$NFLX Bear Case

There were a few names I was looking at going into this week and so far, $NFLX seems to be the only one following my plan. I wanted to take a minute and explore my case for more downside.

$NFLX has gone on quite the run recently and now it is showing signs of coming back down. The last week or so has really developed a pretty good Bear Flag wedge. With volume weakening into the flag, I am looking for a drop out within this week or next. The bottom of the rising channel is hitting almost perfectly with the 50d SMA and the resistance from 5/28 and 6/19. If this works out, that will be my target. If volume keeps coming in, I will be looking for a break for much lower prices. Maybe even a retest of the previous earnings breakout.

Happy Trading.

Half and Half

Here we are again. Coming out of another week of earnings and it looks like lots of names still want to just keep going up. Tonight I am looking at $AMZN, $LNKD, $GOOG and $NFLX

Although the market keeps going up against all odds, I still am looking at these 4 split, 2 long and 2 short.

First let's look at $AMZN

Friday, this name zoomed up well over 2%, over 309.50 resistance and into all time highs. All this and still with tiny margins and no actual profit to speak out. But $AMZN continues to trade as if it is going to be making more money than any other company any day now.  I am not going to be chasing this one out of the gate but if it dips to the breakout support, I would definitely be adding.

$GOOG

This name is hitting what I think it a long term up-trend line. After selling off after earnings and not being able to fully recover, I am watching this line for a break and a possible short.  100d SMA would be a target although I think it could go lower to the previous hammer low from 6/6 16 at 847.00

$LNKD

This name I am looking at only because it is breaking out to new highs. Volume is up in the breakout but not as much as I would like to see. I am very hesitant with earnings coming out on the 1st of August. I will probably avoid it until earning are out but it is definitely tempting.

$NFLX

Strong name that is not an easy one to short but I am watching the break below the previous break of 248.00. Volume was pretty huge on the way down and I am looking for a target at the 50D SMA or the lower upward trend line. I wouldn't stick with it too long given its previous strength and volatility.

Happy Trading

Never hold into earnings! Never hold into earnings! Never hold into earnings!

Never hold into earnings. Never hold into earnings. Never hold into earnings.

I wanted to put some thoughts out there today in the midst of $AAPLs earnings beat, $FB huge upside surprise and a few others that are screaming out of the gate after their announcements. One of the hardest thing I still struggle with is stepping aside through earnings. The glitz and glamour of potential huge returns draws me in every time. Only to have the curtain pulled away and then shot back down to earth.  It's tough to see these huge gains and not be part of it. $FB up over 20%, $BIDU over 16%, $TRIP over 14%... I am definitely a gambling man. I love Vegas, I can sit at a blackjack table for 15 hours. But this is a gamble that the house has the best odds. $AAPL suckered me in again as it did last quarter. Never again.

I am looking into a tattoo that screams, "Never hold into earnings!"

Moving on though, I still am keeping trades on via puts in $BBRY (rolled from last week) It still looks weak to me but is very stubborn. But the stubbornness that is keeping it from testing the $8.45 pivot is also keeping it from popping passed $9. I think until the company has a catalyst (a decent new product,) gravity will win out.

Also started for a quick trade via puts in $NFLX. The chart looks like it needs a rest. I added puts with a drop below the $248ish previous pivot/breakout. A test of the 50d sma is my target.

Not only has it broken previous breakout levels but it has done so on higher volume. Still, this is just a quick trade. Unless it keeps moving lower, I will cover above $248

Keeping an eye on $MNKD. Possible news in the fall and it is working on a decent wedge setup. Alerts for over $7.50

Happy Trading.

Social Media and Phones

Looking forward this week, I was eye $LNKD all last week.  Even took a hack at it but it wasn't ready to go. I got stopped out on the big drop on 7/16/13. That was fine because I I followed my plan and closed out before more possible losses. But after seeing where it went for the rest of the week, I am watching for another attempt at a break out.

I am watching a break out over the New High resistance line. It attempted this on the 18th on well above average volume. It couldn't follow through the following day but the weakness in the indexes that day held a lot of positive stocks down. The price is safely in the rising channel supporting more positive prices.

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The other one I am watching is $BBRY to the short side.  After the major breakdown after earning, this stock has shown very little strength. I have been watching it all week as it has traded pennies back and forth holding 9.20.  Finally on Friday, it broke the support with strength and volume. I have an 8.45 target on the immediate timeframe. As you can see, the RSI have been below 30 since the 1st of the month. Just goes to show you that a stock oversold can stay oversold. I think that a drop to the support of 8.45/.50 would be a good point for some relief and finally take it out of oversold and recharge.

Happy trading in the coming week.

CMG - Everyone loves fast food

Well it seems that everyone loves fast food. And it seems they think people will be eating more of it over this 4th of July holiday. I don't want to dwell on missed opportunities too much but I am putting this up for my own sanity and education. I watched CMG move about the descending triangle yesterday and thought about adding a call position on this. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.  Ultimately I felt that the volume wasn't large enough and given the short week, didn't think the players would be around to follow this through.

Here is the chart from today. Volume is coming in much higher today than yesterday and the price is following through.  Also breaking about May highs. I may have missed this break out but if it can hold about the May highs by the end of the week, I still think it has room to move in the coming weeks as well.

Have a safe holiday.

Moving On

I started writing in the blog for myself. I didn't post anything for the public to view. I think it is time to move on from that and start using it less as a tool to vent and complain and more of a tool to study and plan. I will try and do my research and post up the ideas and thought I have on specific stocks. I am an options trader so I will mostly only look at the big names. The names that can more $5, $10, $15 in a day frequently. The names the most everyday not in the stock market people know. For right now, I am looking at $AAPL.

The Setup

I like the double bottom in the 380's It didn't quite hit the same low, but given where it has come from, I think it got close enough. The strong close on Friday 6/28/13 on above average volume makes me think we can play this one for a run up to at least resistance at 420ish.

Given that we are on a holiday week and volume is going to be low, I don't expect large moves but some low volume continuous drifting up as the big players are at the beach this week. If for some reason the resistance breaks, I would be selling more at about 427, the top edge of the descending trend line.

I will be watching others like $LNKD and possibly a quick trade on a $BBRY short if it doesn't bounce today.

CURRENT POSITION
$AAPL weekly $400 calls. Bought at 2.80. Break ever at $402.80. Target profit 17.20 a contract. 614% profit.

No Pain, No Gain

My father is going through a relatively painful surgery procedure in order to fix a problem in his knees before he can no longer walk again.  He successfully finished the surgery on one knee and is now going through physical training post surgery.  It is very difficult and very painful.  But I just texted him a cliche that made me think.  It made me think about what I am going through right now in my trading.

No Pain, No Gain.

If there is any truth to this cliche, then the enormous pain I am going through right now should net monstrous gains in the long run.  No pain, no gain. Right?

Rules Were Meant To Be Broken

I know. Probably the worst thing I could do as a trader... not follow my rules.  I try though. I really do.  Plus, I don't know if the "rules" I make are necessarily good ones.

I have been getting hammered by $LULU both ways.  Up and down.  It keeps looking like it should retest a support but then does the opposite. Finally getting caught on the wrong side of a Friday rally when I really needed it to drop before expiration.  Starting to think this whole MM and pinning thing isn't just people whining about losing.  So after the 3rd bad trade in a row on $LULU, I told myself I was never going to trade it again. I even tweeted, "Officially on my do not trade list."  Well what did I do in the next 20 minutes? Took on a Put trade when it hit the 200d sma and retreated.  My theory is that it won't break the resistance and then finally trade down to the support levels I originally thought it should have.

So I broke a rule. But in my own defense, I think it was a stupid rule to begin with.

The One Where I Start

2/7/2013

It's been just under a year since I started trading hardcore.  And I am ready to tear my hair out.

Let me start with saying that I had an unfortunately fortunate beginning.  I say unfortunately fortunate because it was something incredible good which caused something bad in the long run.  My first foray into options (my vehicle of choice on my path to riches) was buying puts on $AAPL.  Crazy right? My first step was shorting the biggest name in the market.  Well, this step netted me just over $20,000 in profit in just about a week.  This was amazing! My head was spinning! I called my wife, we booked vacations, paid off credit cards.  I thought, "wow, this really is going to be easy."  THAT was my unfortunate part.  As I will later read in a blog by Brian Lund, bclund.com, one of the worst things to happen to a new trader is making hugely profitable trade.  My confidence levels were off the charts. I thought, "hey, I could do this every day."  And even my second trade, puts in $LULU, made me a few grand more.

But then reality hit.  I didn't manage the profits, spent way too much on options I didn't know enough about and soon, I was scrapping by making trades with a few hundred at a time.  1 option here, 2 options there.  Back and forth.  I fondly remember $PCLN tearing me a new one over multiple trades.  I was sick to my stomach.

I guess I didn't learn anything, because here I am again, scrapping the bottom. Where did I go wrong?  This is what I am here on this blog for.  To write about what I did right and what I did wrong.

Ever since the new year when I guessed the outcome of the fiscal cliff entirely wrong, it has been down hill.  This week was the last straw which lead me to start this blog.  I just can't get the direction of $AMZN and $LULU right.  I lose one way, flop the trade and lose the other way.  3 $AMZN trades and all but one for losses.  The only one that isn't for a lose, is my current put in $AMZN.  But the week isn't over yet.  $LULU has been osculating up and down, when it should be going down if the technicals were right.  But I actually held this one through a pop on Wednesday and didn't cut my losses.  It is dropping today so I have a little hope for it go positive.  But just like it keeps doing to me, it gets close to where I want it and then pops the other way.  Just out of reach.  I really need to stop hoping.  It's what I read and hear all the time.

As I am writing this, both my positions, which had sold off in my favor, has been gaining back ALL.DAY.LONG.  Seemingly, I just can't win.  The indexes are in the trash yet my shorts are gaining strength up.  We'll see if they are just playing with me and will sell back off.  Right now, I just want to scream as long as I can.  Bad day and probably broke another rule chasing $AAPL at the EOD.

Lessons I think I can take away from this week.

1. Don't flip flop trades.  If it isn't going my direction, don't sell and buy the opposite.  That's just when it will reverse again and screw me twice.
2. They rally the stock to sucker you in, then they pull the rug out from underneath you.

Maybe Friday will be special..... but I doubt it.

-J

The beginning

First, I'm not a full time trader. I never went to school for finance, stock markets or economics.  I literally have zero professional training in this field.  Yet here I am, spending thousands of dollars trying to make it work.  Thousands of dollars daily, weekly, by the hour.  I make money then it all goes away. I struggle and borrow and move funds around.  It's frustrating, highly emotional and dragging me to the ends of my patience.

Something isn't working. Maybe if I start writing my thoughts and ideas down, something will click.  All I know is I can't keep going like this or there will be nothing left to work with.

Let me start with why I am trading at all.  It would seem strange that someone who has always been constantly employed, an expert with my skill set, making over 120k a year would want to do something else entirely different to make money.  Well it is crazy. But the bottom line is I hate what I do.  I'm a television video editor and I am good at it.  People love me doing it, but I cringe every time I think about starting a new gig or coming back into work the next day.  And let's face it, 120k outside of NYC for a family of 4 just doesn't cut it.  It's a constant feeling of inadequacy.  Working day in and day out only to continue to struggle.  Answering to bosses who have no clue what you do yet for some reason think they know best about everything you do.  Getting low balled for pay. Being told "there just isn't enough in the budget" to pay you what you should really be getting.  I am sick of it and I want to tell them all to go to hell.  But I can't because of that family of 4 with a mortgage I need to worry about.

In comes the stock market.  The magical stock market. Where a person can take some cash and turn it into a fortune with seemingly no effort.  But I am not that dumb and nieve.  I know that it can't be that easy and never thought it was going to be.  But how could I not even try?  It makes you money out of money.  So I jumped in.  I read books (not as many as I should have), followed industry twitter accounts like @traderflorida and @gtotoy. Read daily blogs from some big names like Joe Fahmy, Josh Brown, Brian Lund and others like Crossing Wall Street. I get an endless barrage of emails daily from Seeking Alpha.  I am on stocktwits and CNBC streams daily in the background (although I have learned to not listen.)  And I am trying.  It has been hard. It will get a lot harder. This is where I am going to write everything down and hopefully help sort out the problems, issues and noise.  

JLipkin