Day Trading US Stocks Review 11-16-2010

I didn’t do that well day trading the S&P 500 US stocks yesterday. Although I picked winners such as LVS and SLB stock, I failed to make money from one of my major stock picks, XOM. Looking for entry points both as breakouts and in trend lines, in the end my trading account showed a loss. If only I had picked out COST stock in my watch list. That stock would have become a huge winner as it moved 60c in just 3 minutes breaking above a triangle and a resistance level, a dreaming scenario for every day trader I’m sure, allowing both easy entry and clear signals for trading out.

My biggest winning trades yesterday were LVS and SLB stocks. LVS had a huge decline the stock price began falling below 48.50 and finally found support at about 46.50 for $2 profit per share in less than 2 hours, if we short sold. Trading with 1,000 shares that price drop would make us almost $2,000 profit. The LVS stock is still a fine stock to keep track of today, as a breakout would push the price further down. SLB stock on the other hand didn’t provide easy to spot setups in the stock graph and the stock price certainly didn’t follow a certain trend. However I was able to make 68c per share during the decline from 73.60 to 72.80.

My biggest losing trade happened with XOM stock. Although XOM was one of my [intlink id=”1006″ type=”post”]hot stock picks yesterday[/intlink], not only did I fail to trade profitably, but also managed to lose money in a series of trades. The stock actually followed my prediction for a decline yesterday and broke a couple of support levels pointed out in the 3-min graph mainly during the first trading hours. However I was unable to trade efficiently and made mistakes both with entry and exit points. DHI stock was my next biggest loser and now that I’m looking at the intraday graphs, I can’t really justify myself for even trading that one. I guess one of the mistakes I made was to be eager to enter a trade than sitting on my hands. I also lost money trading the M stock, which one hour after the opening broke nicely below a support level at 24.40 and drifted down to 24 for 40c profit per share in case of short selling. Once again I was proven incompetent in showing a profit from such a clear price movement.

Special note about COST stock is necessary regarding the S&P 500 stock review of yesterday. The stock wasn’t in my watch list but it offered a great opportunity to trade long 3 hours before the close. The stock price was trading in a triangle if you look in the 10-min graph when a huge green candlestick moved the price up by 1$ per share in just 10 minutes. Even most spectacular was the candlestick in the 3-min graph which could have been traded by entering at the close of the previous candlestick having broken the resistance level. You could make 80c or so per share which translates in $800 profit in 3 minutes, should you exit at the close of that candlestick. Hopefully some of you caught that huge climb intraday.