today – close jbh
JB Hifi close
JBH: Closed my position in J.B. Hifi today at $20.40. This has given me a profit of 46% – that will help the stats.
When I look back at the entry from when I pyramided into the position I wrote at the time that this was a text book trade – which it seems to have been right until the end.
Happy with this trade – it ticks the boxes:
- Clear reason for entry (something not apparent in some of my trades)
- Followed a simple clean plan
- Broke through a downtrend, then an all time high to keep plowing into higher territory
- Good profit
And look at the smoothness of the red moving average (140 day) under the trend. A treat!
Anyway this is (was?) the longest position I have held since starting this blog that I’ve documented. Anyway its gone now – but who knows I may open it again in a couple of days…
Here’s to my dwindling portfolio, and increasing cash position!
Where are we at?
So where are we at?
All Ords last friday
To the right is a graph of the ASX All ordinaries from the close of trade last friday. Last thursday was a rough day on the ASX, and resulted in me getting kicked out of a bunch of positions, as seen in my previous post.
Friday itself was a nice up day, but a day when I sat on the sidelines and watched. (Well actually – I worked on my real job and wondered if getting out Thursday was the right thing!).
I now see Friday was a rough day on the US markets, and I liked the way The Fly wrote about it here – making the link with Halloween. He says he took on losses. I know last week cost me, but not nearly as much as it could have.
Anyway, back to the chart above. This whole business interests me because its about patterns… patterns that repeat, and patterns that don’t. I like these two curvy squiggles I have drawn. Can I trade them? Too early to say, but I do see repetition. Break to the up – go the bulls, break through the bottom, and I might get to see how the other half lives for a while.
Today is not a day for picking a direction. I see a setup. I wanna wait to hear which way everyone is going, so I can follow.
Mike at 5000trades, someone I might start to think of as the poet of the Australian markets and an interesting read because I have seen him take the opposing view to myself, is going for the sell this week.
Risk v Reward
This is a graph of my R-multiples this year so far.
R multiples
I am particularly proud of one particular point of this graph. I have no losses or greater than 2R – then again, gotta love a bull market. I tend to get a loss of greater than 2R when I miss market days through travel, I have a position that crashes a stop loss or some other unplanned reason.
The -1R and +1R trades almost cancel out, which leaves me in a positive position due almost entirely to the existence of a few trades in the 10R range. They are the trades that make this all worthwhile. Without my 32 -R trades, I may not have taken those high perfomring trades.
I take the loss, so I get to keep playing to take the win.
As stated previously, not all trades get to this blog, but once opened here and twittered, I close them out here.
Monday market opens in 3 minutes – and I don’t care, coz I’m not watching today.
Au revoir!
today – close AMP, REH, WAN, AQA
Filed under: discretionary, general | Tags: amp, aqa, iif, reh, wan
Leave a Comment Thats a lot of closures.
So, like everyone, I have interests outside that which I primarily write about here. Without wanting to digress too much, I have been out sparring tonight. I copped a slight knock to the jaw, and saw the followup hook coming in for the 1-2. Despite the knock, I kept the guard up and avoided the big punch. That’s what we train – keep your guard up, and try to read the opponent – sometimes you will get it right, and sometimes you will get hit. When you get hit – keep the guard up, feel for the next one!!
I’ve taken a few shots this month, as the portfolio update next weekend will attest. So – back to training – keep the guards up, take a shot when you can and accept you can’t catch everything. But never get hit so hard you can’t continue. After a few losses in a row, all bar one below 10%, I feel like its the end of a round. Splash water in the face, take a breather on the weekend and get back in there.
On with the show…
amp - taking a dive
AMP: Closed my position in AMP at $5.96 for an 8% loss. Now looking at the entry when I opened this trade, it was such a good looking trigger. The setup was linked to financials doing well, and then a nice breakout. I held on through the retracement.. and passed on my trendline stop loss waiting for … what? The support I expected did not exist. Stop triggered last night, and exit taken in early trade today. Now I have a more bearish outlook than a few weeks ago, taking the earlier exit looks like a no-brainer. hmmmm 20-20 hindsight. Of note is a flattening of the longer term MA (in orange). Lets step back from this a bit. Not a bad trade, but could have been better.
reh - small gain
REH: Exited this today at $24 for a 4% gain. This trade was always on a bit of a knife edge. I found to be a bit illiquid for my liking… and I knew that sentiment was not strong once I had a position. A couple of times in the last two weeks I have been the only seller of Reece – and no one has wanted to take my shares off my hands. Now things are grim, I thought I should close this out rather than get caught out – so I did, and it looks from the chart that others followed me out the door.
I really should remember to keep an eye on liquidity – this has happened to me twice this year now (note to self).
WAN - reading the papers
WAN: Closed my position in West Australian News today at $7.57 for an 8% gain. Now this is a better trade – I’m happier with this.
I was confident in my entry, as it was ‘text book’, departure from a steady uptrend to the high side, with good liquidity.
My ATR based stop loss tracked nicely and has kept me in a nice profit. Whilst I could have exited on the departure from the steeper trendline, this would translate to a futile attempt at top picking – not a winning approach as I have learnt over the years. In this case I definitely stuck to the plan, and no second guessing.
Aquila Resources
AQA: And finally AQA. I closed my position at $7.09 for a monster 14% loss just prior to close of trade today. This is a 2R loss. Even with a small position that I entered with, the loss was too big.
Look at those black candles – great at a birthday party – but not great for my bank balance! It is actually this trade that has told me I need to review everything on the weekend, and hunt some good shorts – I’m sure they’re out there. Looking through whats left of my positions, I may be taking more positions out tomorrow – but we shall see what the overnight US markets whisper to me.
And finally, a comment on a position I haven’t closed. And I still need to work out if it oughtta be. This is what a capital raising can do to my capital in the short term. But I love noticing things. Like the fall to the height of a recent peak, coinciding with the same price point as the capital raising… hmmm…
bugger - a capital raising
In closing – although I mentioned a contact sport above, I do not think of the market as an aggressor opponent – I think of it as a sparring partner. It does what it does, I do what I do, and through it all I get fitter.
So keep your guards up!
note – why you take the small loss
Sino Gold
The graph here shows a recent trade. This is EXACTLY why you take the small losses. Yes I know they get worse than this – but I am happy I took the exit when I did.
Sleep tight.
today – day trade that shouldn’t have been – bkn
BKN: Entered a position in Bradken today – and exited an hour or so later. Exited short of stop loss, for a 3% loss.
bkn - 5 min chart today
This is the 5 min chart of the days activity. You can see where my entry was triggered, all according to the script. Enter on a pullback to a trend line support. All standard stuff. Then the price collapsed and I got a price warning – so I took an exit (also marked). Volume was high today – see in the daily chart following. Look at that big black candle – I bought right into that.
Bradken - daily
So – a bad trade?
I exited short of my planned stop loss – but is it because I got gun shy? I have done 5 losing trades in a row, so I am in the process of tightening my stops, and now need to be more careful with my stock choices. These price drops are coming a bit more frequently this month, and is affecting my hitherto stella performance (!). Looking at the volume, penetration of the short term trend I had selected arbitrarily to try to bounce from, I am happy that the entry was ok – if a little risky. The exit was, well, early – but given the volume the sentiment looks to have moved against me. Go with the heart bail. Looking at the days close – I was going to be getting out tomorrow anyway as this is a lower low than the past two – pretty definitive I’d say.
If not clear from the above – this was supposed to be a standard 2-10 day trade – not a day trade as thats not my thing.
So – not entirely with the plan. Not a good trade. Not a bad one. A reasonable discretionary trade – a bad system trade.
What is it they say – anyone can make money in a bull market – but I seem to be jumping with the bears this month. Trading activity is down – losses are up. Anyway – repeat the mantra – trade the plan. Its just another trade. Go on – get over it. Be ready to pull the trigger again tomorrow.
today – close ozl, capital raising cpb, iif
ozl exit
OZL: Closed my position in Oz Minerals today at $1.19 for a 7%loss.
I opened this share on what looked to me to be a busted dip from an ascending triangle. Looks like it wasn’t so much busted as indicative… This is the second dip below the uptrend now, so didn’t wait for the close once it was clear it wasn’t coming back. This may have only dropped because the market is taking a dip at the moment, which is successfully moving me more towards a cash position.
Campbell Bros
CPB: Well – does this count as an entry? I have taken on the Campbell Brothers capital raising today, which sets me back $22 a share. There was some news about a takeover by CPB that went through today, and the share price has firmed up a little – making this apparently a good thing to do at the moment. If you look here you will see that I was struggling with whether to take up the offer – which has thrown me into a place of not taking a stop. I’ve decided to manage this by re-triggering my stop loss curve following the recent break. This counts as a discretionary change to my plan for this trade. We’ll find out if that makes sense when I close…
IIF fund raising
IIF: Not an entry or exit – another Capital raising!!! Now this one is worse than the Campbell Brothers one – if you look at the curve I was looking like I may be exiting today as yesterdays price formed a hammer closing just above the stop loss – which didn’t happen – the market for IIF was closed today due to the announcement. Now I have to go through that analysis again for this company. Maybe a re-calibration of the stop loss at the very least.
Learning – increased time in a share seems to increase the chance of the company reaching into your pocket for some cash via a capital raising!
today – close shv, all
shv close
SHV: Closed my position in Select Harvests today at $4.10, for a loss of 3.53%. Due to the double entry on the day the share took off, I had an average entry price of $4.22.
This trade got off to a belting start, and took off just nicely. Unfortunately it formed a rather obvious double top, which has been completely formed with todays close, so got out.
A better exit may have been to call the double top when it as clear, which was roughly mid last week, however I held in there for the stop loss to be hit.
Reviewing the graph I suspect there is still a trade to be had here, but I’ll go back to observing, and make another entry if the condition arises.
Still – happy with the entry, and I am on the fence as to whether I should have taken the earlier exit, as I would have at least exited with a small profit. Not to worry – I stuck to the plan, so thats good enough for me.
Aristocrat close
ALL: Closed my position in Aristocrat leisure today at $4.75 for a 6% loss. Like the one above, I am a bit disappointed in this one – I thought the chart had it all (see the entry write up here) but it was not to be.
The stop was triggered in fridays trade, with the exit taken mid morning today, missing the open as I just hate market orders. Gapping down on a Monday opening is not good for an exit.
Note the high volume today, and the bearish doji today. This does look like a typical reversal signal, and funnily enough (even though I have never mentioned fibonacci here before) the doji close is pretty much on the 0.618 retracement.
In this case I actually think that this share is at a bounce point and may well recover from here… so I may well enter again shortly.
The month so far…
Remember analysis is neither right nor wrong at the time of entry – only well reasoned. The market tells you when you close the trade whether you were right or wrong. That’s because, well, the market is NEVER wrong.
This means I have a month of only losing trades at the moment, with another 3 sitting within in bee sting of their stop loss points – but some that are open are hanging in there nicely.
that was the week – ataa, a few positions etc
So another fairly quiet week last week. If you review my portfolio value you can see the positions I track on the blog have subsided a little in value, but not very significantly. Only change was opening a position in Aquila Resources (AQA) again. I’ve had one stop loss triggered which I will put into play today (Monday) and a this is a very late post for an end of week wrap-up I can already see the positions filling in the pre-market option… the share I am exiting looks like it will gap down on open – I’m sure this’ll be an ouch!
ATAA
So on the weekend, I joined 260 odd other traders for the Australian Technical Analysts Association 2009 National Conference. This was my second ever trading event, the other being a 2 hour visit to an expo. Following my previous visit I was all concerned about how I would react to all the noises I would hear.
So put it simply, and to avoid having to read the following – it was an excellent and exciting event – Great!
And for those still reading…
I must say the following: Thank you very much to the speakers at the conference: Dr. Howard Bandy, Louise Bedford, Jake Bernstein, Daryl Guppy, Dave Landry, Bill McLaren, John Netto, Nick Radge and Frank Watkins (alphabetical order of course). I got something useful out of each of you – whether it be humour, suggestions on keeping myself in check, and recognition that many people blow up their accounts doing this!
In reading what I have originally written below, accept the fact that I have removed the sentence ‘I found him/her very interesting’ from all of them – coz its true
Dave Landry: Made me laugh, and showed how simple it can be. He had a view of himself that I thought fit well with my Australian view on the world – exemplified by his slide showing the feedback on Amazon about one of his books. And I must add – the photo he uses of himself – it needs updating!
Dr Howard Bandy: A professor who presented us with some formulas and concepts around system testing. Roll forward testing and the difference between in sample / out of sample tests. At first I was daunted – but I have seen I can simply add this to my back testing model with some simple tweaks – excellent! Oh yeah – and he has put me onto AmiBroker – expect to see my charts get a new look n feel when I get my arms around this excellent package!
Jake Bernstein: “I’m old and I know longer care what anyone thinks” – and I do hope I am not misrepresenting him by saying this. The man showed how easy things can be. His dry presentation manner and actual demonstrable methods were good to see if for no other reason than their pure simplicity – whether I will use his ideas is a separate question – I’d have to go to my box of tools and program them in to see what I get! Oh yeah – another one who could do with updating his photo
Louise Bedford: A good jump in presentations to see some interesting psychology – you can see where her interests are and the passion she has.
John Netto: Now this guy was interesting. He talked fast – in fact on the first day he was asked to slow down, and I think he concerned a few of the attendees on his first session with his fast talking, big position taking view of the world. But that all seemed to mellow – he did a second presentation that really drew people in, and by the time the panel discussion finished on the last day – I think he has some fans. Fully happy to talk about anything, at fast n slow speeds – the guy has something to say. Of course some of his plays are not things that low cashed traders can pull off, but it did open the eyes to what may be done in the future. Most interesting comment “I don’t drink coffee” – I spose you had to be there!
Frank Watkins: Came across from Perth to walk us through a very simple system he uses – and the recurring theme I got from him was that ‘this should be fun’, and if it isn’t – do something else. I really enjoyed his talk, and had the pleasure of a brief chat with him during the event. Maybe I just gelled with his view of the world, but his system is one I can see looking into, to see if it fits with my ‘style’. On paper it looks like a fit, when I do it.. who knows.
Darryl Guppy: Well, seen him before. He has something to say, and an engaging way of saying it. Good as always to see his view of what works and what seems to have stopped working.
Bill McLaren: Ok – I struggled with this one a bit. When he started, he has an older fashioned way of presenting. He used overheads (transparencies) rather than an overhead projector. I lost 15 minutes coming to grips with the slightly out of focus slides and writing style. Then I got over it. His presentation then took me on a journey where he showed price repetition over time I had not seen quite so clearly before. He talks Gann and other stuff I don’t really get into – but you could see very clearly that not only was he passionate, but he finds great profit in his style. Someone to see if you are not into Gann etc so you can get a feel for why others are. Lets face it, if you know a whole lot of people might do something on a particular day, you may profit from that!
Nick Radge: So – Now I have met the man! I posted on a web bulletin board when I first looked at shares somewhere around 10-12 years ago, and Nick posted back, at which time we had a bit of a ‘bulletin board’ discussion, which I printed at the time and have kept in my filing cabinet somewhere. Now I can picture the person behind that exchange so many years ago. And I must say he was a great way to wrap up the conference. He had the last spot before the panel discussion, and his passion and forcefulness of view (?) showed through. He challenged people with questions like ‘how much have you spent on expensive courses’, ‘how many books have you read’… getting to the point about, well, how many do you have to read to get it? Nick let on in the panel discussion why he was so passionate at the moment (thats my interpretation anyway) and it hit me, as a member of the audience, fairly hard. In fact it supported the view that I came to a while ago. TRADING IS NOT THAT HARD. But I don’t want it to be my life, I want it to pay for my holidays. My day job is partially a social outlet, a way of getting along with the world.
Again – thank you all. So in the words of Nick,
Its not that hard
Get over it – Get on with it
today – open aqa (again!)
aqa 22-10-09
AQA: Opened a position in Aquila Resources today at $8.25.
As usual I’m not that fussed about the shares I enter – its what I do when I’m in there that makes me money. So in this case you can see I just drew a new trendline to use as an indicator. I’ll of course use this with my usual ATR based stop loss.
My last trade in AQA rewarded me financially as you can see here. The exit last time was due to falling through my stop loss – in a trade I was quite happy with because of the nicely planned execution. I trust I will be able to execute as elegantly again.
As for changing my trendline – I don’t get too fussed about trendlines. I have read a lot about ‘how to draw a trendline’ by many authors, and some are sticklers for detail. Me, I like to draw one, and stick with it for that trade, occasionally changing it if its a longer term trade and the chart warrants it – just never drop the stop loss that it may be indicating!
ATAA
On another note, I’m off to my first real trading conference tomorrow at the ataa event in Melbourne. Hopefully I will learn stuff, and keep the right filters in so I learn to learn what I need, without getting carried away by talk of ‘whats hot’.
Signing off – after my first trade in a while. Not because I’ve been holding off, but my stops haven’t been firing, and the cash reserves are at the limits I am comfortable with for now.
wordle view of my views
Here’s something a bit different – got this from wordle.
Its a map of the words on my blog to date – looks like I’ve had a bit to do with weeks, price, trade – I wonder if I can get anything pyschological out of this!
Think anything can be gleaned about me or my trading from this non financial feedback? Comment below and let me know!
tradersams blog 