January 8th

Some post market strategy checking.

I plotted four trades in the morning based solely on the PP200 plan. The first trade was pretty early and almost more an impulse trade than a PP200. Without seeing the premarket quotes and watching them at the open it is hard to know for sure that this was a good trade entry but a price dive to very close to the S1 and a quick return like this would be well indicated, getting in in a timely manner would be the only real issue. The 200 was broken above the S1 so I might have figured up, I am not spending too much time on this now though so I will just follow the pivot points and price action. There was another good entry just after 1030h but in the spirit of the plan I only added teh trade after waiting for the 1100h bouncing on the previous close.

Buy $12.32 Sell $12.69 Gain 37 cents ps Return 3%
Buy $12.56 Sell $12.70 Gain 16 cents ps Return 1.3%
Buy $12.70 Sell $12.76 Gain 06 cents ps Return 0.5%
Buy $12.71 Sell $12.91 Gain 20 cents ps Return 1.6%

$0.79 gain per share or 6.4% overall return on trades.

The first trade value would be bang on $5000 for 400 shares so I might have used this as incentive to make that first trade, risking an earlier trade to take advantage of an additional 100 share position size. This would also allow me to play the rest at 400 shares due to the profit off the first trade.

At 400 shares that would be $264. Should I not make the first trade then the rest would be 300 share trades and the profit would have been 42 cents per share for $126

Both figures are well past my target so I would not begrudge missing the first trade....but let's look at SU and HED anyway, just for kicks.

The first trade is setup and bounces pretty early off of S1. Dark blue is previous close and open acts a strong as a pivot point so I would have considered the first little peak an exit point and would not regret missing the next move up as a result.The second trade is a bit more complicated as it starts to incorporate the 200sma into the mix. Rally off the entry is good, the pullback is more than I might normally let go but the price is over the 200sma and returns to test it momentarily without breaking down...maybe a little risky but a solid probable hold. Given that it played out once the next pullback tests the close price, twice, then heads up over PP. I let it ride enough times and would jump here as my target was met nicely.

An aggresive trade move here could include scaling out, selling half and letting half ride or really aggressive would be to hold as long as the red 30sma line holds. Either would have had me holding past R1 for a full exit with 60 cents ps extra, but I am not greedy even in historical testing.

Buy $26.57 Sell $27.04 Gain 47 cents ps Return 1.8%
Buy $26.77 Sell $27.80 Gain 1.03 cents ps Return 3.8%

$1.50 gain per share or 5.6% overall return on trades.

At 100 shares that would be $150. I could not trade more than 100 shares as even 200 puts the trade size at over $5K. This is why a smaller priced stock can be much better to trade right now. Having said that I do not want to go too far with this just yet as more than 400 or so share trades may execute differently and the losses are also larger by the same scale.

Actually, I changed my mind. The Energy index did not drop enough anywhere to make trying to play HED a good enough idea. There were a couple of potentials in the afternoon but I won't bother with the charts for those. I wouldn't have traded them as I was already in good shape from the morning and I don't trade in the PM yet and there were still some decent long trades on stocks left int he market anyway.

Jeff.