GE is in uptrend from 8.80 bottom with higher lows 9.00 and 10.00 , holding above 50 SMA , with up-trending 9 and 20 EMAs,  with 2 inside days consolidation while SPY made 2 day pull back from ATH . The daily wicks are concerning but so far did not close bellow 10.00 besides the sell off in the markets from ATH.  May take some time till the 9 and 20 EMAs  catch up and act as stronger support , which can later turn to be a launch pad for GE to take off towards $12. So if I was short I'd be lot  more worried then being long

Here is the SPY daily chart , two days pull back from ATH into supporting 20 EMA

Tandem Trading OLED recognizing a mistake

I  know Tanner@TaoTrading for a quite a long time, great trader, but very secluded and private. It took me a while to convince him to go public on twitter, and to share his great skills in trading particularity day-trading for longer intra-day time frames, and also scalping small caps as well as larger caps while small caps are dead as in this dull period of January and February, of this 2018, the ninth year in a row having the markets grinding higher and higher into all time historic heights.
I myself got on tweeter long tie ago, to share and to find "trading sole-mates". It is unfortunate that after meeting a lot of great people traders , not too many survived this game , and many vanished for good. Sad but true. Trading is a very lonely job, super mental, and can be very frustrating if you trade alone. Having a good knowledgeable trading buddy, who is not only good in reading technical analyses but also being objective, self criticizing, and who can observe realistically the trading situation on minute by minute basis is crucial.While we are  having  a great green streak in February, we do tend to get a bit complacent,   but the good news is when having a trading buddy , one can always remind the other about this dangerous  state of mind COMPLACENCY,
I want to point put my mistake today that even after Tanner@TaoTrading called out loudly the error we were both about to make, we still disobeyed our the read  out of the tape, price action and the volume , that stopped stripped me from making a nice $2,000 green day . So writing publicly about this error,  I find it beneficial not only for myself  but also for those traders who may read this blog post. Since picture is worth million words, without further due here is the picture explaining what happen with OLED the trade of  the day

OLED short failed to take profit on entire position 

at LOD

When you do a good TA read out ACT upon it accordingly, do not wish to happen what you anticipated , such as drop to 125.00 because the market DOES NOT owe you anything that you wish or you want or what  you are anticipating, he cares less for you and your $2,000 !!!

RED DAY is more important to be journaled RGSE LONG LOSER

The Battle For $LTBR

LTBR

FORD

Trading Mind Set Up

My MIND SET UP IN THE PRE-MARKET RIGHT BEFORE the OPENING BELL
Jan  18, 2018 Thursday   5:30  am

One of the greatest enemy in the trading is my own mind set up before the open.
In which state of mind I am, depends mostly on the previous trading day (s)
As of now, I've been having many many green days in a row, and fairly to say,  with almost NONE, or very very few losing trades. Green has been all across the board. With each green day and green trade, the confidence grows at exponential rate This is where the biggest trouble usually begins. Feeling invincible, bulletproof, strong with fat acct, feeling:
I CAN BEAT ANY SYMBOL out there.
WRONG !!!  It is  EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
I learned the lesson the hard way, concluding that :
I MUST BE AWARE of my emotional state of mind prior the open, as more important factor then
doing the technical analyses for the opening gate plays.
Question to ask myself: What do I feel? Fear? Anxiety?
If YES is the answer, counter-intuitive to most of other jobs or business,
my trading day has a great chance to be a pretty good one.This is simply because these feelings will
contribute to be extra careful, executing extremely per trading plan, leaving no room for errors,
no room or  tolerance  for:

• "It is OK ,I can add here I got a lotta cash, I can beat this, I can't lose caus' I've been green 21 days in a row, I am tha' shit in this business..." 

and all that  extremely dangerous thinking that is derivative of the previous green streak (s).
I learned that when those thoughts come across my mind, I need to immediately hit myself in a head,
electroshock me with dog neck electric collar, self-inflict myself with some type of physical injury , so I can face the reality which is : TRADING IS SWIMMING IN A TANK FULL OF SHARKS that requires an INHUMAN SET OF SKILLS, mainly consist of ability of knowing  your risk, control your risk, and most importantly execute your "swimming" with unquestioned discipline, on every single day , on every single trade. Every single time you get out from the shark tank unscratched, know it was you lucky day. It is well known  fact that 95% of day traders end the day in blood. Some get scratches, some get permanently disabled, and unfortunately most  don't even survive. Must keep this fact in your mind at all the times specially before the opening bell. You are entering the gladiator arena or shark tank , use any term that is more scary, and remember, " If I feel great, If I feel positive, If I feel,

• "Yeah I can do this just as I did the past 21 green days , making $30 20,000 each month for several months, ..."  

IF I FEEL THIS, THEN IT IS TIME TO BE REALLY CAREFUL, because that is the day you will be beaten by the shark, or pierced by the spear , which ever feels worst.

The highlight for my behavior today: The very beginning went perfectly all right shorting MARA, the only reason I did small size ( less then 1000 shares ) was exactly the above : I felt very positive, from all prior green days including yesterday's $1,000 green day.

 I noticed that even if I trade the tinniest size, I could  pace easy $10,000 income per month, which translates $120,000 annually.

And it all looked nice and dandy , till my head got full of WANTS and NEEDS for MARA to drop to $3.75 so I can make more money since the original tiny size apparently was "not enough".

MARA

After making "only $230 " I wanted to drop to 3.75 , I added some more during the lul, 

and sure enough poped up and got stopped. Lost all $230 !!! 

But stucked watching the tape, and saw the sellers used this 

pop  to do some real selling, and re-entered  short again, 

with stop just few pennies above, 4.10.   It took an eternity but patience paid off.

The moral of the story here is:

When ever you are wrong KNOW you must take your loss

But also know the trade will probably turn your way 90 % of the times, and be ready to re-enter.

You are taking that stop, without asking any questions weather it may drop back or not.

In fact I ask myself all the time : Is this gonna drop?  My answer is always the same: IT WILL DROP, almost guaranteed, but the REASON I AM TAKING THE STOP is to PROTECT MYSELF FROM THAT ONE TIME WHEN IT SQUEEZES AND SHOTS UP MANY DOLLARS UP WARDS killing every short that is in the way. 

So next time you are in doubt weather you shall take your stop or not : JUST TAKE IT BY KNOWING IT WILL TURN YOUR WAY and BE READY TO RE-ENTER. PERIOD !!!

On long run you will make less gains, but you will protect your account from blowing up.

Have a happy but scary trading :)

Salute

"DaChopa" 

Win Some Lose Some Green $1,200

                                                                           TEVA

                                                                           ICPT

                                                                          BABA

ALDX

QTNT

VSTM

CORT

WM

The Same Old Boring Scalping

Picture is worth million words

The small secrets of the big traders revealed 

Study and have fun

Stay disciplined !!!

Take your losses timely and per already made plan.

                                                                            KURA

                                                                             FRTA

                                                                              FIT

                                                                             AVEO

 

                                                                              VSTM

                                                                            BCRX

Salute
@DaChopa

Swing Positions Update

It amuses me how majority of the crowds is always looking for stocks that will outperform the market and hope to nail some home runs or super novas. While it is true that there are always such longer term investments that will run to the moon, in my experience of many years of trading prior to my success, I experienced  nothing but losses. It seems like that is the case with 92% of the traders, as the statistics say only 8 % actually make consistently money from trading the markets. To make long story short, in my experience it is much easier to find tons of stocks that will not outperform the markets rather then those few that hopefully  may give the "dream come true" performance. So is the reason why  I have the best results shoring stocks even when the markets are at historic highs.This particularly works for me  on intra-day scalping  for nice gains to the do downside, besides the short term swing trades that usually take few days to few weeks.

How to Scan for Stocks

This may help some  new traders who have been asking me how to find good movers. However learning this , is not a guarantee that money will be made easily from trading. It takes extreme discipline to consistently do the right thing.

To understand the concept of finding a good moving stock lets look at few charts in hindsight first.
What is common for all these movers: The strong above average volume. The volume is fuel to move the stock just as more fuel is needed to move the car over the hill.
Fact is any stock that has nice intraday move could be tradeable,( speaking of daytrading)  such as for instance a stock that has ATR of $1 or bigger. It can be nice directional move or it can be choppy. To make money in directional-momentum move seems to be easier , although making profitable trades in choppy stocks is also possible by implementing tactics which requires different approach ( almost 180 degree opposite approach of the trading the momentum directional move )

The factor here is THE RELATIVE VOLUME. The relative volume scan is available almost on any scanner:  TC 2000,  Finviz,,  Trade Ideas and so on.  Besides that, The variable ( in this case the number 3 )  shows how many times is the current volume at the current moment higher then the average volume that symbol normally trades for the past 30 or 90 days. Each scanner is little  e bit different, with some  you can define it yourself, and some are pretty much fixed on the last 30 days. The bigger the number  is the bigger the relative volume is at the current moment. I look to have at least few hundred thousand shares traded in the first few minutes, or in the premarket, For example: there may be a stock that average volume is only 50,000 per day. Today may trade at 500,000 shares all day which is 10 x the average volume. This stock will not satisfy my criteria to trade it simply because it still has very low liquidity for the day. So I need to have at least couple of hundred thousand shares traded the first few minutes so I can actualy have enough liquidity to trade large size in and out quickly.   So I set the scan like this:

It is simple and clean. Now it is all up to which stock  I select to trade. Quick view of their daily chart helps a lot in finding a stock with the least resistance above ( if long ) or below ( if short )

You can either scroll by hoovering above the symbols or click chart view which will display all daily charts. 

From here it is all about focusing on only few, the ones that you may think are the best,  since trading everything is not easy at least not easy for  me. I'd rather stalk my symbols for the day then jump on many new ones just because I had to take some losses. Weather I will just get in and trail the stop as the stock moves or I sell the pops and buy the dips , it all depends  on how the stock is trading. I love to only trail the stops below. but there are I think more cycles when it is better to sell the pops and re-buy the dips.

Hope this may help.

Have a happy trading

AngelDan@DaChopa

New Trader Exercise WHY WANTING TO LOSE

Probably one of the biggest challenge a new rookie trader has to face is ACCEPTING TO BE WRONG and CUTTING THE LOSES SHORT.

It is easier said then done which is very natural and normal for any human being. To easily admit to be wrong and instantly reacting on it, is simply not built into the human nature, period. So if you are a new trader, and you are struggling to make any money because you are not consistent with obeying your stop losses, do not feel bad. It is very normal and very human.
Developing a discipline to admit that you are wrong and acting upon it, is not a skill you can obtain over night because you just decided to quit  your job and became professional trader. Learning or defining certain rules to trade is the easiest part. Anybody can learn it by reading few books or even by just reading my blog. But why not everybody can make money trading? And why not everybody can simply decide to obey the stop loses and became successful trader instantly?

Learning is the easy part, but becoming successful trader is all about practicing what you learned by doing it over and over again by implementing a extremely high level of disciple. I am referring to such level that is equal to a professional athlete who keeps practicing constantly even at his pick performance.

How do you practice discipline? It is  extremely difficult specially if you have no pointers which direction to take. Do you just decide  and say: "OK I will be disciplined from tomorrow" and expect the magic to just happen...  LOL 

Here is one pointer that may help a struggling trader. I heard it long time ago from a master trader who shared this with me so I share now with you:
THIS IS A DRILL ON HOW TO LEARN TO EXECUTE those darn stop losses that you always plan to take but when the stock gets there you just simply change your entire plan and do something totally different, or stupid, which  one day will cost you your whole acct.... if it hasn't happen yet it will happen guaranteed and you can take this to the bank. 


Let's assume that you know to pick good entries,  the easy part that everybody can learn quite quickly anyway.. 
For  ONE WEEK YOU MUST IGNORE ANY THOUGHTS OR NEEDS OF MAKING MONEY ! 
Instead of focusing on "HOW MUCH I CAN MAKE" you will focus on:
 "I WANT MY STOP TO BE HIT ASAP AND I CAN'T WAIT TO EXECUTE IT"
And every time you execute your stop you will give yourself  one reward point. Your goal is to accumulate as many award points as possible by the end of the week. 20 would be a great number to achieve. However you must collect 20 points by consistently obeying all stops. If you disobey ONE STOP even if the price afterwards goes in your favor YOU FAILED ! Start from zero again. Remember: doing 20 in a row is of essence for a reason. The winning trades in between are just winners and you do not count them.   I know it sounds scary on a first thought right?  Wanting to lose on purpose? How crazy this is? Why would I want to lose on purpose??

BY FOCUSING ON THE:
"I WANT MY STOP TO GET HIT !!! "  You WILL NOT ACTUALLY MOVE THE STOCK TO HIT YOUR STOP!!! You ARE NOT ABLE TO MOVE THE STOCK ANYWHERE!!!! Regardless of what you think, what you want , what you wish , what you think you can predict, or what you actually do, the stock price will move UP or DOWN  and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to change that. ( Unless you are Martin Shkreli and buy the entire float and move the price from $3 to $54 in one day ) 


By focusing  on "I WANT MY STOP TO GET HIT !!! "  you will ONLY MAKE SURE THAT IF THE STOCK GETS THERE YOU WILL 100% execute your stop simply because you set your mind to WANT TO DO THAT , and you will protect your acct  from potential blow off. 

 After completing this exercise SUCCESSFULLY  you will never be the bad old trader you always was: THE STOP LOSS DISOBEYING GARBAGE TRADER .

Now get this question  into your mind : ":Do  you really think  that after you enter a trade just by WANTING TO LOSE ; THE STOCK WILL ACTUALLY HIT your STOP???
How often when you entered your trade,  you WANTED TO BE A WINNER but it just went totally against you? How often it went to your planned stop loss area that you did not want to happen? And how easy was it for you to execute that stop loss that you DID NOT WANT TO HAPPEN?
This is very serious mental game no joking !
YOU HAVE TO WANT TO HIT YOUR LOSS SO YOU CAN EASILY EXECUTE IT RIGHT THERE WHEN or IF the price gets there.


If you DON'T WANT YOUR STOP LOSS TO BE HIT , and the stock goes there , DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE ABLE AND YOU WILL WANT TO EXECUTE SOMETHING THAT YOU DID NOT WANT TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE ???

It is extremely hard to execute something that in first place you DID NOT WANT TO HAPPEN !!!  Do you agree now?

SO YOU MUST LEARN TO WANT THE BAD THING TO HAPPEN SO YOU CAN EXECUTE  your plan WITHOUT ANY SECOND THOUGHTS when it happens !!! Ok?

This is the $1,000,000 post that  you may want to save print and read every morning before market opens.   

Try for  ONE WEEK to IGNORE ANY THOUGHTS OR NEEDS OF MAKING MONEY!! 
Limit your size accordingly to the amount you "WANT TO LOSE" comfortably AND LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS. Again, this is assuming that you already know what are good probable entries where you have an edge. 

Happy Trading and if you want to drop a line how did this exercise go,  that will be great to see .

AngelDan@DaChopa

CLF retro from the post made in 2015

CLF

A buddy of mine hit a nice swing home run on CLF. Up 25 % in profits

If you are not sure what to do and you are in a nice profitable trade , check or even better  ASK the price action for an answer  : this is the simplest explanation and it works for me

• HIGHER LOWS 
• HIGHER HIGHS 
• --------------------------  OR ?
• LOWER LOWS
• LOWER  HIGHS

Click on the pick from your PC to magnify and use arrow keys to move to next pick
CLF is big % mover so looking at intra-day action is important since big  % gains / losses may occur withing a single day.

 

CLF

CLF

CLF

CLF

CLF

CLF area where it shall not go to stay long and strong

CLF where will it go from here ?

CLF 

If a trader happen to exit long position at 3.10 lower low, for establishing re-entry may help figuring out the next higher low higher high with risk below.  Fundamentals can be great but stock may drop lower before it gets higher. Why? Well, if fundamentals are great , the big boys would like to load up on lower prices, they will probably NOT CHASE the highs buying the  break outs, rather will be buying into the pull backs.

CLF right now is trending stock with very clear price action 

This happens with the markets 30 % of the time 

The other 70% of the time markets are choppy and non directional 

While 90 % of traders look for the directional trades ONLY , the 90 % of the traders ( or more ) lose money.

Stock will always make pull backs

If it makes new high I would not chase, I would  wait for the pull back , make sure the pull back is establishing higher low, and re-enter 

If you do not take some profits after great 25% move up in gains, and let it go back in negative , you will eat your hart out

It is just my opinion , been there done that , felt a lot of pain 

This is the post from March 2015 about CLF click here

Salute 

@Da Chopa

Trading Big Boards Concept Simplified $AAPL $ABX

I alerted  long ABX here and long AAPL here  for a reason.
Preceding to those alerts,  I mentioned about the SPY futures ( E-mini) very early pre market  alerted here. SPY futures  were testing very important daily pivot level above the 50sma, with  pin bar test and  held the 50 sma,  well and above the 20 sma, quite a  bullish environment on short term outlook.

Few reasons why I like the big boards over the penny stocks :
1) Extremely huge average volume meaning  very liquid to trade any size I want, any time,  any day and almost any BB stock. ( that's why I don't bother much with scanning and finding the perfect Holly Grail Stock to trade)
2) Quite easier to see and predict the general bias based on few very simple technical parameters mentioned many time in my prior blog posts.

I will  repeat them today again, since I know the pain and suffering many new traders go through. Been there done it all and I know how it hurts.


Why ABX long?
Look at the charts:  Daily,  5 min ,  and 2 min

ABX I alerted it before this was created

ABX the trigger for long

ABX explained 

Why AAPL long ?
Same reasons as ABX

AAPL the long as alerted

AAPL

Today I traded my buddy's acct who was begging me to show him how it is done and who always wanted to make $2,000 per day  with $30,000 acct and $120,000 Buying Power. ( so there are other trades in the PnL tiny scalps but they DO  ADD at the end of the day ) .  BTW he lost over $10, 000 trying to do so in a very short time.  

Is it possible to make $2,000 to $3.000 a day with $120 ,000 BP? Theoretically yes!!! , and I have done it many times but on long run I kept being a loser just like he went down.  I decided to stop the insanity and to be realistic. Spent long long time trading small, very small.  Making $100 to $200 a day with $120,000 BP is what I firmly believe in ..Everything else is LUCK  and that is my opinion. There might be traders there making a killing with $30,000 and I will be glad to follow them on daily basis and very closely to  see what exactly they do, but I doubt there are any , and if there are any,  their luck will run out eventually, This is just me , but hey what do I know ?!?.

I know one thing only : THE LUCK DOES NOT RUN INTO MY VEINS.

I can also say: beating the sharks for $100 each and every day with $120k BP is HUUGE !!!

I may be off  from twitter for a while,  helping my buddy to put him on the right track.

He wants to quit his day job so badly LOL

Have a great week all :) 

@DaChopa