Nice Pattern: OR high == yesterday’s HOD
29 November 2006 by RichardOne pattern I’ve noticed being pretty powerful lately, is like what Patterson-UTI Energy Inc (Nasdaq: PTEN) did today. Here’s the 2-day 30 min chart so far:
The key is that the openening range tops out right around yesterday’s HOD. It seems like when it breaks through that, it tends to do well. I mentioned this pattern about a week ago in regards to a trade I made. In that other post, I mentioned two examples I had spotted. I’ve been noticing it more and more.
I should also point out that the OR high was near (but not exactly at) round number 26. That was a factor in the trade in the older post, as well.
I didn’t notice the PTEN setup in time to trade it today… the daily trigger for a trade was around 26.40, well into the run.
[edit: I see that Grant Prideco (NYSE: GRP) is another example from today, minus the round number.]
| Stock | Links |
| PTEN |  |  |  |
| GRP | | | |
Wednesday, same story, only groggier…
29 November 2006 by RichardSo, yesterday, I managed to stay awake until 9pm my time. I was planning to be up by 5am. Not ideal, but at least semi-normal (for a 70 year old!). Instead, I woke up at midnight, feeling good, even though I knew I needed much more sleep. I was too alert to sleep any more, though. I got up and did some food shopping (am very grateful for 24hr stores and supermarkets). It’s 74 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now, but tomorrow it is supposed to accumulate 1 inch of snow, and never get out of the 30s….. that’s just crazy. Then, I did some testing on a new StockTickr feature (have you checked us out yet? We are adding new features all the time, with a couple big ones about to be made public).
Then, I slept from 6am to 9am my time, which meant I missed the market open. And, this time, I feel groggy, like I could sleep on into the afternoon. geez… But, I don’t think I missed much in the morning market. I haven’t taken any trades yet. Here’s some example painful breakout reversals from today so far:
Potential short of Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) around the horizontal line turned aroud (30min chart):
Potential long of Nutrisystem (Nasdaq: NTRI) failed. You might say, yeah, but it ran a point first. But, what you can’t see in the 30min candles, is that during that first candle, it dropped all the way to 67.08 after triggering the trade. Then it rose back through the trigger point and ran a point before falling apart again. So, maybe if you bought the second run you could have gotten out with a profit (or cancelled out your loss on the first run):
And now, Frontier Oil Corporation (NYSE: FTO) triggered, but at the top of a pretty big, sudden run (10min chart):
… so I didn’t buy in, but so far it hasn’t reversed. :-( Sometimes it seems like the bad setups work better than the good ones.
yes… time to look for a strategy that’s different than this one. Not that this one’s bad. But, I want something to do when this strategy is not working. No strategy is right every day. Normally what I do is scalp the high-volume weekly watchlist stocks. Trade-Ideas, for the past couple weeks, though, has been telling me that there’s basically no high-volume (5x ratio) action in my list. Like, today, the only alert since I drug myself out of bed was on INFA. 177 stocks on the list, and INFA is the only one doing anything with 5x volume today.
| Stock | Links |
| SNDK | | | |
| NTRI | | | |
| FTO | | | |
Stocks That Could Hit New 30 Day Highs/Lows, 2006-11-29
28 November 2006 by RichardThe Rules
The rules are unchanged from yesterday. They are:
- Stock must have an average daily volume of at least 1 million shares, over the last 30 days. The highest 2 days are removed from the average, to keep a random spike from skewing the results.
- Stock must trade over $10
- Stock must have an average intraday high-low range of at least 3% of its price. The highest 2 days are removed from the average to keep a random spike from skewing the results.
- Stock must be within 1.5 ATRs of either the high or low of the last 30 days. I use the 20 day ATR, with no values removed from the average.
- The high or the low of the last 30 days must have occurred more than 5 days ago.
What Does that Mean?
The last two rules are the core of this screen. I want stocks that have made a 30-day high or low, then bounced back some, and are now within range of breaking through that level again. Kinda like this picture.
FAQ: What is an ATR?
Average True Range. It’s a moving average of the amount a stock moves in a day, taking into account any unfilled gaps.
Read the rest of this entry »
Zoomie’s Trade on Tellabs, Inc (Nasdaq: TLAB) Tuesday
28 November 2006 by RichardZoomie’s trade on Tellabs, Inc (Nasdaq: TLAB) initially looked good. But, after a while, it turned on him and took him for a loss. Reminds me of my ex-wife… :-) (the trade, not Zoomie…)
Zoomie’s description is on the chart (click to enlarge, as always):
| Stock | Links |
| TLAB | | | |
No more trades for me… examples why…
28 November 2006 by RichardIn my last post I mentioned opting not to buy into Grant Prideco Inc (NYSE: GRP) at 42.60. How did that decision turn out? I’d say it was right on. It did make it up 16 cents before reversing. But, 16 cents would not have been anywhere near 1R on that trade, and I’d have broken even if I was lucky. Here’s current 30 minute chart as of 12:48 or so:
I had Harmony Gold Mining Company (NYSE: HMY) trigger by breaking 17. It got all the way to 17.03 before falling back away… 30 minute chart:
Fairchild Semiconductor has been in range of breaking 15.54 for about an hour now, but so far can’t do it, and then it’s got round number 15.50 to deal with, which means I’d wait for 15.49 to do anything. 30-min chart:
AAI and ARNA, which reversed this morning, are still nice and reversed, so no joy there either. That’s all the evidence I need. Breakouts aren’t really sticking, today, and I’m not going to bother looking any longer. I really should get around to trying a completely different strategy for days like this. It would seem like the most natural extension “new” strategy would be to take the opposite side of the breakout trade, since I’m expecting them to fail. I have trouble making myself do that, though. I need to sit down and study it.
| Stock | Links |
| GRP | | | |
| HMY | | | |
Thought for the Day: 4 Reasons are Better Than 1:
Zoomie's Trade on Tellabs, Inc (Nasdaq: TLAB) Tuesday: