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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Dec 31st and a new toy, TLM

Talisman Energy.

True to form I cannot leave well enough alone. I want options and to see what else works. I have proven my strategy workable for AEM, now SU and I would like to test it on one or two more so I have a total arsenal of four of varying prices to choose from.

I ran a new scan today for stocks between $10 and $30 with a volume over 500K per day. I ended up with about 40 stocks to choose from, cut out all the ishares and ETFs as well as small movers to pare it down to about 5. Then I concentrated on only the ones that had patterns that mimicked AEM, Suncor and the realted indices.

Cameco Corp (CCO) and Talisman Energy (TLM) were the only two that exhibited the qualities that I was looking for. CCO is about $20 and TLM is around $11 so I chose TLM for the ease of trading small if I so decide to really scale it back. Both are energy related, TLM more so...but enough of this boring research, they follow the indices in the intraday and daily scales and that tells me as much as I need to know.

I checked the pre-market posturing for TLM at 5 minutes before the bell and decided that it sould start down and best to concentrate on long positions today...so long as soon as it looks good. Rather than playing the quotes as hard as normal I decided on a technical entry based on the primary pivot point (horizontal blue on the chart) as that looked to be where the price was going to head for very early. I was not disappointed. Long was the play so I ended with two trades, but only because I didn't hold for the whole long move when the price wallowed.


Of course the targets were the 200sma and R1 but I didn't think the 200 would hold. The R1 was at $12.15 so this was the real target for the morning. I set my limit for 400 shares at $11.70. Keeping with the more technical trade I exited on the pullback when it was just above $11.93...volume was very high and the price hovered, usually a good sign to bail if it is on my mind I find.

Trade 2 was a no brainer as the consolidation at about 0950h was getting ready to break. 400 shares at $11.85. I kept in the trade and waited for the 10sma to break or the R1 line to be hit...although the volume dropped off to nothing between 1025h and 1030h...1029h was the best exit. I wasn't paying much attention to the quotes so I was not sure what my exit would have been exactly so I just took the low for the minute I exited at $12.11

These were bigger moves than I was really thinking I was going to get.

Results:

3.74% return on trade

The 400 share trade is part of my plan to have the whole portfolio on each trade, or as close to it as can be managed with even lots...which is why a smaller price stock is actually a better play while the account is small. It lets me play smaller if I need to, scale into and out of questionable trades and take advantage of smaller moves.

So, let's compare this with the possible trades with SU.

This day was not tracking the pivot points as PP is on the chart and R1 and S1 are no where in sight. The same opening was expected though and this is a typical gap fade style of trade. So long off the bottom based on the pre-market quotes. I half expect that I would have missed the first nice trade of the day though so the rest were a fight for pennies and at best 10, 10, 15 and 10 cents per trade. 200 shares is the only reason these were profitable as the commission is $10 per trade (round trip).

Results:

1.2% return on trade...with the fighting for pennies I would have stopped at 4 trades.

Out of curiousity had I managed to get into the first trade where I might have...had there been more technical indicators lining up to make that decision, $23.10 to $23.40, roughly another 30 cents per share. I expect that I still would have stoped at four trades so that is only another 20 cents per trade overall. Still not a bad day and it would have met my goal.

All in all I am looking forward to trying my hand at TLM for about a week as I apply and wait for my tax free trading account to get set up and funded.

Jeff

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