Counting with Doug: Financing a trip to Lake Tahoe solely with blackjack winnings?

Archive for May 2010

Lets hear it for the worst performing sector!

After surviving another wild week in the markets (I will be holding both MFN and QLD long positions over the weekend), it was interesting to find this nugget at Thomas Bulkowski’s chart pattern blog: the sector with the worst relative strength is . . . drum roll please . . . alternative energy. Got my […]

No bounce yet for the Minefinders (MFN)

If ever there was a day that Doug hoped for Minefinders to find a mine, today would be it. With everything on the line, I’m not really even getting good dead-cat action on MFN. On the other hand, after the morning recovery, I’m not getting stopped out either (yet). Holding over the weekend is looking […]

Into the frying pan! (MFN)

Not sure if this is the right thing to do, especially right before option expiration, but I picked up 1000 shares of Minefinders (MFN) before the close for $8.66. This leaves me fully invested on the long side, even given my bearish bias. Might not be sleeping all that well tonight . . .

Time to BUY Minefinders? (MFN)

Talk about a swing trade, but I am halfway considering BUYING into MFN, which I just covered as a short (one day too soon, I know, I know). The play would be a real quickie, to see if it will bounce on a test of the $8.50 flash-crash low. Note the RSI (2) at 1.60; […]

Visa — an island of green in a sea of red (V)

Plenty of traders have been catching knives lately with credit card processor Visa (V), but who would have thought it would be one of the very few stocks to rise on a day when the S & P 500 is down over 36 points before 1 PM? I wouldn’t bet on that gap down from […]

Swing Time! (MFN, QLD)

It was a crazy day here as I completely flipped my positions at the close. First, I covered my 1,000 share MFN short at $9.15. Not as much as I would have liked, but I was away from my office for work and missed some of the best prices. I know, I should have had […]

Super Value sizzles out

The last time I took a look at Super Value back on April 8th, it was a potential buy with a nice cup and handle formation forming. That obviously didn’t play out! A good reminder to wait for upside confirmation if and when playing cup and handle formations — being early on the trigger can […]

A better view of the downtrend channel (SPX)

Here is a little bit clearly drawn view of the S & P 500 downtrend channel I mentioned yesterday that I will be trading for the near future. I won’t be bullish until the top trendline is taken out on a close. Also, be aware that 1150 is a long term resistance level to watch. […]

Two month checkup: A wild ride, but still on track

Today brings to a close two months of active trading on this site, where the goal is to double a $10,000 margin account in the space of a year. The second month of trading was a wild ride, to say the least, principally due to my decision to go “all-in” on the long side the […]

What to trade now — two different ways of looking at the markets

While many will argue that the market’s uptrend is intact (blue and purple lines on the chart drawn above), I think shorter term traders should be paying attention to the downtrend channel drawn in black instead. A very viable trading strategy would be to stay away from initiating long positions until that channel is taken […]

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