Shared by
ckz8780
Two trades:
Flag breakout, 500 shares. Bought pre-emptively for a break of $8 as the stock was in a very tight flag pattern on the daily. The price attempted to break out and ran to $8.12 very quickly but then pulled back so I sold nearly flat at $7.93 and decided I would re-enter on the break of $8.
Rebuy from the previous trade. We chased it a little too early. I should have just kept my previous position but did not want to start the month off with a loss and $8 was a big breakout spot for it so I thought it was a better play at that spot. Unfortunately I had to sell early because I had a dentist appointment and I didn't want to hold the stock overnight. I gave it til about 2pm when I had to leave to break out but it never did so I sold on a pop to $8.13. Later in the day it did end up breaking out and running to $8.47.
Execution detail:
| Date/time | Symbol | Side | Price | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-04-02 09:41:18 | SWHC | buy | $7.955 | long |
| 2012-04-02 10:12:23 | SWHC | sell | $7.930 | 0 |
| 2012-04-02 10:29:30 | SWHC | buy | $8.020 | long |
| 2012-04-02 13:36:22 | SWHC | sell | $8.130 | 0 |
Comments
ckz8780
Thanks for the comment! You're right, I definitely should have held onto this. That's another thing I am working on (not taking profits too soon), and I will keep working on it since generally speaking my profits are smaller than my losses right now which is a sure way to fail.
You made some great points about the volume accumulation pattern, and that's something I am getting better at recognizing, but before a couple months ago I'd hardly looked at volume at all so that is all new to me. I will keep working on it for sure.
Another thing to consider is that with my current broker if I hold anything overnight I need to call and have them reset my buying power and they don't always do it quickly, so sometimes holding overnight can be a pain if I want to open a position the next morning and I don't have any buying power. Once I become more consistent, they will reduce that restriction, but currently it is in place to protect their own money which I understand!
Thanks again for the input. Much appreciated.
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So I took a brief look at another stock chart of SWHC and was in a prolonged trend in tact since DEC of 2K11 and well over the 50/200 DMA. This would have made a better position trade though. In addition, the Accum./Dist. had also been strongly trending upward and peaked on APR 2nd. Also the volume on that particular day was above average at almost 5M. Seeing your buying point 13 ticks above the open and below the $8 minor resistance was good but everything here was pointing to a strong move and you should have held on to it, even until close where you would have only been 3 ticks from the high. Regardless on an appointment of not you could have put in an after hours order and taken profits at the open as the market did the next day. Even without a flag pattern setup the proper indicators should have led you to seeing a high probability of a long position for the day not just a few minutes. In retrospect, it's a good lesson to learn from and studying this one in more detail is important to see what a good trade looks like.