Personal Journal: Option Play Record
This option play netted me 570% which is my highest payout percentage wise.
To put in $33 and get out $188 isn't bad if i'm able to do it consistently.
There is no lesson to learn here this post per se but if there was a lesson is "Stick to your plan".
My plan was to see AAPL close the April 21st gap and that turned out to play well. I could have locked in 200% last Wednesday but I stuck to my target and ended up getting almost 3x as much as I would have in the past when I let emotions cut winners short.
230 AAPL May 2010 Put (click to enlarge)
Till next time.
-K
$VION; A perfect trade using the Morning Star Pattern
Today I had a chance to experience those special conditions that cause a day trade to turn into great profits.
The stock chosen was VION. It was down 45% for the day on no news. (It is a Pharmaceutical so I thought some bad drug news came out).
As I watched the price slide down like a waterfall I saw a reversal form. This reversal in candlestick patterns is called the Morning Star.
The patterns is a bottom reversal signal. It is most effective following an obvious downtrend (in this case from 6.50 to 2.20)
According to Candlestick Trading Forum:
The Longer the black candle and the white candle, the more forceful the reversal.
The Pattern psychology for this specific pattern says that when the price goes down fast sellers get panicky. They keep selling off and as they are doing that bulls begin to step in.
Now that I have explained the pattern I used time to explain the entry and exit signals.
Entry 1: 100 shares at 2.90
This was an initial entry to test the playing field.
Entry 2: 100 shares at 3.50
I was looking for price to close above 3.25 for 2 consecutive candles to buy into strength. 3.25 if you can spot it is a resistance from earlier candlesticks.
Exit 1: 100 shares at 4.01
4 is a round number so that makes it psychological for people to dump shares
Exit 2: 100 shares at 4.53
Looking at the far left 4.53 is around where the 2nd large red candle begins. and if you look up further more candles tend to end around 4.75.
Initially I had the limit sell order at 4.74 but I then decided not to push my luck.
Conclusion: After concluding the trade I watched the price go at high as 4.90 then in one big swing it crashed back down to 4.
Overall it was a great risk reward ratio and a well thought out trade. Morning star followed by an initial entry to test strength of the pattern and if it goes your way add another position which will allow you to scale out. Now this did take 2 day trades out so if you have under $25k account you will only have 3 trades in 5 days so it's really not ideal to do every day.
Here is the image to illustrate all the text in this post. (Click to Enlarge)
Hope you enjoyed it and while I do understand this is not a stock pick because it is already gone I hope it serves as a teaching tool to how simple trading can be at times.
-K
Best Monthly Performance for me
February 2009 became the best month in my short trading career.
You can look at my covestor account which assumes that I invest 100% of my portfolio and see that i have made over 23% returns.
In reality, this month I had a gain of 13.54% while S&P was down 10.99%.
I basically beat the S&P by 24.53% (I don't believe in benchmarks but this is for those readers who do).
The chart I will post below will reveal my true account size which to some of you will seem like spare change. (Click to Enlarge)
Here's to hoping for a good March Performance. (Be it in a bull or bear market)
-K
Why stops are important
Recently i began using the stop loss rule because this apple stock i own is driving me insane.
I bought DDM at 61.70 and i figured out it's volatility through Average true Range (ATR) was around $2.40 61.7-2.4= 59.3
I decided to give it a little more space so i set $59.
with 15 shares i held at 61.7 i spent $932.5 ($7 commission included)
i sold with a stop rule in effect at $59 so that is $878 after commission is deducted.
I ended up losing $54.5 or about 5.8%. I'm fine with that as long as it keeps me out of trouble.
Remember!
Disciplined Traders Use Stops and Never go against their own rules.