Investacup recap Week 3

Obviously the story of the week was $NOW.

From a high of 8.15, it fell all the way to 4.11. Then it gave several wonderful bounce plays in between. Within the tribe, there were numerous people who benefited from the volatility. Even in the investacup competition itself, there were people jumping ranks by the hundreds! For sure those contenders were able to ride the massive bounce plays. Kudos to everyone for being able to ride the waves!

Personally, I was not able to maximize the NOW bounce since I was away from the keyboard on both times that the bounces were materializing. When I got back to the computer, the price was already above the optimal buy point for me. So I just let it go and looked for something else.

Remember, the stock market is not like Pokemon. You don't have to catch them all. You can afford to let some of them go. 

With that in mind, my system selected several other stocks that were also ripe for bounces but would theoretically move in a much more controlled manner. When I say more controlled, the move wasn't supposed to be moving up and down 5-10% in a matter of minutes. Too much excitement for a virtual competition. My stock picks for the week were SECB, MWIDE and again, CHP. 

This week, I'll be focusing on CHP. AGAIN.

For some strange reason, it gave the exact same pattern during the morning of 10/12 (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Could it give the same result? Looks like it for now. We shall see what happens next week. I've placed my position (1.98 buying) and possible target prices (Figure 2). Those target prices are just there for my reference. I'm already prepared in case they don't reach them. Make your own plans.

Figure 2

Ranking after week 3. 

Milestone 1 achieved --> Don't be in the negative. 
Milestone 2 achieved -- > Be in the top 100.

Dare I try to reach Milestone 3? Be in the top 50?

The tricky part though is making sure that I don't go down in rank too much. EVERYTHING gets tougher from here on out. For sure all the traders in the upper echelon of the competition are all in a class by themselves. Just being in the top 100 is a win already in my books. 

Investacup recap Week 2

The dynamics of the current competition is vastly different from the first Investacup competition. The first season had numerous uptrending stocks. Buy on breakouts, trend following was the name of the game.

This season the main theme is bounces. Everywhere you look there are downtrends galore. So it's more on buying on supports and bounces. It might be a downer for people but if we take it for what it is, it is an incredible opportunity to practice bounce plays. 

This week, let's focus on one particular trade:

CHP bounce

For this trade, I refer to one of boss Zee's previous trades (Figure 1). SSI 11/2015. 

Figure 1

That trade of his has always fascinated my processors because of it's execution and the percentage gained. So this pattern has been burned into my core memory and I swore to trade it everytime I see it. 

Enter CHP on Sept 28.

It made a similar cute candle after a strong downtrend. I entered near the close and identified two parameters seen in Figure 1. The TARGET and the CUT prices. Most people only create the former and forget about the latter. Rookie mistakes. 

Figure 2

The next day started out slowly. The price was hovering from 2.42-2.48 the whole day. Not bad if it was going to mimic the SSI pattern. As long as it closed above the close of 9/28 I would have been happy. 

But something peculiar happened. 

Right near the close at around 3pm, buying pressure suddenly increased and the price skyrocketed until the close. It closed at 2.7 just a few flucs away from my 1st target (Figure 3). 

I did a little quick math and thought that 2.7 was near enough to my target price and the way that the price moved during the close unnerved me a little. So I sold everything just to be on the safe side. The risk/reward wasn't worth it anymore. 

Figure 3

Since this was a virtual competition, it was easy to sell everything at the close. 

CHP helped a lot in boosting my ranking from negative to positive again. I had a couple of failed bounces again during the week but that's the way bounce plays go. 

Ranking after week 2.

Milestone 1 achieved --> Don't be in the negative. 
Here's to hoping I reach Milestone 2. Be in the top 100.

The only thing constant is change

So, after 2 weeks away from the market. It's time to go back to the charts. The first quarter of 2017 was extra special. I wonder what the rest of the year will bring. If it's even half as good of the first quarter then 2017 should be a banner year. Good thing that this time the market has my full attention. 

Just finished setting up Amibroker and I must say it's pretty awesome. Kinda late to the party since majority of traders in the tribe already use Ami. It was just that old reliable COL JAVA was working for me so didn't feel the need to switch. But since everybody knows that JAVA is being retired in all web browsers, change was inevitable.

Ami having shortcut keys and automatically saving my robotic drawings is a new thing for me. Makes me wonder why I didn't make the switch earlier. This should be fun.

What's not fun is $CHP. Reminds me of the slow death of $SSI in the last half of 2016. 

 $SSI circa 2016

$CHP, how low can you go? As of right now, nobody knows.

This is a sad reminder why I absolutely hate downtrending stocks. Still not sure why a lot of newbie traders our there in the Philippine market are so engrossed with looking for 52wk lows or all time lows thinking of it as a sale. Maybe there is a reason why it's trading that low? Whatever it is, I wouldn't want to touch them until the selling pressure has abated. 

Anyway, here's a video of one of my favorite books, Who moved my cheese? by Spencer Johnson. It simply states that in life we will encounter change in all shapes and forms. How we react to that change will determine our success. Enjoy!