Morgan Stanley, the alternate trades and April 21st chart.

I am trying to focus on one sector or index at a time in order to get familiar with the activity well enough that I don't have to think much about the indicators, just glance at them and know what may be coming next. As much as I may not be profitable right now I am gaining knowledge and that familiarity that cannot be gained in a strong easy to trade market.

Having said that I have kept my eyes out for those other gems that may be out there and are within my trading range. Morgan Stanley, MS, is just one such gem. Lots of volume, lots of activity and a price that allows me to choose a variety of position sizing.

The only real reason for not getting into this stock is that I cannot short sell in a registered account so my playing is limited to the upside trades so I am just on the sidelines for now. Later I may get my margin account going for some shorts.

This basically means that I am stuck with ETFs of the bear variety to play any downside.

On that line, I see some argument for sector rotation for trading. I see that this is similar to choosing a stock that may be a good trade on a particular day as, no doubt, the sector that a stock is in will be reflected in the stock movement, or the other way around.

I am trying not to get caught in the indecision that comes with choosing a different issue for a day as I tried that in the past and I invariably chose wrong and ended up fighting the tape for pennies when i could have grabbed a nice trend in one of my other choices... in hindsight of course.

So this is why I stick it out with one set of ETFs in one index right now. I figure that I will fight on those range days when almost no moves are terribly predictable but I will be there on those days that the ETF trends with the index. April 21st was one such day...and I recall not being able to trade until late in the day...after 1500h so I missed it but not due to trading something else, I just was not there. This was so shortly after switching to the NYSE that I don't know if I would have recognized the trend or if I would have just traded my plan and been caught up in the trend by default. I would like to think I would have been positioned right but I also think that I would have stopped out quickly.

I see that I did not post a chart for the day, I only had one trade late in the day and I am not sure now exactly why, my journal entry is not clear. I think I just felt the need to try a late day trade to see if I could catch the right side of the late day volatility... I was not successful.

Here is the chart with some arrows indicating possible trades and direction. I would be playing SDS for the short trades. I think that the TICK for the day was mostly positive off the start so today I would not likely have entered any SDS (short) trades at all. There are a couple of points where I may have entered additional lots along the way, perhaps not then so the point is moot. I might now once there is a enough money on the table to turn a profit even after the cost averaging.

SSO for April 21st:

The long green arrow represents my use of the 50 sma as a stop guide. I worked out a variety of methods of trend stop setting (125 sma, pivot point & support lines, 200sma stops) The 50 sma worked out the best price but even the worst was within 12 cents of the best. There were at least two more decent smaller trades after this main one, which I did not mark. These were the 200sma retest at 1500h and at 1545h.

For interest sake I entered long at 1535h, I must have been trying to get the bounce off of the 50sma, oh well.

Jeff.