6.26.2018

Trade dissection: ISM

Welcome to another of my trade dissection posts. I'll try to post more of these in the future. Just need to make more trades that are worth dissecting.


First of all, I purposely didn't trade this during the time it was still in the yellow box (Figure 1). 

Why not? It's because I didn't understand the setup. I have a general rule of trading only something that I understand and know well.

Yes it was going to AOTS soon. But for me it could still trade within a range since it's too close to the identified recent resistance for me. The reward wasn't as good. So no trade yet however it was moved to my watchlist.

Figure 1

After breaking the identified resistance, I was waiting to see what it would do next. I made a box and visualized what it could do (Figure 2). My bias was it would go down and hit the box bottom and then make the next move up. Sort of like a breather so it can gain some more strength.

Figure 2 

This (Figure 3) was the reason why I was not convinced of it's move yet. Switching to the monthly chart, we can see that it seemed to hit the darvas and 100ma resistance.


Figure 3 

Aaaaand Ms market proved me wrong. As can be seen in Figure 4, it made a breakout from the identified box and would then be halted. I missed this trade because I was too focused on my bounce plays for that particular day (DD and VITA). No worries though, I know that if a stock is really good it would still give buying opportunities somewhere down the line. Just have to wait and make the necessary plans.

 Figure 4 

So what happened next was this had all the ingredients for the sell on news phenomenon as seen in Figure 5.

- you start with the double serving of disclosures and trading halt
- a generous serving of gap up. about 8%

- add in a sprinkle of increased volume. More or less 6M shares worth in the opening minutes
- and finally a dash of adrenaline and danger for those who got too excited and would buyup

It hit the next identified resistance in the monthly which was 2.6 and went crashing down.



 Figure 5

After watching everything crash and burn in the early morning I waited for things to settle down. As usual, I made plans and identified the potential bounce areas where I would wait. 

Went and took a nap as well.

Woke up at about 1030 earth time and was pleasantly surprised to see that the price seemed to be holding very well(Figure 6). Switched plans to buy at the unchanged or near it.      


 Figure 6

And the rest was history (Figure 7).

 Figure 7

Wasn't able to sell at the highs though. My schedule right now is causing me a lot of problems. But I was able to salvage a good enough gain. 



Ms Market will always reward those that can make flexible plans. Those that can make changes on the fly and execute them. Opportunities are still out there. It knocks on the doors of those that prepare. Are you prepared?


6.07.2018

Q&A: Bear market

I've gotten several PMs asking what I did during the past couple of months. In the real world and in the PSE. 

For the whole latter part of May I took a break from the market. A well deserved vacation with the family right before the little one starts school again. Always a good idea to recharge and get back to your WHYs. 

In the PSE, it was more of the same. After looking at the charts when I got back, I didn't miss much.


The general sense of weakness is still prevailing. Dozens of stocks hitting 52 week lows. iZS and iAOTS galore. 

So what's the best strategy during this time?

- Take some time off. Maybe this is Ms Market's way of telling you to recharge.

- Do some practice trades on unfamiliar setups. There are so many possible divergence or downtrend setups to work on. 

- Or even take up a new hobby!

- For part time traders, get a sideline or do well at work. 

- You can even try looking at other markets or alternatives. There is a whole other world out there. The PSE is just one market out of dozens.

Crypto. US/HK/China/SG/European market. FOREX. 

Here's something I told the current proj seed batch when they asked if I changed how I filter or choose stocks right now. 


Again, you don't need to trade just for the sake of trading. That is foolishness. We should be able to survive during bull and bear seasons. If limiting your trades to protect your capital is your strategy for now, then do it. 

If there are others showing green ports during this time, do not be pressured. You don't know their journey. Maybe their system is more on buy on support or purely momentum based. This is their market. Their time to shine.

Your time will come. Remember that.

Your. 

Time.

Will. 

COME. 

and when it does you have to be ready to take advantage.