Good morning, my name is Ugly, and I am a loser. I have it in me to do serious financial damage to my account.

Dear Diary,
Based on yesterday’s trading, the following stocks are worth noting:

Support uglychart.com by becoming a sponsor!

The news is buzzing about the new invisibility cloak that was developed. I’ve searched everywhere and this is all they show me:

This is the invisibilty “cloak?” Thanks, guys - great.
You know what, I don’t even care if it looks like a tape measure - but at LEAST SHOW ME A PICTURE OF IT HALF-INVISIBLE OR SOMETHING! I mean, it is supposed to be THE invisibility cloak that I have been waiting for since I was a kid - and all they show me is a coil of metal straight out of the junk yard.
I found this video, but it isn’t any more revealing.

Since day trading is a lot about recognizing the patterns in charts, I have decided to post a chart every day that would have resulted in a profitable dummy trade. I will post these in the dummy-a-day category which you can simply click to review for practice. The chart will be displayed as it looked when the trade should have been executed, and when you move your mouse over the image, it will show how the trade would have resulted.
Here is one I missed from today, NTRI:

NTRI is interesting because it gapped up, but trended down the entire day. It may not be a good example, but I thought it was noteworthy because I have seen this pattern several times before. If you shorted NTRI when it broke below its 10:00 candle at $70.22 with a stop above it at $71.50, you would risk 128 cents. Waiting to cover until the end of the day would have given you about 662 cents for every share you were short, or over 5 times your risk.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

I have decided that 1R is more than I want to lose on a trade. 1R is the most I will allow myself to lose, but I am going to try to lose no more than 0.5R per trade (and less than that if I can help it). In the last few months, I have allowed myself to lose too much money and let profits disappear in an attempt to hold onto my winners. Right after I make a trade, I will continue to immediately put a stop in at -1R, but I plan to be out of at least half - if not all - of my position by the time the stop is hit. I am looking for momentum - I am going to be a dummy scalper, but I’d like to hold at least half of my position into the close for winning trades. Today I was even more careful because of the Feds at 2:15.
Below is one of my trades from today. If I were trading as I have been the last couple of months, I would have lost 1R on this trade. But because I was more greedy, I made 1.5R. Below is what my trade would have looked like if I were trading as I did the past few months - move the mouse over the image to see my actual trades.

It wasn’t the greatest trade in the world, but it is a difference of 2.5R

Another important lesson for the stock market samurai:

Lesson #5: Escape is half of the battle

To get rid of villains and knaves, it is necessary to give them a way out. If you don’t give them any leeway at all, they will be like trapped rats. If every way out is closed to them, they will chew up everything good. Similarly, you cannot lose if you close half of a position. If the trade turns against you, you were wise to close half. If the trade continues in your favor, then you were wise to close only half.

Each day wallstrip has a show about a company and then a group of elite professionals (myself included) write about the stock. Check it out.

Good morning, my name is Ugly, and I am a loser. I have it in me to do serious financial damage to my account.

Dear Diary,
Sorry it takes me so long to respond to comments and email (and phone messages). It is nothing personal. Sometimes people are offended by this - they think it is rude. It really is nothing personal, I just procrastinate.
Based on yesterday’s trading, the following stocks are worth noting:

Support uglychart.com by becoming a sponsor!

The #1 spot on the top alpha list is a coveted title to hold. Basically, it is the strongest stock in the market. I’ve been storing the list of top 100 stocks daily in a database and now have over 2 years worth of lists available. To access any previous lists, just go to the page and select a date in the box at the top where it says “date:”
I recently queried the data for all of the #1 ranked stocks since Oct 15 2004 (when I started collecting the data). It is interesting to look at the charts to see their rise to (and sometimes fall from) the top. There have been 19 and here they are:
(more…)