tradersams blog

mcc close

MCC: Closed my position in Macarthur Coal today at 9.33 for a 9% loss.

Closed as the share made a lower high, and definite weakness has shown since the long term high was made when I entered the position.  Looking at my entry when I opened the trade, I did note that momentum appeared to be dropping over the last few months – which seems to have held true this last week.

In general the market is struggling over the last few sessions as seems to be getting a lot of write ups around the traps.  Time for me to look harder at my recent trades and trying to find some improvements.

When looking for improvement, there are heaps of resources to read, study and analyse – both in my library, the internet, the bookshop and of course  examination of the charts I pay data subscribers to maintain.  Reviewing past trades is a great place to start.  Looking at the blog by the Trading Goddess there is a posting with ‘10,000 hours’, which describes the skills the greatest traders have – read it here.  10,000 hours is a term describing the number of hours it takes a person to learn a skill.  This is a concept used by Mr Bighit at 5000 trades.

Review an earlier trade

Toll holdings revisited

TOL:  recently exited, and I mentioned that I would review the trade with a view towards re-entry.

So I was looking at this recently in terms of breaking through the resistance at the tree recent tops.  A few more days of data and the graph looks more like we’ve had a head and shoulders, at the top of the recent rise – and the last days trade is a break of the neck-line.  Head and Shoulders or not – we have a lower low, lower high – so downtrend emerging.  A look at the momentum shows that dropping also.

All in all – I closed the last entry stating that I still believed my original analysis that I entered on and was looking to go long again.  Looks like the bears have this one, and shorts are the way to go.

The ASX 200

XJO - ASX200

The graph above is the ASX 200 as of friday.  This does look like a change may be developing.  I have followed these rising curves for a while now, however looking at the last day or so – we might have fallen out of the third rising curve… which whilst not meaning much, is a tap on the shoulder for me… lower lows, lower highs, change in character.

I note I have hit another stop over the weekend, and I am very close to a few others.  With the US market being down 2% on friday, I suspect I’m about to get hammered.  Shorts may be the way to go.

Know yourself

I have now done a search over my recent trades.  You can tell I have been a bit lazy (in effect anyway, busy on non trading activities) as I have been trading what I can best describe as a small share universe.  I am in and out of the same shares fairly constantly lately.

Possibly because of the ‘easy market’ we’ve been tracking since March or so…?  Ease seems to have bred complacency in me.  I’m not scanning the whole market – I’m going with what I know.  Looking through a lot of charts today, I am trading sections of the market, and the upward trends and volatility are happening elsewhere.

So – know thyself – recognise the laziness coming into the trades, and plan to fix it.  I can’t speak for the future – I may keep going as I am going until I get a chance to sit down and change direction, or I might just wind back the market commitment until I can get time to review the whole market and picking an area (and a direction) to chase.

Wrapping up

In summary – a rambly sort of post, covering a few areas.  The rambly nature itself probably indicates my distracted nature at the moment.  Sooo many distractions, Christmas shopping, major project on the go at my real job, getting used to new charting software.

Anyway – if anything here is of interest please post a comment below, or feel free to subscribe!