GAP TRADING, DAY TRADING, BREAKOUTS, CLIMACTICS - -
Welcome... This is your place for chart examples. Join me for my (periodic) daytrading posts, and a categorized list of specific trading chart examples (all trades that I've personally taken).
My hope is to provide interesting insights into another traders mind-set.
All questions and feedback are welcome. Prosperous trading to all.
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TRADING PLAY POSTS (below)
Below you will see (sporadic) posts of trades I have taken, with write-ups of each. Although most posts displayed are of winning trades, please know that I "do" make my share of losing trades.
Look through the following trade-shots to see if you would have made the same trades, and if (according to your trading plan) you would have managed them differently, for better or worse.
In any case, my mind-set has been captured in these posts and hopefully you can take something from them or even comment on how you feel I can do better.
Macro setup: Daily Gap-up into resistance, and filling prior (Gap-down). A gap into a supply area on a downtrending daily stock almost always calls for a bearish bias, especially when the prior 2-days were bullish.
Entry setup: After establishing it's opening 5-minute range, the stock setup a narrow range 5-minute bar. After taking out the high of that 5-minute bar, supply took over and the stock shot down very quickly. I shorted right at the "break" at 16.77 with a stop over the morning high.
I covered half near the gap-fill, then covered the back half after it bounced off the next level of support around 15.70.
Macro setup: Daily Bear Gap under hourly pivot and prior Bullish daily bar ("Bull"-shocker).
Entry setup: After establishing it's opening 5-minute range, the stock setup a 1' Sell-setup at the declining s8ma (simple 8-period moving average) with a series of narrow-range bars. The stop-loss was very tight, giving the opportunity for a low-risk, high potential gain trade.
As usual, I covered my position with multiple exits (which is in my plan, but not to be lead by example) so I did not realize the full potential profits. But, a good winning trade none-the-less.
This was a Gap trade that gapped just under hourly Major Support. I caught the entry near the 10:00 Reversal Time. It was a Sell Setup after a retracement back to a minor resistant area, after gapping down into an hourly downtrend.
I took it as a "scalp" trade off the 5-minute chart, so I covered my position after 3-bars down into the prior morning support area - clearly too soon (always easier to say you should have gotten out "here" after the fact).
Trading has been "very" slow for me in the month of June. Personal issues/setbacks/endeavors have kept me from my main focus - Trading! So far in June, I have only placed (3) trades. The other two were for small losses. This trade here made up for them both (and then some). I hope to be back on a more permanent schedule here in the near future.
CHKP gapped up on 5/14 over daily Major Resistance. It traded down and made an appoximate 50% gap fill, then traded back up and based in the top 30% of its opening price - bullish! As soon as the price on the 2' chart met up with the r20ma, it broke out over the base, giving a nice tight stop and decent Reward to Risk ratio. See what happens next ----->
This was a GAP trade. It gapped down under an hourly pivot, confirming the hourly downtrend. The stock acted bullish from the open, so I kept it on the list to see how much of the gap it would fill... it was less than 50%, so now I look for an intraday opportunity to short. I missed the double top after it retested the 30-minute high, but noticed it forming a small base running into the 5-min d20ma, which is exactly where I like to enter breakdown plays. As you can see, taking the earlier double top entry would have made a nice profit... Check out the chart to see what happened next ---->
It was a very short trading week for me. The trading platform was off from Mon-Thurs to "get stuff done"... did I get'r done? Well definitely not as much as I had hoped, but it was some needed time off none-the-less.
Friday was back in the office as usual around 5am to do my typical early morning scanning, which did not produce any immediate buy/short entries after the open. ATVI was on my list to go long after it had gapped up over 4-months of daily consolidation. The opening 5' bar was a bit wide and coming right to the point of prior Major Resistance on the daily chart - I was not convinced to play it over that high, so I waited for another setup, which didn't come (for me).
Nothing else was setting up for me either until scanning thru the Top-20 gainers/losers list. Symbol TE came up and I quickly noticed how far and fast it had runup. It was a continuation move from the prior days late day breakout pattern. Seeing how extended it was on all charts, I shorted the 1st 5-minute reversal at 9:55am.
Not much of a trading day today (for me).Lots of stocks (watchers) on my list, but few set up the way I liked, except for JAVA. I initially shorted a 2-minute low at 9:32, but I didn't give it "any" room to move against me as the gap was fairly large, so the chance of it retracing back into the gap fill was not something I was going to let happen. No chart of this play, but I got out at break even after there was no immediate follow thru.
The 2nd play came much later at the 11:15 reversal time. The gap was still a bit extended, but a rather perfect setup otherwise. Check out the chart:
