Trader MD

I had a pretty busy day today. I got paged pretty early on and basically had to walk away from a short setup / day trade I was looking in on AGU and POT on top of the AGU puts I already had. Both had gapped up and started to form what appeared to be descending triangles. Needless to say they both basically collapsed minutes after I had to leave :)

I closed out my AGU puts at 2 different points in the day for a nice gain. There was nothing terribly technical behind the exits and my chart of AGU at the time of entry was already posted a few days back, so I'll post 2 ideas I'm keeping an eye on.





As always, manage your risk. No matter how good those 2 setups may look, they always have the potential to fail.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 12:17 AM 0 comments

Labels: AGU, FRO, POT, RIMM, Triangle

Here's QQQQ from yesterday.



Costco from today. As Jamie pointed out, this could also be a 3 point pivot base & break.



I entered in on some puts when AGU broke down here @ the time of this screen shot.



The same goes with here and POT, yet I quickly realized they had earnings before the market open tomorrow and my goal was to manage the position since I was already in it and close it out by the end of the day, which is basically what I did (closed just before the end of the day).




As far as my GLD trade, I've been going back and analyzing it. It's been my only losing trade over the last 2 weeks. It's definitely good to have a bad trade every now (keeps you humble, disciplined) and then and heck maybe I've had a pretty lucky streak considering I'm basically away from the trading desk from 11 AM EST to 3 PM EST aside from a couple glances at the market / chance for a quick entry or quick exit every now and then (in between patients!).

Back to GLD. The one thing I failed to recognize on the GLD trade was that I didn't put in ample analysis in analzying the $USD which it basically trades off of. Even by looking at the euro (for example the FXE ETF), I would have seen the FXE was right up at resistance and my entry point on GLD was a poor choice. In addition my strong suit isn't pullback entries. They are usually a bit harder for me as stops aren't as clear cut and break outs/breaks down are just more of a clear defined area/number in which you can enter on.

As of now I'm nearly flat for swing trades, aside from the AGU (doesn't report earnings till august and will participate in any downside due to earnings reports from other Ag related names) puts I entered today. The Ag names still are looking techincally too strong (in compared to the other momentum names of late like coal, steel, energy stocks, etc). They look to be setting up for at least a flush out if not a retest of the 200 day MA.

Going with the theme of the Ag sector, here's another chart to keep an eye on. They report earnings July 29th, BMO.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 10:50 PM 0 comments

Labels: AGU, COST, CupnHandle, Gap Fade, POT, qqqq, Trendline Break, Triangle

POT & AGU were on the HCPG newsletter last night and Jamie highlighted GRMN.

I didn't end up doing much during the market gyrations today as I was distracted. I finally picked out a TV last week and it was delivered today.

Wow, sorry about taking so long to post the charts. I ended up having to take care of more than I planned.

Here are the trades, hopefully the annotations & explanations make up for the delays.

Pay special attention to the GRMN chart as I've highlighted my adaptation of HCPGs Base & Break setup. You can read more about their system (with out having to subscribe) by checking out their "Best of Blog feature." I highly recommend it. It's has more useful information than a lot of books out there.

Anyways, the charts.

GRMN:


POT:


AGU:


Feel free to leave any feedback / questions for the setup I've highlighted.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 1:01 PM 2 comments

Labels: AGU, BasenBreak, GRMN, HCPG, POT

Only had 2 trades today. I'm a bit distracted, taking care of errands and won't be able to devote my full attention to the screens today, so I'm calling it a day early.

Here are the 2 trades.

LDK:



AGU was mentioned in the HCPG Newsletter last night.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 10:19 AM 0 comments

Labels: AGU, BasenBreak, HCPG, LDK, Triangle

Market action improved today. We gapped down on the indexes, and gradually pushed higher through the day.

The Ag group was showing relative strength from the open. I saw POT and AG gap up, so I looked for an entry in the group and found AGU.



While I used a wider stop than I would have liked with AGU, the trade still still had a good result. I would have closed part of the trade at the fib extension and let the rest run, but the market has had little follow through over the last 2 days. AGU pushed higher, but I didn't miss too much.

V on the other hand, had a better formed handle (more distinct volume contraction) which let me use a tighter stop.



Taking a look at the V chart, you can see how either a conservative or aggressive fib level would have worked. I tend to use conservative fib extensions (drawn to the generalized base of the cup, as opposed to the very bottom of the cup).

Seems like the commodity areas (oil/energy/steel/ag/coal/etc) & solars just roar on.

Quite a few steel stocks hit new all time highs / recent highs (X, SCHN, MT, NUE, GGB). I also like to include CLF in that space (although they are an iron ore producer). The price action in CLF today was amazing. They report earnings and miss by something like 40 cents & gap down as a result. Buyers stepped in and pushed CLF to new all time highs.

Speaking of steel stocks, I picked up MTL today as a swing, and keep an eye on AKS as it sets a new all time high just above 69.62. RS looks very compelling as well (although it has lagged recently, it has formed a nice base and breaking above 64 could really push it higher).

JRCC (coal) & JOYG (machinery) had similar price action to CLF. Speaking of machinery stocks, CAT looks like it wants to push higher and test its recent highs of ~85.50.

Current swing positions:

• Picked up AKS, MTL & IPI.
• I was stopped out of my DZZ today for a small loss.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 12:42 PM 0 comments

Labels: Ag, AGU, AKS, CupnHandle, IPI, MTL, Steel, V

I was watching AGU early on as POT & the Ag group gapped up. I mentioned in last night's watch list that POT could continue its momentum early in the day as it closed it's highest tick on Friday. When the Ag plays started to roll over a bit, I found a nice short entry on AGU for a quick 2R.



RIMM started strong to continue its late day run from Friday before pushing lower. I noticed it was forming a channel type trading range. You could possibly even call it a bullish flag. It broke out of the channel and consolidated a bit with a nice NR7 (Narrow Range 7) bar. I entered on the break of the NR7 bar with a stop just below it.

As I highlighted in the picture below, I normally wouldn't have had such confidence in my trading to have such a tight stop. The stop was ~40 cents from my entry point and was the key to squeezing 3R out of the trade.

Posted by Trader M.D. at 1:16 PM 3 comments

Labels: AGU, Channel, NR7, RIMM, Triangle