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!

Reaching for the moon: ALCO

For this year I've set very aggressive monthly targets as my quota. I wanted to see just how near to those targets I can get. I knew it was a challenge since the bar was set really high. 

Thinking of the targets reminds me of a quote I heard a long time ago. Something that has resonated with me ever since. 

It's stuck with me since it meant to always, always, ALWAYS set your goals high. For even if you fail to reach your goals, the effort that it took to try and reach those goals will still bring you a long way from where you started. 

Going back, this year, I've set my quota to be 25% a month. With the power of compounding interest, that should bring my port to an all time high by the 3rd quarter of the year. At first, I thought it was daunting but the universe seems to be telling me otherwise. 

How else can I explain the fact that with just 3 winning trades, I've reached DYM status in record time. 

Quality over quantity I'd like to think. 

I love Excalibur

So my 2017 has been off to a roaring start. Already about a third of the way to reaching my yearend goal. Hopefully I get to catch more monster plays. 

Bounce Play: VITA

In the stock market world, we should all learn how to earn money during uptrends and downtrends. This is because of the simple fact that the market cannot go in one direction all the time. It shifts constantly from one to the other. 

For my neural networks, one is far easier than the other. Just look for the outlier, the strong stocks and then buy high and sell higher. If it doesn't continue on upwards, then just sell quickly or cut losses accordingly. Simple yet very effective. 

The other side is buying downtrends or bounce plays. These are the stocks that have been battered and broken and don't seem to have any immediate upside. But if you are able to catch this at the point of reversal, oh so juicy returns in a short amount time!

VITA was one of these stocks that came from a recent high and just seemed to resist making any kind of significant bounce. It just continued to go lower and lower and lower for a couple of months. It didn't look like there was any end in sight. Especially when looking at the daily charts. No sign of strength right? 

Sometimes what I do, when the daily charts don't give me any clear picture, I switch to the longer time frames. 

Now, let's take a look at the weekly chart and it looks much better. There seemed to have been a support formed at the 50MA and darvas levels. 

When I saw this, I instantly made my plans and set the corresponding buy (as near to the 50MA as possible) and cutloss points (break of the 50MA). I was ready and lying in wait on the first day of the year. 

Fortunately, I made the right decisions and everything worked according to plan. 

Wasn't able to sell at the high of the day but that's OK. It went far and beyond my expectations for the first trade of the year. It's a different kind of rush to be able to buy at the almost absolute bottom. And then watch it bounce in a most spectacular way.

I imagine it must be just like what this sterling earthling felt when he caught the cup of beer one-handed in a sea of people. 

Here's a toast to catching more fantastic bounce plays in the future.