Cup & Handle - POT

POT gapped up. Strong bars which then consolidated sideways forming a cup and handle. NRIB NR7 withing the consolidation was a perfect entry. Partialled at 50% FE measure from ORL to the top of the consolidation. Price usually consolidates near the 50% extension. Gave some time for consolidation and sold remaining when it formed bearish red candles. Also went short here covered near the EOD.

This was the first trade of the day. Short below PDL based on the daily. First bar wide red bar followed by an inside bar. 3rd bar was a strong reversal green bar. Out at BE. I should have taken some profit near $132 level. Went long above the 3rd bar high and sold just below 5 DMA.

GS, ACI

Entered short on the break of 5th bar low which was an inside NR5.


Gap up and immediate sell-off in the first bar followed by sideway consolidation in the lower part of the first bar. 6th bar is an inside NR5. Entered short on the break of the 6th bar low. Took partial at R1 and got stopped out at BE on the remaining.

MA Converge, Bull Flag - SPY

An exciting day. 1 hr. into the session it looked like I would not find any trade setups today but then SPY formed this lovely bull flag with MA converge. Hope all the trades are like this one everyday.



SPY gapped down big but rallied immediately. It then formed a beautiful bull flag with support from the daily pivot. Beautiful price and volume contraction when the flag was formed. All the MA's converged foreshadowing a nice expansion. Price broke out of the pattern on volume. I entered based on 5 min. chart after the breakout bar closed strong. Price reached 100% extension of the pattern. I sold half of my position on the way to book some profit. Exited remaining a little before $100.


ICE rallied with the indexes forming a WRB. The next bar met resistance at PDH and the flat 5 DMA. Wait for the price to consolidate under the 5 DMA before taking any position. It then formed cup and handle pattern. Buy limit order entry was above PDH. Exited when price met resistance from R1.

July 30 Trades

Did only 3 trades - ANF, WLT, V. Left a lot on the table in ANF, WLT was ok. Managed to get out at BE on V. I'll post V trade in another post. In the afternoon, SOHU and WYNN looked good for a retracement trade but I did not take it.


4th candle saw some consolidation and the 5 ENA also came close to the price. Entered on the break of 4th bar high which was an inside bar. Took partial at 50% and sold remaining at $49.00.


Most of the stocks gapped up today and rallied. 5 EMA on 15 min. was quite far away from the price when I entered. Entered on the break of the small consolidation and exited at 100% FE. ANF looked strong when I exited. Could have held a few shares.

POT, FSLR

Just 2 trades to blog. Decided to call it a day after that. Missed CELG on the break of 4th bar high. I saw when price had already moved some distance and did not wanted to chase it.

SPY gapped down and rallied up immediately after the open but POT sold off and closed below PDL but had a lower tail. 2nd bar was a doji inside bar.  Entered on the break of the 2nd bar. This was a risky trade because of the 5-day EMA and $94 support just below it. Price sliced through the support on high volume and closed very weak. It then formed a bear flag and I exited completely at S2.
 

FSLR gapped below PDL and tried to rally with $SPX but found PDL and 5 EMA as strong resistance and sold off hard. 4th and 5th bar consolidated near the ORL and on low volume. Entered short on the break of 5th candle low. Took partial at 50% FE measured from the top of the 3rd - 5th bar low. Covered the remaining a little above 100% FE.

Cup & Handle - WYNN

Strong first 2 bars followed by consolidation on low volume forming a cup and handle pattern. Entered on the break of the pattern. There was volume increase on breakout. Took partial at $39.90. After the strong breakout on volume, there were chances that it would reach 50% FE. So I moved my SL to BE to give price some room to retrace. Covered Sold the remaining at 50% FE.

Cup & Handle - APOL

APOL formed a cup & handle at the morning swing high. There was volue and price contraction while the handle was being formed. Exited a little shy of 100% extension of the pattern to avoid any resistance at 67 level. 

Swing trade turned into day trade: AXP

AXP (American Express Company)


I have started looking a little into short-term (5-7 days max.) swing trade recently. I started to paper trade in my simulated account but did not follow through how they performed. So I decided to trade with real money and see how it goes. My risk is less to avoid emotions play into the trades while I am learning. Right now my plan is to time the entries as day trade. SL will be like day trade stops (other end of the trigger candle).

I entered AXP as a swing trade when price took out the high of the 6th candle high with PDH as first target and $24.50 as the final target on the remaining. AXP hit both it's target today turning it into a day trade. Honestly, I was expecting price to hit the PDH today but not the final target. I will post the charts on my swing trading blog (http://swingtradr.blogspot.com) to track how it did after my entry and exit.

QLD - Hammer on PDL


QQQQ gapped down in the morning and formed a very bullish green hammer on PDL. I went long QLD instead of QQQQ which is 2X of QQQQ's. Entered long on the break of the hammer (2nd candle). Since the candle was very wide, I used $36 as SL and not the low of the candle. My reasoning was that price should take off after that bullish hammer. 3rd bar was strong, followed by a red bar. I moved SL to BE wondering if the 2-4 bars were just attempt to fill the morning gap before moving down. Price moved up smoothly reaching PDH where I partialled and exited the remaining at 38% FE of PDL - PDH. I was not expecting such a smooth ride.

SOHU - Cup & Handle


SOHU had a big move yesterday and retraced in the afternoon after hitting a previous resistance. Today SOHU formed a NRB below the PDH. Entered a little above PDH and set my sell order at 50% FE of the C&H pattern (PDL to PDH). Price missed my target of $66.40 by 2 cents and I exited when price formed a bearish candle on 15 min. chart.

I also had a short in AGU which initially moved in my favor but then took me out at BE.

Cup & Handle - CELG

Jamie mentioned about AMGN yesterday in his post. So I kept an eye on the biotechs. CELG formed a C&H pattern. Entered long on the break of the pattern and covered at 50% FE of the pattern. 

FCX, NUE

**Edited: The chart should read 'Bearish Engulfing' and not bullish engulfing. 

NUE was from the scanner.  8th candle was a bearish engulfing candle on high volume. Entered short on the break of the 7th bar low. Price dropped a little and then consolildated for another leg down.  I was watching how the price would react at 20 EMA. There was no bounce at 20EMA and so I set my target PDH. Markets were weak and that also helped to reach the target smoothly.


FCX was weak and the first 3 candles saw selling followed by some retracement on low volume. It formed a red hanging man followed by a weak inside bar. The entry was the handle of C&H. Covered entire position at 50% FE of C&H.  Left a lot on the table but I sticked to my plan. 

MOS, V, BGU

STT

STT was relatively stronger compared to the market in the early morning and formed a green candle with a long upper wick. 2-5 candles started consolidation. Wanted to enter long on the break of a green bar. Was waiting for the green bar to be formed. The 6th bar was a WR green bar that closed very strong. R:R was not good but I still entered on the break of the 6/5 bar and exited completely at exactly 50% FE of the 15min. OR. If the market was in green, I would have targeted 61% FE. Did not want to take risk when the market was 100+ in red.

CNQ

CNQ gapped below the PDL and sold off immediately. It then consolidated in the lower range of the first 5 min. bar. Entered market order below the low of the first bar. Exited completely at 61% FE.

SKF

SKF gapped down and after some consoldaition broke the PDL. It then consolidated sideways. Entered short when it broke the consolidation to continue it's journey further down. Target was 50% FE from ORH to the break point of consolidation where I exited my entire position.

SRS

Jimhas been trading SRS quite often lately. So I added SRS to my watchlist again. After 3 down days, I was expecting some bounce in the market. SRS 6/15 candle was almost an inside bar and met all my counter trend requirements. Shorted on the break of 6th bar low. Treated it as an inverted C&H to set the target. Target was 50% FE of the pattern. Since SRS has a strong affinity to it's PDH/PDL, I was expecting it to touch the PDL but decided to exit completely at 50% FE.

HK

HK formed a doji on daily chart. Entered when HK formed an inverted C&H. Target 50% FE of the pattern.

FSLR

After some up move, FSLR retraced back to 5 EMA on 15 min. 5th bar resumed the trend. Entered on the break of 5th bar high on 15. Took partial at 1R. Treated the remaining as C&H, completely exiting at 50% extension of the pattern. Normally the targets are 100% extension of the pattern but in these markets, I have been setting 50% as the target for C&H. Since it formed early in the session, there were high chances of reaching 61% FE which Jim of Wall St Warrior usually sets as his target. It did reach that level before reversing.

CLF

CLF was weak in the morning but soon reversed and formed cup and handle. My entry was on a NRB in the handle. Took partials at PDH and 50% FE of the pattern.

GS - Cup & Handle

GS was unusally strong compared to the overall weak market today. It formed a Cup and Handle. Entered on NRIB (also a NR7) on PDH. Initial target was 38% FE but decided to exit completely on $1 profit because of round number. In hindsight, it was a good exit because price never reached 38% FE.

SOHU

SOHU formed a NRB on PDH. Entered on the break of the NRB high. partialed at 38% FE which also happened to be near R1 and exited completely on the break of the doji low.