It's 11.20am and at this point a reasonable early rally of nearly 50 points in the xjo has retraced almost half of the gains and it's possible that we'll follow our recent pattern of reversing the overnight lead, regardless of whether it's up or down.
Bhp - rallied 13% in the UK and 10% in adr form in the US but is up a relatively modest 6% here! It's sliding back slowly from the open and is far enough from the high to warrant a TTE trade at some point but somehow I expect it will keep slipping. It's not stretched enough to try for a bearish reversal so nothing doing for now.
Fmg - as above
Ncm - was weak on the opening as gold slipped a little overnight but has rallied from there and is holding well, only down 19 cents, in a whippy range.
Rio - even stronger than bhp in London at up 14%. Similar to bhp as usual but relatively stronger in that the pullback from the opening high has been more modest.
Sto - did gap up and is also sliding back but within a range so I doubt there'll be any compelling trade opportunities in this today.
Wow - this is down 2.2% and is looking sick as my theory y'day that the retracement rally was over seems to be holding up. Has held a little support at 2590 and may offer a shorting opportunity on a continuation down through that. With the proviso that it held, first at 2570 then at 2585 during it's retracement rally and may need to do some work before slumping this afternoon hopefully or overnight.
Wpl - looking better than sto. Pushed above the range of the last 2 days at the open and is holding there, just. Not extended enough for a reversal trade and too near to the high for a TTE. Ross hook entry (buying on new high) would be at 3495.
Spi - pretty weak and could slip through earlier low of 3179 to give me a short although some caution would be required as yesterday's high which could form support is very close at 3174.
11.37 Short spi at 3177. There's reasonable momentum here but I'm a bit nervous.
11.45 Short wow at 2588 and rio at 4554 as it falls through the opening low. It's not really extended but bhp is leading this down and there's a pretty big gap to yesterday's highs so I'm in this cautiously.
12.04 The pullback hasn't accelerated and it's cost a little as I've cut and reversed rio at 4588 and the spi at 3191. Now long bhp at 2885 on a TTE as the pullback created enough room and ditto with wpl at 3472.
12.16 I'm already questioning why I took the short trades in rio and the spi and I've looked at them again and can see that they were just about valid but marginal. I guess my approach was to steel myself to cut them quickly if necessary and not to pick and choose which signals I take. Still I do feel I have to work more on consciously ranking my signals rather than having misgivings in the back of my mind. I guess that problem is that I've found that properly chosen reversals are some of the best day trading opportunities which runs counter to the usual approach I take so that's possibly where my confusion comes from. By contrast, I'm very happy to be long. The market isn't out of the woods and there's ample opportunity for it to drift off or chop around but if it does continue it can run up strongly.
12.36 Chopped in and out of the second set of spi for a small loss as it couldn't get through 3212. I think I need more explosive momentum to take an add on trade. For example, if the spi chopped around in this range perhaps with a higher low around 3190 then advanced again, it would be worth taking.1.00 Bought a little more wpl at 3499 as it confirmed the break after spending 20 minutes there and started to push on. No guarantee of course but I'm keen to work on this.
1.05 Stopped out of last spi at 3197 and bhp at 2874. Missed my cut in rio at 4596 and watched it slip on nothing so decided to make the cut looser since it's often thin. Likewise just stretched it a little in fmg. The reason is that they seem to be in clear uptrends, I'm not trying to make some money out of a choppy correction. Still a dangerous game.
1.19 Short wow at 2581 as it makes new lows. Missed a short in bhp at 2863, couldn't decide.
1.34 Bought spi at 3188. I actually bought this on the basis of a 10 minute chart. I'm generally happy enough with this in the spi but prefer longer for stocks as they're more whippy.
2.01 The day is not going well and I've decided to get out of wow at 2582 as it has twice tried to fall and bounced back comfortably.
2.28 I actually cut the spi at 3177 and then re-entered long at 3175. Just sold half of that out at 3186 as a profit objective type trade. Bought wow at 2598 on a reversal. It looks like it did 5 waves down (elliot wave type completion) and there are probably quite a few shorts getting nervous on the failure to break last week's lows.
2.41 Ncm made a buy signal at 3161. I think it's slightly extended so will wait. Stopped out of spi at 3182.
2.56 Stopped out of fmg at 254. Played with a looser stop which was costly.
3.10 Long spi at 3177.
3.33 Been looking for an opportunity to buy bhp and since it's liquid and near to the close I bought some at 2834 on a 10 minute signal. Also, cutting wpl at 3459 for some.
3.40 Had to chase the rest of the wpl down to 3440 for another dud trade.
3.54 Sold half spi at 3187 on profit target and cut wow for square nearing the close as it ran up to 2608 but couldn't go on with it.
3.58 Sold rio for small loss at 4579 approaching the close. Gave it every chance but.....
4.11 Sold out bhp at 2831 in the match for a small loss.
4.25 Sold last spi at 3181.
So the washup....not good. 10 stock trades for 0 winners, 7 losers and 3 breakeven. 6 spi trades for 3 winners, 3 losers. Net was a bad but not disastrous day. Overall, even though I thought the market could drift off all day I couldn't really handle it and fell in love with my trades so that I only cut fmg and wpl when it was too late and ignored a perfectly good short signal in bhp.
I had a couple of conflicting ideas playing out and I think that's why I broke all the rules today. Part of it is the sense that I've been shilly shallying so that I'm not really giving myself a chance to get on board a moving stock and make some decent money. I think that's true to an extent but equally I can't go ignoring obvious stops either. I'm looking for more clarity. Still, that's the point of this process; to work on my trading until I find something that not only works but is also something that suits me. Ie, I change me but only so much, I also have to work around my own characteristics.
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