Swinging Thursday

I was having a pretty good day until one of my dental crowns pulled off, now I am a bit annoyed. No matter, it's Thursday night. Have a mini vacation coming up starting Sunday in NYC. If you ever wanted to meet me, and you a fellow blogger/writer in NYC, well here's your chance.

Get your requests in for Friday night. Make it count!

Swinging Thursday
Markets are rolling this week and at this point meeting strong resistance overhead. We could discuss chart levels, sentiment, and other stuff but you have probably seen that all day. What I like about this week, and this is news, some stocks started to act somewhat normal, making trading them something I could do without being in fear a 20% drop in 1 minute was going to happen any second.

When swing trading (2 days to a week or two) I use Japanese candles coupled with the awesome iBankCoin tool, The PPT. This allows me to screen for the kinds of looks I want, and quickly. My way of picking stocks can work in almost any market, as long as there is some kind of trend. Up, down, or sideways is ok. Where candles become just things to try and set a room mood to get lucky in is heavy wash out down markets, rip roaring up markets, or 100 point S&P 500 range-bound sideways markets. They just don't work well and I know that. They have not been working for a while. I stopped trading while the drama happened.

They worked well this week.

Now you might think that of course in a melt up market they all worked but it has not been that way for all the rallies so far. This week was different.

I bought the stock NI on Tuesday and the stock CVLT on Wednesday. I sold NI for a +3.5% gain and CVLT for a +5.5% gain today. Here are charts for them with crappy arrows for entry and exit. I am short on time so it's the best I can do:
NI

CVLT

What was good about these two stocks is that they were the only two positions I had and I knew solid exit points, even if the market tanked, would hold. This allowed me to put more money into both than I would normally. They were large positions. NYC here I come with a bit of cash for the trip!

Right now I am thinking that it's best I am going on a mini vacation. Earnings get going next week and I cannot shake the feeling like things are still not fully priced in to the downside. That said, when my charts start working and news flow is neutral one can see how this market wants to run. It's just a tough show.

"Discretion is the better part of valor."

I don't need to catch THE bottom or even be close. When markets get settled I know I can work them, it's just still not time. Soon I hope, and I have a whole room of Pelicans to work with.

Have a good night.