April 1st, no foolishness here.

April Fools' day was uneventful today, at least for me, I had my head in trading and work too far to get into the spirit.

So to gather all the items that I looked at to day to determine my plan I included:

Current trading price of gold (UP)
Activity of the European market (FTSE) (neutral)
NYSE cumulative TICK (DOWN)
Global Gold Index (up but downtrending slightly)

This looked like a higher opening but a range trading day.

Figuring on that I decided on a position very early in HGD to play the Global Gold short ETF to fade the opening move with a back up of reversing in to HGU long ETF upon failure of plan A.

I made a crucial mistake. I thought that the orange line was 1/2 R1 when it was, in fact, 1/2 R2. This meant that the opening price was higher than I thought...opening above R1 leads me to aim for a long position rather than a short or at least give the price more time to decide where it might be heading...a little consolidation period was in order. So I got shaken out of HGD and lost 7 cents per share...3 more than I anticipated due to a slow order execution.

Reversing into HGU worked out well as I gained 15 cps. Rather than trying to play htis little downside with HGD I waited it out to see where the price would go, seeing my earlier mistake I figured that the day was likely going to head up and perhaps hit R2... the third trade was in,YRI Yamana Resources, see chart below. I intended to stay in and hold this one but got stopped out by a too close stop setting, still saw 6 cps.

My last trade was a last minute (for me) entry to see if my gut was right about still going long given that the price of Global Gold had already passed R2. Actually, no gut involved, straight technical analysis and longer term swing style trade entry using the 30 and 50 sma as my trade entry criteria. I could have stopped this one closer and seen more profit but 5 cps was enough to keep me happy as this was a tech move not a profit move, I managed to catch the second highest peak of the day. Trying to catch the last one would likely have had me stuck in the trade overnight.

Yamana Resources, YRI

This chart has some interesting setups and things going on. I was not really paying attention tot he volume but the rough trendlines in the volume chart are good indications of things to come in the stock price, classic supply and demand at work. This is one of the reason I like stocks over ETFs, more information.

The volume shrinks as the price drops, bottoms and consolidates. This goes from a negative convergence to a negative divergence. As the volume levels off the price wavers just above yesterday's high, at the convergence of the SMAs and above the 1/2R1 line...perfect. I had about 5 chances to enter this trade at the same target price, or just hold it for a 5 cps risk until it moved in my favour...which it did. I used the first prime opportunity, my nature, and rode it through, it was a shame that I did not let the break even stop ride a little longer to let the price move farther...oh well.

Deciding to move the stop to take some profits or leaving it to give the price room to move is my greatest hurdle and costs me the most potential profits. I need to work out a plan of action that is consistent here...either take early small profits all the time (I can do that as my risks are also very small) or let the price ride all the time (I can also do that as I may lots of calls that would net some really nice gains had I let them go).

The important thing that I am doing t\is to get stops set very early, immediately after the entry to stop losses form getting away on me and to prevent a connection failure causing a loss as well.

Enough for today. More fun in store for tomorrow.

Oh, stats for today,

Winners vs losers 3 : 1
$winners/$losers 1.24 : 1
Net gain 19 cents per share

Jeff.

March 16th, Return to the basics

Today I played with a return to stocks as opposed to ETFs, at least not ETFs exclusively. I have determined that ETFs are too restricting in the method that needs to be used to trade them intraday. The volume means little to nothing most times as traders scramble to place their best idea on the table while I attempt to take potshots at their offers and bids. The trouble arises in my information is not of the best quality or of the best speed so I am behind the ball when it comes to trying to really call the next move and make the trade.

Stocks, on the other hand, reveal more in their quote stream than does the chart, often. So combining a streaming quote and chart for a stock that is familiar, liquid and moving well enough gives almost all the information that one needs to make good on the fly decisions about placing trades based on ideas formed from the information at hand.

Yamana Resources Inc., YRI.TO.

This stock is one of the stocks held in the Global Gold Index so it is at least as familiar as gold is to me in general, it tracks reasonably well with GD, not as nice as Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM) but at over $50 AEM is slightly out of reach if I plan on using stops for my trading in my TFSA.

In addition to trying a stock back on for size I decided to use minimum position sizing for each and every trade today. 100 shares. I have been tied down to staying in a trade and not being able to make any other trade at the same time. As much as I want to concentrate on a particular trade I do need to have the flexibility to enter additional positions on other issues, or even adding to the same one should an idea work out well. Seeing as I am trading related stocks and ETFs I figure this is not too great a stretch.

YRI today:

Not a bad trade. 20 cents per share. So only $20 for my single lot gross profits, but that is not specifically the point here. Getting good trades does not mean making loads of cash.

HGU:

I was not even going to do anything with the bull Global Gold ETF but it was setting up so sweet that I couldn't help myself, besides, I kind of wanted to do some simul-trading.

6 cents per share gained. It didn't run like it might have and I didn't exit as early as I could have, letting the stops work for me right now gives me the minimum gains for these small momentum moves...if I am breaking even the end will be catching the larger moves and then seeing profits. So I don't mind.

HGD:

This is my plan now, play the stocks for the up moves, perhaps play the bull ETF in conjunction with those moves and play the bear ETF for the downside...at least until I get going and have some cash to add to my margin account to do some real short selling, then I will probably give up the ETF altogether. I am not as impressed with them as I thought that I might be.

These two trades totaled 4 cents per share gain.

Seeing as everything was 100 shares I lost a bit due to commissions and small position sizing BUT the small sizing let me not have to consider, as much, the downside if I was wrong....Of course I would pick a marginal day (not a loser, just marginal) to drop my sizing.

Today's total are $30 gross, about -$12 net due to commissions and fees. Trading stocks between $8 and $11 @ 100 shares makes it hard to dig out from a $11 commission unless some decent moves are captured well. But that is all part of the game.

Now, had I been trading full positions, I would not have been able to trade HGU as I was in YRI so the totals would be like this:

YRI for 20 cents at 300shares = $60

HGD for 4 cents at 400 shares = $16

Commissions and fees = $36

Net gain = $40.

Considering the small moves today and not much trading to pick from I still would have been happy enough to have seen a small gain.

Jeff.