Moment by Moment.. this has not happened in 5 years. Trends did not unravel in less than 1/2 hour. I'm not talking about daytrades for 1/4 scalp, I mean when nasdaq moves to -30 it should not move to -105 after being down all day. I enjoy it on insofar as I nab some big fish while I through the minnows back for small losses. Of course you don't want 10 bad trades a day so you have to trade sparingly. 4-5 trades seems my limit except that in the last 10 days or so I have been 'reversing and changing THE SAME STOCK from long to short and/or from short to long' because the trend is changing so much quicker and after really huge gains both long and short. You can't capture the bottoms and tops in these erratic markets so when there is some form of stabilility like a handful of tech stocks, the energy stocks and earnings plays across sectors I really appreciate them.
I agree with kha vu that we need the highest range, highest flyers that are good for 5-10 or even more intraday, only I can't hold for 15 minutes UNLESS THE STOCK JUST EXPLODES IN 15 minutes and starts to move down. At that time I would look at the profit and not care about time held. I try to hold much longer than that but lately 6 days is my maximum hold and of course those are either earnings plays in their 1, 2 3 or 4 days BEFORE the report or that 2,3, 4 days AFTER the report.
Holding through earnings is just too risky in the backdrop of a down market. Remember when the market was bull we would get stocks like CMVT, SNDK, BRCD, CMTN, BVSN, CMOS, and hold through earnings. Now its the rare ones that one doesn't really anticipate like NVDA that do well, but for the most part, they sell off.
You have to have your 'basket of stocks' if there is a rally, whether it be short lived or longer. Usually in down markets like these, its the same stocks over and over with added earnings plays after they report. Another big saving grace is that we can still count on "anticipatory upswing' for our earnings plays. Throughout these last two weeks nearly every single stock had a decent 'buy trigger' 1-5 days before reporting. Even HWP had some good days and Agilent did as well. |
