybe next time I should account for a potential g/r type move since even though it had a big candle on Friday it was not extremely over extended and it was a day 1 type move. All in all though a good and safe move not to get in. 

FSLR---Actually quite similar to M but in reverse. There was a strong resistance above the ma50 , If the move had been r/g but red from farther away ( more space to the ma50) it could have been a good long. However this open was too close for comfort to me. It was not a short in my eyes because it wasnt extended, it just happened to be sandwiched between not being too extended and the ma50 so better not to take a trade here at all. As you can see though if you took a long once it was further away from the ma50 and had made higher lows you could have had some nice gains ( going with the trend) I do not have any comments here as I liked my discipline not to do anything here. Although a long trade farther way from the open would have been nice!

PAY---Here is one that did not amount to much. If I were the flash I could have hit it right at the open once it broke the consolidation range but I wasnt fast enough.. It did begin to flag after the initial run but that flag was too far away from any support and was not big enough to make me feel safe entering for a long. Faded for the rest of the day , so no trade here for me. 

WUBA---Here was a tricky one that ended up doing what I wanted it to do but without me in it. My idea here was for a short once it went under the support area it had formed under 30.15 or so I believe. It moved nicely down to that zone but then shot up looking like a long set up was now in play. ONly to turn around and fade away for the rest of the day. In a situation like this it is very important to know where the levels are and what has to be broken to set up a short play. In WUBA  the true break of the support was around 30.14. So after the break you wait for a pullback and then you get in. Even if the pullback happens to be bigger than usual as it was in this case. Just little things to notice. 

Watchlist 12/18

Here is my watch list for tomorrow Monday the 18th

MOMO---On Friday the idea was a test of around the ma200 area and a push higher from there. Tomorrow I believe we see a continued push higher perhaps one more day of a flag. I am looking for a r/g type play or even a slight gap up and push. If weakness is shown right at open area we may have to scrap this long as it may go back with the bigger short trend.

AKAO---This is one that is behaving exactly how I would like it too. For tomorrow we have a couple potential scenarios most involving shorts. First scenario is a gap down and hold below 13 for the short and eventual death of this stock. A green to red scenario is also a possibility ( if it is too close to support at 13 wait for the break down of 13 before getting in. Only long scenario I have is if 13 area holds and strength is shown .

M---This is one that could be ready to bounce. It is sitting at the ma200 right now after a big move lower. I would like to see a show of strength at the open. The idea for me here is NOT to short. If we get a g/r type look I will not get in until a long set up shows up. 

FSLR---Looking for a r/g type look here. Just be careful with the ma50 right above. 

PAY---This is one of my favs for tomorrow if market shows strength. A move over 18.50 either on a r/g or a push right at the open. A gap up if not too large is also acceptable.

WUBA---A lot of things can happen here but I do expect a short below the base that has formed here. Weakness if clearly in the air and I believe this is the day we break either on a g/r move or a push lower at the open under 30 

Framing your day in a positive way.

I have always been a huge fan of NLP ( neuro linguistic programming). I am no pro at it nor do I practice it as much as I should, I am however a firm believer of the power of the spoken/written word on your overall psychology and your life. How does that affect trading? Well in this short post I am going to talk about something I heard on a trading podcast just the other day. I am not quite sure on which podcast I heard it on, it was either on Michael Covels 6 hour show with Charles Faukman or on an episode of chat with traders. When we as traders have a losing day or even a losing trade we tend to criticize ourselves. We tend to say "Jonathan you should not have done that, how could you be so dumb to take that trade or exit to soon" or whatever the issue was that caused an issue. We as humans tend to focus on the negative and berate ourselves hoping for some magical reason we will not commit that same mistake again. How is that working out for you?? Well, instead of focusing on the negative why not focus on what you did right in the trade and what you could have done INSTEAD of the action you took. This way you are no longer thinking in a negative frame of mind but you are instead taking a more positive outlook on the trade. According to the person being interviewed this was what changed his trading. He was now better able to make changes , once he stopped attacking himself and started realizing what he could have done BETTER. Give it a shot and see if it works for you too. I know I will!

WLL losing trade today. Lets look at this trade which ended in a small loss. I am going to try my best to not criticize my trading at all here...Let's see if this is even possible lol. On the daily chart we had seen a strong break of the base it was trading at and a push down to the ma20. I had a support line drawn at around 10.50 zone. My idea was that if we didnt touch that area of 10.50 there was still a short to be taken. As you can see on the intraday chart what happened was quite different. The stock pushed down strong ( i couldve had more patience and waited it out instead of getting in so soon ) below the ma20 , it then quickly reversed and shot up and didnt look back at all. lets look at the two charts.

So what did I do well in this trade. Well first off I had a plan. I wrote out my plan and even though i could've stuck to it better I am happy I had a relatively good idea of what could have happened. Second and most important I got out quick. So once it broke over the initial push down I jumped out for a small loss. So not the end of the world. 

What could I have done better? First off the set up although it could have gone lower wasnt the idea set up for a short as it was right at the ma20a strong support area. Even if it did go lower my idea was for a g/r type set up and not a gap down and go. Remember the support level was not far. IN other words even if the stock had kept going lower it didn't have much room to go. A reversal trade outlook would've been smarter. And the final thing I wish I had done better was to not pull the trigger and jump in the trade. Wait for the set up , be patient as I described in my blog just yesterday. If I had at least waited for the pullback I would've noticed that it was stronger than a typical pullback and that may have given me the clue to prepare for a long and not a short. 

Well that wasnt so tough now was it. Try it out for yourself and lets see how that makes a difference in your frame of mind and your trading! 

Trading is about PATIENCE

In today's blog I am going to talk about one of the most important factors in trading success and one I am doing my best to develop. PATIENCE. I have lost count of the times I have a plan in the morning for a certain set up, the bell sounds and I start to feel some anxiety. That anxiety is telling me to enter a trade. Come on! just do something. Hit that buy or short button but don't sit on your hands and do nothing! Stop being so lazy. That is exactly what that brain chatter feels like. If you are not careful you give in to that temptation and before you know it you are in a less than ideal set up just because you HAD to be in something. This is usually when the shit hits the fan and you eventually find yourself regretting that entry. I am going to describe an example from today that led me into a loss due to that very issue. 

X was the ticker. My plan for today was based on 3 days down as of yesterday and an approaching support level which you will see on the daily chart below 

As you can very well spot on the chart there is a clear support level on the daily. My idea was that the price would either gap down to that area today or at least pull back to that area in early morning action. Let's see what happened at an intraday level

Ok so as you can see in the chart above we start to push higher over a resistance level. This to me looks like a strong move and I wait for the pullback to get in. The pullback happens soon enough and I am in for the long. After the pullback I believe I have a great entry and the stock will shoot up to around 36 which is the next area of resistance. What I didn't do was have PATIENCE! I didn't wait for the move back to the stronger support. Of course the stock could have gone higher from here but that wasnt the ideal set up. It didnt have as much an edge as if the price would have pulled back to support. At this point I realized this but the voices in my head said...you're ok...the stock is clearly gonna go higher and its good you are in ...stay in. So I did just that I stayed in and waited. Even though I saw signs of tiredness in the price action (too many red candles too soon for a strong reversal) I decided to stay in. When the double top intraday was made and the stock started to move back down I finally jumped out at a small loss realizing what the stock was doing. It was going to go lower. Would I choose to get in and short...Well a part of me wanted to but then i had to forcefully tell myself stay out this is day 4 down and at this point it would be risky. Eventually as seen in the price action the stock retraced perfectly back to the daily suppport level and from that zone it made its monster move higher as per the plan ! This is patience at its best. This is sticking to your plan. If I had waited patiently for the ideal super move from support the trade would have been amazing. Instead I was left with a loss and a good blog idea to write lol 

12/12 watchlist review

Hope everyone had a nice trading day this Monday! I wanted to ask you traders a question. Answer me in the comments section if you can. Since you have began to trade have your monday mornings become a time of excitement. Are your weekends what your weeks used to be and now your weeks what your weekends used to be! In my case I know that Sunday night I am super excited and happy that Monday is right around the corner. Friday night I usually get bummed out that I can't trade stocks for the next 2 days haha that's just me!

Anyway, let me get on to this post. I am going to start a new blog topic. Whenever I have a watchlist the night before I will follow that up with a blog post the following day reviewing that very watchlist. You and I will be able to see what worked what did not work and how I could've improved my list for the next time. Hope you enjoy.

WETF---My bias here was for a short either on a g/r or a move lower and pullback. What you can see here on the intraday chart is that this is exactly what happened. As you look at the chart you will see the initial push down to red. If you did not catch that first push on the 1min chart that's ok. Next you see a pullback slightly going green again but that is the exact pullback we were looking for, once you see some red this is your green light to short. As you see it was quite a successful trade for the rest of the day.

TWLO---This one was tricky but if you played your cards right you could have exited with a small win or at least break even. My plan here if you look at yesterdays watch list was a short. I had no plans at all for a long in this one ( daily told me this ). So the plan to me was either a g/r or a small gap down and pullback for the short, Well, if you look at the intraday chart what you will see is that the pullback was slightly higher than anticipated but if you had entered earlier for the short your conviction that it could pullback more ( remember the daily was not set up for any long set up in my point of view ) would keep you in the trade. TWLO makes a high of 29.42 and from that spot your trade is valid for close to a 1$ move lower. What could have been done differently here. Well one thing that could have improved this trade would be to stay patient and expect that higher move and not to short it so low. Remember ask your self this. If i stop out , am I stopping out because the proce action as TRULY invalidated my set up or not? In this case if you stopped yourself out too soon the answer would have been no. 

OAS---My plan here was a long, we were seeing some awesome coiling action which screamed long to me. It doesnt always turn out the way you want it to. In this case the switch was very simple. We saw a big gap up which in my opinion had to be faded but the initial action needed to look weak and form a lower high. And that is exactly what happened. A safe short all the way back down to cover the gap 

CSRA---This one did not go as planned at all...that is why these are ideas and not sure things. If your plan doesnt materialize itself...DO NOT TAKE THE TRADE. The set up was great but there was also a ton of resistance above and when weakness was shown at the open that was a clear sign to stay away. Or if you planned for that weakness take the short if not stay away. What would i do different next time? mmm maybe plan for the fade at resistance set up. 

VOYA---Another one that went against what i expected. This wasnt as easy bc you may have been tempted into taking a r/g but it just didnt look very clean in the early hours so it may have been best to stay out. Not much I would have changed here in terms of my watch list ideas...If you have any comments please let me know 

ATW---Finally one of the great plays of today. My plan didnt equate to exactly what happened but now I can adapt for next time when planning it out. My idea was either a red move out of the open and a retracement to the resistance area for the short. Not quite what happened. What ATW did was it gapped up quite a bit and tried to flush down ( which is why I always try to wait for a lower high before shorting these gap ups ) and then shot up. The long set up was legit but remember your plan and stay disciplined, it was waaaay too extended for a long. What can you do now? Just wait for the lower high or topping out. Not too long after the move came to an end and a mini lower high was put in. No more confirmation was needed this was the moment the push was going to die. So what would I do differently next time. Plan for a push higher out of the open and wait for the short even if it looks too extended you never know! 

Watchlist 12/12

Good morning guys! here is my trade watchlist for tomorrow, Monday the 12th.

I am going to show the daily charts along with a brief description of what I expect for tomorrow. Maybe a few different scenarios for each stock. 

WETF---UNLESS MAJOR GAP DOWN I AM LOOKING FOR A SECOND DAY MOVE DOWN. EITHER ON G/R OR ON A PUSH DOWN AND PULLBACK ENTRY

TWLO---THIS IS STILL A SHORT. IF IT GAPS DOWN WE MAY SEE A PULLBACK HIGHER FOR THE SHORTE , A G/R TO RED IS ALSO A STRONG POSSIBILITY. NO LONGS YET HERE

OAS---BUILDING UP FOR A BREAK OUT HERE. NO SHORTS AT ALL. OVER 15.76

CSRA---OVER 32.85-33 THIS CAN BE A GREAT LONG.

VOYA---ALSO BUILDING UP FOR A PUSH LIKE OAS. COUDLD BE ONE LAST HURRAH PUSH!  

ATW---This is one I am adding to my list just now. It has had a brilliant run but is at a resistance level from months back. I am looking for either a red open move to green (near resistance) and fade. Or even possibly a straight flush out of the open from resistance which I would try to enter on any flag or pullbacl