Thursday, April 17, 2008

Gapper Cup & Handle - Altera Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:ALTR)

ALTR, an earnings gapper from the Briefing.com list, carved out a C&H pattern after a retracement to R2. The base of the C&H pattern set up right at the $21.00 point and the trigger bar closed on its high. Can't ask for more than that. At the $21.50 level it carved out a tweezer top and I tightened the stop to $21.45 based on the strength of the move thus far. C&H patterns usually have more momentum and I just wasn't feeling it here.

4 comments:

Jon said...

Hi Jamie,

I just wanted to ask you real quick about your afternoon trading strategies: how do they differ from the morning strategies? The market action in the afternoon is so much different (slower) and there isn't much momentum. It seems there is a lot of back and forth action going on. Thanks for your input!

TJ said...

Jonathan,

The narrow range choppiness is especially predominant on the Thursday and Friday of Options Expiration week. So since tomorrow is OPEX, we had a lot of choppiness today. I try to be extra careful during the choppiness not to take any lame setups. In fact sometimes, it's better to just walk away and take the afternoon off.

Today, I had a few setups from the WL, so I was able to get in a few good trades.

Sometimes, if I get bored, I start scalping, buying support and selling resistance for pocket change.

Robert Zotter said...

In situations like this do you wait till the break of the ORH or the round number?

TJ said...

RZ,

If the dollar number is just pennies away, it's easier to place the buy stop order on, or a penny above the $ number. The $ numbers and half dollar numbers are often strong areas of S/R and if it's going to break or not, will be evident very quickly.