Wednesday, May 23, 2012

New Trade: NKE

I shorted NKE on a limit order of 108.50.  The rallied stalled and NKE has now fallen.  It has a widening pattern which is suggestive of a top.

Monday, May 21, 2012

MEA

This one looks interesting from a fundamental perspective.  It has a book value of 4.50 and now trading at 2.95.

On the technicals it looks like a  3 year channel  we're now at the lows that were reached in 2010.    I'm in at 2.78,  I think there's a decent chance of 4 and change being reached  so this looks like a decent risk to reward trade.  It's showing MACD bullish divergence, on both the Daily and weekly.

It took out the low at 3.00 on a horrendous week but seems to have found support and rallied back to 3.00

Friday, May 18, 2012

FB

Took a shot on FB:

Bought a 100 shares at 40.02.  I could have flipped it out at at 42 at several point during the day.
It ultimately closed at 38 and changed on the first day of trading.

I have a "feeling" that the underwriters will continue to support it and that the overall market will bounce from oversold conditions.    Bloomberg reported that the underwriters stepped in to hold it over 38 because it would be an embarrassment if it traded lower.  I don't see that going away over the next week.   All eyes are on this one, and if they mishandle the ipo, Morgan Stanley and  Goldman risk losing future ipos.

Its a theory, and I don't have a large position. Obviously, because it's an IPO there is no trading history and no chart worth showing.

I may consider shorting LNKD as a spread trade.  If FB doesn't hold, LNKD sure as hell is not going to either.

Day 2, Big gap  down.  it then set up with a nice bottom at 33.50.  I bought off the break out at 34 (slippage to 34.10)   Put a nice rally to 35 before selling off.  At this point, I need to realize I'm not a day trader.  I'll bang it out 1/2 on a modest move

DAY 3, Gapped down past stopped, executed manually pre market at 32.90  for a 2.5% R loss ouch.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

DFS: Stopped out

DFS had been holding up decently in a bad market.  But it couldn't hold on.  The market dropped 2% today and I was stopped out at 32.   I suppose I could have sold out with a small profit over the last month and perhaps should have given the overall market conditions,  11 of the last 12 days were down.  But I was hopeful that would pass and I wanted to be in the stronger position.   All in all this was traded to plan.  Although I was stopped out the loss was small. Shit happens. 


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Update

Market has been in sell off mode. There have been some decent set ups on the short side but I have been too busy with other projects to monitor the market. I'm mostly in cash other than DFS.

Monday, May 7, 2012

INVN: To catch a falling knife.

The market has been choppy lately and I thought I would take a mean reversion (a/k/a capitulation) trade with INVN after it fell 25% after revising guidance lower on earnings.   I took the position at $12.68  with a stop at 12.   On friday,  there was a blow out bottom down to $12.15 and then a quick rally up to $12.92.    On monday the world markets were significantly lower on Euro news and I became a nervous nellie and sold my stock off for  a small profit.  

TRIAGE: Had I stuck to the plan with my original stop I would have had a very nice profit.  However, there were a few things in my mind which prevented me from doing that.  First, I'd prefer to trend trades and this type of trade is dangerous in any market but even more so in this type of market where there is no continuation on any moves.  Second, I got burn the last time I tried this type of move in this stock where I could have sold for small profit and took a loss when I didn't.  Third, I feared that the world macro events would spur a global sell off. 

 Although the sellers appear to be out for the time being this chart is showing a head and shoulders and a short position can be attempted if it trades into the gap.    I have played this stock solely on the long side to date.