Equities have largely been dropping this month, with sharper moves down over the last week or so. Over that time, price took out a strong key level at $4,100, and is now stalling around a key level at $4,000 (that’s held up ~6 times over the last 6 months). Actually, last week, price pushed through that key level, and on Friday bottomed out, forming what looked like a reversal, hammer, candle. Price gapped up this morning, making it back up to around $4k, but ultimately closed down on the day. To my eye, this is suggesting some weakness this week, as price has retested $4k “nicely”, but closed below it. I’m going to look largely for shorts this week, but we’ll see what opportunities are available.
I’m still (always) struggling a bit with my watch-list and the best parameters and how to sort through them, so this is what I’m going to do today. My usual day-trade watch-list, and since I’m day-trading, I’m going to start my top-down on the 2h chart, working to the 15 min. and then ultimately taking trades on the 5min. or, worst-case-scenario, the 3 min. chart. I’m going to sort my screener by volume and pull out my favorite 8 charts. 8 was the number of baskets I analyzed in Forex, so I like that as a number to focus on. That way, I also don’t overwhelm myself too much. If, while trading, any of those 8 don’t move how I’d like them to, I’ll go back to my screener and look at stocks one at a time.
It’s now Tuesday morning, I got up a little later than I hoped (but, technically, got to the computer a little earlier), I’ve taken care of some other things already — coffee, protein shake etc. — and started looking through charts again, and I’m at 6, including the one I want to take a stab at at/before the open. I know I wanted to get to 8, but since it’s so close, I’ll stick with these 6. I’ll re-run the screener if I don’t end up pulling the trigger anywhere
RVMD – Short – looks like it’s going to gap-up about $3 at the open. Thinking about running some numbers and putting in an order to short this, like, right at the open — but I’ll do so in my practice account. I’d be doing it not on a specific pattern, but on the huge volatility swing, and the fact that I don’t thing stocks are going to hold on to their gains today
SJM – Short – This has been largely weak this year so far, but the downward movement flattened out a bit over the last month. I’m on a 2 hr. chart and looking at the most recent activity, price pushed up at the beginning of last week, but pushed down to a support level by the end of the week. At the end of the day yesterday, price broke that support level and had a bit of a rally. That rally is what I’m going to look to short in to today. I like the retest on the 2h chart, so I’m going to look for entries on the 5 min. I’ll put more detail on this in the “trade” post if I end up pulling the trigger
LSXMK – Short – This is Serius XM’s stock, which I didn’t know. There was a lot of sideways movement here prior to February, but price dropped pretty sharply at the beginning of this month, and has been pushing down since. Last week, looking at the 2h chart, price had a short base, which it broke near the end of the week, and then Friday and Monday has rallied back up to. {re-write that if it doesn’t make sense}. The lows of that prior base is where I’m looking for entries and patterns, so we’ll see what happens at the open. This didn’t move, to my eye, for a few minutes at the open. Looking now, though and price has gapped down a little bit this morning. Looking down at the 5 min. chart, there was a decent base that formed that the gap-down broke, that will also be the bases for my entry and exit. It’s pushing down now, so I’ll set an alert to let me know if it gets close to retesting, and I’ll set a limit-order trade in my practice account since it didn’t work out in BN
CNQ – Short – Shoot, I didn’t make this before the market opened. It just did. And I didn’t get my RVMD trade in. oh well, next time. This appeared to have bottomed out a week or so ago and was rallying, but that came off of a fairly sharp drop. Over the last couple trading days, price has rallied up to a pretty major area that’s been both support and resistance, which is where I wanted to look to short. Looking now, though, and there’s still a little upward room before the “main” part of that key area. This is a lower priority for now
BN – Short – This isn’t a great candidate for my “new” re-test strategy, as it seems to have already tested the area and pushed down off of that, on the 2h chart. I’d just look for a straight up pattern to short in to here on the 5 min. chart, which I might be missing as I type this. I’ll see in a couple minutes when I revisit. On the 5 min. chart, this had a sharp drop at the open, taking out a nice support area. I’m going to keep my eye here and try to enter at a retest of $33.60. I want to put in a limit order, but I’m still struggling with those. I’ll monitor for an actual order in my real account, but I will enter a limit order in my practice account to see how that works again. — I tried to pull the trigger here in my practice account and it was reject. I checked the stock in my live account and It’s listed as “Not available to borrow” so I couldn’t short this if I wanted to…