Here we go...

This is the first post for my new blog, Trading diary of a late riser and I aim to ramble on about my trading, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's I suppose. Nevertheless I hope it will be useful for other traders and not just as a source of cautionary tales.

If a trader is experimenting with something it means that they're not making any money at the time and I'm no exception. I'm playing with day trading using 30 minute charts and while there are plenty of good signals I can be overly influenced by overnight news and moves and being that I'm generally a bit pressed for time I thought I'd experiment with starting later. Often the Australian market will initially follow an overseas lead and then quickly reverse direction and lately I've found myself fighting the market on a lot of those days so that I miss obvious entry and exit signals. It's also quite an exhausting time frame to trade in as I'm using tight stops, so that once I start trading I'm glued to the screen for the rest of the day. On good days, my profit usually peaks after a few hours and doesn't change much after that while on poor days I'll often make things worse after the first few hours as frustration kicks in.

The advantage of starting later is that I'll be paying more attention to what is happening and not what I think should be happening. The disadvantage is that secondary moves tend to be smaller but on the other hand they seem to be more reliable.

This morning there were four short term breakout trades I could have taken in bhp, fmg, sto and wpl and all would have paid off handsomely so there's Murphy's Law in action for you! I'm trading long and short in 8 stocks, all but one resource stocks as I can't short financials until the ban is lifted. The two gold stocks I'm looking at are lgl and ncm (Lihir Gold and Newcrest Mining) and as they gapped through the breakout level I wouldn't have taken a trade.

It's just past 11.30 am now and a couple of little trades are suggesting themselves. I was thinking that we might be due for a tradeable pullback in a couple of the stronger stocks but there's no sign of that yet. The best quality set up is in wow (Woolworths) where a little upside breakout has congested for 4 bars. I'll buy a few if it gets to 2776-2778.

It's 12.30 pm, I bought some wow which have climbed a bit to 2790. I also sold a little ncm as it had surged up and had a doji bar with a very small range so I thought there could be enough for me to scalp something on a pull back. So I sold at 3357 and cut and reversed at 3371 as the pull back was very tight. The high of the day is 3383 and I'd like to see ncm push through that quickly otherwise I'll cut and wait till later.
I also bought some fmg (Fortescue mining) at 260 as it congested without any pull back and then started to push through to new highs for the day.

I've got 3 positions and I think that'll do me for the moment.

1pm - cold feet on ncm as it pushed up to 3410 then drifted back to 3385-3390 so I got out of my position for 3397 - a small overall gain after costs given the earlier loss.
Replaced it with long wpl on a Joe Ross trader's trick entry. See http://www.tradingeducators.com/ if you're interested.

1.45pm Was not comfortable with fmg - too extended - so tipped it out at 264 and 265. The market started pulling back so I cut my wow at 2790 and wpl at 3288 (to just cover costs).
A friend popped in for lunch so I missed a shorting opportunity in bhp at 3300.
No positions on right now.

2.30pm Shorted ncm and wpl, both small size but cutting them almost immediately as I've got cold feet. The signal in wpl is good but I'm in too late. Trying too hard to find trades, I'll wait and see if I can find one or two more by the close.

3pm Shorted lgl on a punt and quickly covered for a small loss. Would have been smarter to stay with wpl, was a good signal, I just had missed an opportunity to put on the trade earlier. Shorted bhp when it tipped after a one hour pause but covered for costs plus a bit after it failed to go on with it.
Just had my third go at shorting ncm today at 3371 although this time I've got a higher quality signal ie it pulled back to 3372 earlier rallied again to a lower how and now will hopefully continue to drop.

3.45pm Bought back ncm for a loss at 3390 (stop was 3388 but stock is thin). Chose not to take buy signal in lgl at 339 which went to 343. Not so fussed as it was a bit late in the day but it's often a trade I'm reluctant with.
If there were a couple of hours to go I'd buy sto and wpl as they seem to have both had a 3 wave correction and are now pushing up.

The market's about to match and I'm done for the day. I made a tiny profit after 9 trades with 6 scratch, one small loser (the last ncm short) and two small winners in fmg and wow.
The two big missed opportunities were in bhp and wpl. I think on both of them I could have improved on the entries. I was also far too quick to cut the trade in wpl given the quality of the signal.
Another set up I like is a run up (or down) petering out with a very small range bar or two. The entry is to short the break of the low of the highest small bar. It's punty but seems to have a good risk/reward and also a tight stop being a new high. This would have given a short in bhp at 3317 rather than 3300 and in wpl at 3384. Also, a couple of trades that wouldn't have had an orthodox entry such as short fmg at 263 and wow at 2789. There would have been a short in lgl at 332 with stop at 334 for a loss and two shorts in ncm at 3369 (which I got on at 3363 - a scratch trade) and another at 3389 for another scratch.