Breakout Trading using Time and Sales

great thread amit

Re: finding BGC on a scanner beforehand, do you mind detailing what specific filters you used to find the stock. I can see a volume increase on the last candle, dis that make a difference?
 
Hi gktk,

I found BGC through the eSignal scanner. Below the toolbar, there are various buttons. One of those buttons shows two arrows - one green and one red, running in opposite directions. If you click on that button, the "Hot List" box pops up and you can scroll through various categories.

During the morning and early afternoon, I scroll through the following categories:

-NYSE Stocks: Very Short Term Up
-NYSE Stocks: Very Short Term Down
-NASDAQ Stocks: Very Short Term Up
-NASDAQ Stocks: Very Short Term Down

These provide a bunch of stocks that have been trending for the past few minutes. I then look at the daily volume traded to be greater than 1 million and for the share price to no less than $5.

The volume spike where I exited did make a difference in my exiting decision. I figured, with so many buyers piling into this stock (as I could see on level 2) and the volume accelerating, there would probably less buyers left to drive it any higher. Once momentum died, I exited as it could have reversed very quickly.

Amit
 
Today is turning out to be a bit of a scalping day. Only got two quick trades so far and managed to miss quite a few.

FLR: +16 cents per share
X: +13 cents per share

Very choppy, flat market.
 
excellent tread, very helpful to a newbie. Please keep up this tread
how many trades you do normally every day?
 
Thanks aberden.

The number of trades I take per day, on average, varies greatly and is a function of two things:

1) the amount of opportunities the market presents; and

2) the amount of profit I've made within the day.

I don't force trades - if there is no setup, I wait till an opportunity presents itself. If I've got significant gains early in the morning, then I try to restrict my trading to almost-perfect setups because I don't want to be getting chopped up and giving back to the market in small pieces.

Today I took 18 trades. On November 5th, I took only 3 trades. So, it varies greatly.

Amit
 
Thanks for the reply
In my case, I only trade in the evening session. I find it is hard to find good setups at that time, so i sometimes force to trade try to catch several cents here and there. Most of my trading days I am loss, but thanks God the loss is small. I have leaned to cut the loss as small as possible. The next step for me is to find the high probability setup to improve my win %. I have booked a session with Mr Chart next week, I hope i can get improved after that.
 
Hi aberden,

The great thing about the afternoon session is that it is a little easier to trade than the early morning session, though also less profitable. It's a great way to start.

Best of luck with the session with Richard.

Amit
 
Got plenty of stocks to keep an eye on today - even had to get rid of some good ones just to have a decent amount on the watch list. I'm going to be keeping an eye on the following:

APL, ATLS, CHBT, COV, DF, EBIX, FOSL, JASO, LDK, SLW, SOLF, YHOO.

ATLS is definitely the most promising judging by its pre-market behavior.
 
Also, I don't trade forex as much as U.S. stocks, however, I do swing trade the USD/CAD pair whenever my signal comes. The Canadian dollar has crossed parity to the US dollar. Definitely a great time to go long the US dollar or short the Canadian dollar.

Amit
 
Trading in a choppy, slow environment

An insanely boring day today. You'd figure that with such a gap down in the markets pre-market this morning, there would be several opportunities, but not today. Typical day resulting in a few small gains and a few small losses. That is, until...

I found AH off a scanner after it plunged down and was starting to consolidate around the 50-cent level. At this point, I was not considering trading it because the volume was so low (approximately 140,000 shares traded on the day). Then, I saw some bid pressure on level 2 and decided to initiate a long position. Bids and offers on low volume stocks are highly susceptible to trades. That is, a rush of buying (selling) moves the offers (bids) quickly.

I exited when I saw selling pressure building.

Long Entry: $8.52
Exit: $8.81
Profit: +29 cents per share
Length of trade: 23 minutes

Since the stock was moving slowly and easily, I was able to take a screenshot at the time of exit. Additionally, see broker screenshot entry/exit details + time of trades taken.

As for potential stops after entry, on level 2 I could observe significant support at 8.47, so I kept my stop below there. However, Mr. Charts' stop criteria of opposite end of the previous candle would also have worked well here.

Amit
 

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Thanks for the reply
In my case, I only trade in the evening session. I find it is hard to find good setups at that time, so i sometimes force to trade try to catch several cents here and there. Most of my trading days I am loss, but thanks God the loss is small. I have leaned to cut the loss as small as possible. The next step for me is to find the high probability setup to improve my win %. I have booked a session with Mr Chart next week, I hope i can get improved after that.

aberden,
I'm looking forward to meeting you and giving you lots of help.
Richard
 
Watching BSFT for a potential reversal trade, but hate the wild spread on it.
 
There's a very high chance BSFT will fall, but I am not shorting it as the spread is 10 cents...far too large for my taste.
 
amit, well done. If you do not mind, can you answer some questions.
are you only using the setups Mr Richard taught or combine Richards and yours to create your own trading plans?
How many setups do you use for the day trading?
thanks
 
amit, well done. If you do not mind, can you answer some questions.
are you only using the setups Mr Richard taught or combine Richards and yours to create your own trading plans?
How many setups do you use for the day trading?
thanks

aberden,

Most of the time, I am using Richard's setups, especially during the morning session. Though, once in a rare while, if there is an interesting setup like the failed inverted head and shoulders trade I posted, I will take it only if level 2 confirms an entry.

You will learn 12 setups from Richard and those are the ones I use as well :).
 
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