MRK

All posts tagged MRK

Swing Trades

I framed no trades for possible execution today. Eight positions hit their stops: FNV, EQR, USO PVG, BMY, MRK, XME(2).

Knowing XME was to be closed today and seeing gold down at the open, I probably could have cut PVG earlier in the day:

XME had met the criteria to be closed at the end of yesterday, but I missed closing it. I tightened up the stop on FNV and got cut out on the second test of the bottom for the day.

Moved the stop up and exited the second half of EQR today on general market weakness:

Could have cut BMY after the PSAR flipped, but I was willing to be patient for the huge upside back to the RL270. In a market with no clear direction though, it’s better not to hold on to the weak candidates.

Was playing MRK for a bounce off the Bollinger band mean, but all it seemed to do after I entered was go down.

I had entered the stop as a trailing stop instead of a hard stop on USO, so got taken out on the spike down today. Not what I was expecting for a 2ATR stop from my entry point just a day after entry, but oil can be volatile.

Total restults for today’s closed trades: +.61R (but that includes the full value of the EQR trade. Without it, -.4R.) There are 15 current open positions showing +2.39R.

Long: AEM, BMY, CAT, GLD, INTC, IR, KR, OXY, PFE, PYPL, RIO, TPR, TWTR.
Short: JPM.

Day Trades

I had no time today to sit and watch the market, so I was not able to make any day trades. I may be able to catch the last hour of the market tomorrow, but from the looks of my schedule this week, I don’t believe I will be able to place any more day trades this week. Perhaps I will load up the replay in a simulator to keep my game in shape as I do have some time outside of regular trading hours that I can devote to trading.

Reflections

The market seems indecisive. For yesterday and today, the major indexes closed very close to where they opened. With no clear direction from the market, it’s hard for individual stocks to move very far. My general observation is that when the market moves into a sideways quiet channel, I get chopped up and take losses looking for directional moves, whether continuations or reversals. These periods create my drawdowns. I’m still taking the trades as paper trades so that I can track where my equity turns around and learn more about what to look for when I will be trading real money. I want documented proof to back up my intuition of what happens to the systems I currently trade.

Swing Trades

Today I framed three possible trade targets: BMY, TSLA, and MRCY. I was filled on two of the three. After a nice short trade in BMY, I am short again:

Also short MRCY:

Four swing trades closed today.
GRUB had a nice large pop yesterday that finally gave me confidence to move my stop up to NLD2 (No lose plus dinner for two). I had been patient with the trade, but the new stop got hit today. Net: +.22R

One other winner got closed out today, MRK. This was a breakout play from a pinch condition. I started moving the stop up after price made it to the +3 Bollinger Band and sold off yesterday. Final result: +1R.

Two trades closed at losses today. I believe I should have exited these sooner. The market has been in a sideways state recently, so I let my patience keep me in these trades that were either not going strongly my way or working their way against me. Short THC closed at -.8R and Long NKE closed for -.57R.

For the day, I have 2 less swing positions open, so a total of 24 positions currently at +22.2R.

Long: GDX, V, KO, CVX, XLE, ABX, AEM, CBRE, ESPR, GLD, MSFT, CSCO, DVN, EOG, PXD, SLB, USCI, QCOM, LMT.
Short: HSY, NYT, BMY, MRCY.

Day Trades

I was once again able to watch the market for the first 60-90 minutes and made 15 day trades. Net result was +1.88R. There were several order entry mistakes that got me into positions in places I was not planning on entering.

I primarily use the BookTrader at Interactive Brokers for the Dow Mini Futures when I day trade. My preference is to have the order transmitted as soon as I click on the appropriate spot. I’ve gotten stuck in the past when IB asks for confirmation, so this morning I went to put an order in ahead of time so that I could make it through the IB prompts before I wanted to be in the market. Unfortunately, I entered a Stop order instead of a Limit order, so it filled immediately. While I could have chosen to exit as soon as it filled, I decided to stick with the position and worked my way out of it. This did however shift my emotional state, and I ended up making 2-3 more order entry mistakes again as I either clicked on buy when I meant to sell, or submitted a stop order instead of a limit. Today was a sideways quiet sort of day, so I was able to work my way out of some of these mishaps, but I also stuck around too long and gave back gains that I could have had in hand.

Not my best day trading, but I’ll pat myself on the back for staying collected while fixing problems.