tradersams blog

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.