Swing trading stocks

goldenswan

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At the recommendation of experienced traders I decided to start a public journal to log all my trades and thoughts on the markets.
Now in the last days of December the Santa Claus rally is in full swing. As a matter of fact, the whole 2019 is a big rally in retrospect.
My recent trades:
INTU bought @262.42 on Dec 16
VRSN bought @193.32 on Dec 16
EBAY bought @35.98 on Dec 19
AAL bought @28.825 on Dec 20
ULTA bought @248.75 on Dec 20
 
Dec 27 bought AMZN at 1877.9 with stop loss at 1799.63
Later on it may look like a stupid trade but on Dec 26 Amazon did break up 4 month resistance on 2x volume.
 
January 6 bought these stocks:
CHKP at 113.24, stop loss - 109.69
WDAY at 170.43, stop loss - 160.06
NVAX at 4.72, stop loss - 4.10
 
Santa Claus rally never ends despite WW3 fears at the same time
January 8 bought these stocks:
MITK at 7.97, stop loss - 7.32
TRIP at 30.47, stop loss - 28.10
MSI at 165.73, , stop loss - 154.52
These three are breaking out of tight ranges

TEAM at 131.11, stop loss - 120,54
TEAM started month on very strong volume
 
January 17:
ALLO - entry and exit at stop loss on the same day - entry at 27.43, exit - 25.33

Also bought:
VEEV @ 147.95
ALRM @ 46.06
TRHC @ 51.91
AAL @ 28.52
CTSH @ 62.86
 
It seems that the market does not care any more about the virus

January 28:

Bought VCRA at 22.22

Bought GILD at 64.58
 
Hello goldenswan. I am a beginner learning the basics.

I gather you have been buying stocks, and some of your stops cleared. Were those stops all losses that were set to prevent bigger losses?

Have you profited from any of these journaled trades yet?

What exchange or which online brokerage are you using to buy and sell?

Are you primarily trading by news items and fundementals behind each stock? Which news sources do you read from?

What is your approach (if any) with technical analysis?

What is the size of this account for swing trading? How much money do you have on the line?
 
Last edited:
Hello Bubba!

Yes, these stop orders were placed to prevent much bigger losses. I noticed that if a stock goes down 6-8% (depending on this stock volatility) it is unlikely to go up any time soon. More likely it will go further down or just stale in range so no point in having it either.

>Have you profited from any of these journaled trades yet?
Yes right now I have unrealised gains which are 3 times bigger than the booked losses. Alghough it is just a coincedence that markets just go up and up despite anything. Could be more losses - you never know.

>What exchange or which online brokerage are you using to buy and sell?
I trade liquid US stocks, they usually trade on 2 exchanges - NYSE and Nasdaq, although I do not pay attention on which exchange, I just look at liquidity. I use Interactive Brokers as my broker - they have very low commissions (residents of the USA do not pay commissions at all).

I do not use news or fundamental data (but there profitable traders and investors who use them). For my signals I use breakouts and calendar patterns (stocks which are members of Nasdaq 100 index tend to go up in the first 4 days of each month). So pretty basic staff. It works well in the bull market.

My stop loss level per trade is 0.1% of my account. It is very small because I can have up to 50 positions open at the same time.
 
Markets continue to go up no matter what including the Chinese stocks.
On February 4 bought:
WYNN at 131.48
SBUX at 87.34
TXN at 125.59

On February 5 bought:
EBAY at 36.64
CSCO at 48.33
LBTYK at 20. 17
WBA at 52.89
NTAP at 57.15
CMCSA at 44.83
FCX at 12.43
SBUX at 87.34
 
February 6. Two stocks hit take profit:

TRHC exited at 62.75. Moved up 20.88% from my entry

CTSH exited at 68.88. Moved up 9.58% from my entry
 
February 6. Two stocks hit take profit:

TRHC exited at 62.75. Moved up 20.88% from my entry

CTSH exited at 68.88. Moved up 9.58% from my entry
How are you selecting these health and medicine related stocks? Are your stock selections because of the Coronavirus, or would you normally be trading stocks related to that?

Are TRHC and CTSH small or newer companies? Those seem like they are higher risk bets. Even though you pulled a 20% profit from that one, are you still coming out on top, if you are betting on multiple stocks like that certsinly not all will bring 20% returns.

Interesting how your journal is mostly showing either wins or losses but not showing profits in dollar amounts. Are you mostly setting a goal of making successful trades more than making dollar amounts?

You are only swing trading or do you work other methods as well, like day trading? I am interested in swing trading but I am not very active. I have no open trades right now because I'm spending time just reading and learning more.

How much time do you spend for your swing trading each day in front of a computer monitor? It's like you fish around for trades and have to keep an eye on up to 50, waiting for them to clear. Is that about right?
 
February 13:

NTAP stopped out at 53.50 - wild earnings reaction. Loss -6.38%

Bought INCY for 78.11
Bought CAMP for 10.38
 
Februrary 14 - GTT stoped out at 12.88. Loss is 9.93%
Februrary 18 - exited VCRA for 21.01. Profit is 21.58%
 
February 24 was a real bloodbath
Was stopped out:
BIDU at 122.76. Loss is 9.99%
FCX at 11.17. Loss is 10.12%
WYNN at 121.11. Loss is 7.89%
CSCO at 44.77. Loss is 7.37%
TXN at 123.39. Loss is 1.75%
WBA at 49.19. Loss is 7.00%

At the same time took profit on GILD at 73.77. Win of 14.23%

Bought PVG for 8,19
 
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