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, FMD:

If you bought FMD when it broke above the 10:00 candle at $72.91 with a stop below it at $72.58, you would only risk 33 cents. Holding until the end of the day would have given you about 355 cents for every share you owned, or nearly 11 times your risk.

Today was good in that I had a quick bounce back from yesterday’s blow. I’d like to thank everyone who commented or emailed me offering support or advice/ideas. It really helped a lot. That is one of the great things about the internet - it gives a lot of people the ability to easily communicate and help each other.
Tradermike suggested clicking on the P/L to make it invisible in Cybertrader, which I didn’t know about and really helped.
Highchartpatterns sent me an inspiring email that suggested focusing on the daily chart instead of just the intraday chart. They also sent me their newsletter from yesterday, which highlighted NYX for today. I put this stock on my list and made some money from it today. I was a fan of highchartpatterns before, but now I am a BIG fan. They are some really cool dudes. I’ll be subscribing soon.
Others suggesting tweaking my system.
So today I had a watchlist of only 10 stocks. I closed all my scanners and only watched 10 stocks based on their daily chart formations. I think I have a better feel for daily charts, as opposed to intraday charts, so this change feels comfortable. After watching the intraday movement, I narrowed this list down to three: GOOG, MA and NYX.

I bought some “chump insurance” pre-market (a very small position) in case I couldn’t find a low-risk spot after the open. Those were the only shares I ended up getting, but at least it saved me from being a chump.

The big GOOG breaks $500

Others suggested that I not trade so much. I am not comfortable taking so many trades - this is another reason why focusing on the daily charts appeals to me. It really limits the number of trades to make. Plus, I am only trading the best setups this way.
At risk of sounding like I am whining, I have to admit that I am still disappointed with today’s trades. I feel like I could have done a lot better. I scaled out of and closed some positions too early and I did not take large enough trades. I also still traded too much and got into some trades early that didn’t set up ideally. It’s important to focus on the negative aspects of your trading because it is the way to get better. It is also very important not to get too negative, because confidence and optimism are very important to profitable trading.
Highchartpatterns also mentioned something interesting. They said that even though it is possible to be profitable with a win rate of less than 50%, it can be a psychological drain on your confidence. Even though you may make more money, you still lose more times than you win. That makes sense to me and is another reason I’d like to focus on the daily charts.
I’ve got a lot to think about and it is probably a good idea to end this holiday week on a good note, so I probably won’t be trading again until Monday.
Happy Thanksgiving.

“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

Symbol	Price	Volume	Avg. Volume	% Vol. Increase
JDO	2.9	703900	760438	%-7.43
SBSA	3.96	640781	292702	%118.91
SFLK	0.1385	531025	822412	%-35.43
ORGN	5.37	419101	57486	%629.04
MZ	0.79	254600	109702	%132.08

– 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

Symbol	Price	Volume	Avg. Volume	% Vol. Increase	High Alpha
EOP	48.14	37237700	2615350	%1323.81
PD	120.47	29289600	5801270	%404.88
AAPL	86.47	20269592	24906000	%-18.61
XLF	36.29	10738500	5769630	%86.12
NVDA	36.66	10110113	10663600	%-5.19

– Click here for today’s full list –

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, KNOT:

If you bought KNOT when it broke above the 10:30 candle at $25.06 with a stop below it at $24.94, you would only risk 12 cents. Holding until the end of the day would have given you about 87 cents for every share you owned, or over 7 times your risk.

Man, today sucked. After Friday, I was pretty stressed out over the weekend. I am feeling money pressure. It isn’t that I don’t have enough to live on, it is just that I am not making anything from trading recently. One thing that has become painfully clear to me since August is that the pressure to do well is having a negative effect on my trading. The pressure isn’t all about money, it is also related to time and ego. I have been trading for 10 months now and I am getting close to the point where I had planned on knowing whether or not I can do this for a living.
Honestly, if the next 10 months are the same as the last 10 months, it is not enough. It is enough to live on, but it isn’t enough to build up. I don’t think I can continue to only trade for a living.
I have come to the conclusion that I will contine to put my focus on trading, but I will probably get another job or some consistent work during non-market hours. I have done pretty well this year - up about 75% so far - but it isn’t as much as I’d like and it is barely enough to live on. The problem is that I started with too little money and too much confidence.
Getting 75% return on my money will be great if I have another source of income, so hopefully I can do that. I have a lot of free time in the evenings anyway, so my plan is to have income from trading and another job. I’m diversifying myself.
I’ll admit, it is depressing. I don’t want to be somebody’s chump and have a boss and less freedom. But I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. At least I will be able to coninute to trade and focus on trading.
I only trade until 1pm, so not doing other work seems kind of lazy of me anyway.
I also plan to put more focus on developing an automated trading system. This may give me more time to do other things and it would be a way to continue to trade without the negative effects of pressure.

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 Friday’s trading, the following stocks are worth noting:

CHAP	Basic Materials	Steel & Iron
STI	Financial	Money Center Banks
AMAG	Healthcare	Diagnostic Substances
X	Industrial Goods	Metal Fabrication
FMCN	Services	Advertising Agencies
ICE	Services	Business Services

Support uglychart.com by becoming a sponsor!

Mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, the “father of fractal geometry,” is now applying fractals to try to understand the stock market. Fractals are “infintely complex” shapes that appear similar at all levels of magnification. It’s interesting because some types of trading can be applied to many different time frames.

“Markets, like oceans, have turbulence,” he said. “Some days the change in markets is very small, and some days it moves in a huge leap. Only fractals can explain this kind of random change.”

He has a new book on the subject and you can see an onlide video of a lecture about it here.

“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

Symbol	Price	Volume	Avg. Volume	% Vol. Increase
SFLK	0.131	886599	821492	%7.92
SBSA	3.96	378133	280808	%34.65
TRPS	0.61	233684	107480	%117.42
NINE	4.42	212503	78573	%170.45
CRTX	1.97	202255	107479	%88.18

– 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

Symbol	Price	Volume	Avg. Volume	% Vol. Increase	High Alpha
CONR	32.68	21714640	838845	%2488.63
MO	85.01	20464600	11842000	%72.81
AAPL	85.85	16601698	25214000	%-34.15
ICE	101.2	12487200	2353830	%430.50	*
RA	48.2	7142800	1892320	%277.46

– Click here for today’s full list –