Trade reviews for 04/22/2015

Gappers I was watching this morning.

Trade Reviews

 ONVO - I traded this poorly and did not respect my rules. I Took a short on it and it had not crossed the red line. It was just under vwap.

GBSN - I had the right idea but it was poor trade execution, I bought on the pop and set my stop too tight.

Acknowledgments.
You need to make good entries and give room. Setting stops too tight.
Be patient and trust your set-up and plan.

Trades Review for 4/21/2015

Gappers I was watching this morning. BIOC, BCLI, LJPC and VLTC

 

Trade Reviews

LJPC - Stocks usually dip at the open and once they cross over vwap , I look to buy on the second or third candle confirmation. I missed the first entry. The stock broke the top line, pushed but came back and I entered on the test of the top line, it held and came back up. I got out at half dollar mark which happened to be slightly above the HOD.

BIOC - I was anticipating pop at the open, push and then get short. I waited for the break of the red line and test. It did exactly that. What added to my confirmation is it didn't hold above the vwap. I got out at the point that was yesterday's high and I felt this might act as a support area.

Rules of Trading

Here are a list of rules I am working on  as I get to know more about myself and my trading. These will change from time to time and I will continue to add them as time goes by.

1. Stick to your plan
2. Respect your stops. Do not exit pre-maturely before the stop is hit and no reason to exit
3. Use 2 min and 5min chart comparison to get a better entry. Then use the 5 min to exit to give you the patience
4. Before taking a trade, view the stock on a longer time frame , 15 min, 30 min and 1 hour on 2-3 days to get a bigger picture of the support and resistance areas.

Trade Review for 04/16/2015

Below are the stocks I was watching at the open. INVE, ROSG, NUGT and CLSN

 I took  a long on ROSG as I thought it was flagging with decreasing volume or forming the abcd pattern if you add the per-market part of the chart. I was wrong and instead of concentrating on the gapper strategy, I got distracted. The ideal entry for short would have been as shown by the green arrow below. This broke the red line, retested and failed. I am still learning on how to follow a plan and not deviate.

Trade Review for 04/15/2015

Below is a snapshot of my morning gapper list. I didn't see any solid set-up, but I took only trade.

BLDR was nearing the red line on my gapper list shown on the screenshot. I took the short at 13.09 anticipating the break of the lower line, but covered at 13.23. I felt it was about to squeeze. I would have looked at the big picture and put my stop at 13.41. 13.50 This was yesterday support and turned resistance point today.

Gapper Strategy and Trade Review

Before I write anything, I want to say my reviews, comments and explanations will obviously differ from many but this is work in progress and it's important to me to journal and review my trades. Feel free to leave comment but please let it be a constructive.

I am working on a Gapper strategy that I learned from Ed Martin ( @AverageJoeTradr) on his Blog  He has had good success and he only started with 800 dollars and turned it to 9K in 6 months. I can identity myself with him and his style of trading.
I am not good in explanation as he is, but I will try. This is mostly for my own review but hopefully someone else can get some insight.  
 Look for the gappers that are more than 5%. I use this website to look for pre-market gappers. Make a list of at least 2-4 best set-ups per-market in terms of volume and chart. I use ThinkorSwim for charting. After the first 15 min,  draw two lines, one on high of the first 15 min and one on the low of the first 15 min (These will be in 5 min time-frame) as shown below. Then watch for the stock that is close to breaking the upper line for long or lower line for short.  Then I put this stock on watch on my main screen and look for entry.

If you take a look at the above screenshot. You will notice I had four stocks on watch. TPLM, BLDR,BCLI and GBSN.  TPLM and BLDR had a nice break of the first 15 minutes range. A good entry for TPLM was at  6.20  (But I was too early and messed the plan on this. See below) and BLDR good entry was at 13.35. As for BCLI and GBSN they didn't move as expected. Simply put you only need one of two stocks to act well.

Trade Review.
TPLM - long (The green arrows indicate buy and red arrows indicate cover or sell)
I was early on this stock and should have waited for the 6.20 break and hold. Second entry was close enough in anticipation of the break but the stock spike with a big red candle on the 5 min that stopped me out only to come back and break the 6.20 ish entry according to plan.