Trading The Plan

My personal trading list (after nightly review of the daily WL charts) for today was as follows:

AMZN B&B $82.00, CTSH B&B $36.00, NKE B&B $69.00, JOYG Bull Flag $85.00, ESRX symmetrical triangle on the daily, ENER break of 3 NRIBs on daily. I also wanted to catch HANS which has been running without me lately, and NIHD, a HCPG pick from yesterday which I missed but could catch on a pullback/continuation play.

So what happens when everything breaks simultaneously on the open? I knew we would have a strong open following the less than estimated job claims because the futures started running up at a good clip on that economic release.

At the end of the day, the entire trading list posted gains topped by HANS 7+%, followed closely by ENER. The worst performer was ESRX just 1.3%. The average was approx. 3.5%.

Usually when I put a trading list together, I'm hopeful of 2-3 good candidates. Today I managed to catch a piece of 6/8 names. Which ones did I miss? The E's ESRX because I didn't like the choppy mess in early trade and ENER because it went vertical off the open :( Almost 4 pts. in less than 30 minutes). That's the power of NRIBs!

Got an early start by placing a buy stop order for CTSH at $36.02 as the market was about to open. Used the pre-market low around $35.85 as my stop.

AMZN - missed $82.00 but found a mini base at $83.00. First exit is a partial, followed by a stop out.

HANS - Thought this one was going to run away from me again, but I liked the base at R2 and it was obvious this was going to fill the gap on the daily. R2 held as support in the afternoon, so this was a double play. Makes up partially for missing the run up in the past days.

NKE - I wanted to get the BO of the base at the lower blue line, but was distracted and missed it. Took the break of the swing high instead.

JOYG - Wanted to enter on the three pivot B&B at $85.50, but missed it and waited for price to consolidate (bull flag). Stopped out on a bearish rounded top and re-entered later at the exact same price for another pt. JOYG trading in the daily spot - they usually run to the end of the session.

NIHD - At the time I set this up as a C&H B&B. Nice volume on the BO bar and then no follow through. Hate when that happens. Took a partial at the 62% Fib. extension of the low of the cup to base because there wasn't enough volume. Stopped out shortly after. Notice how it also came back to my initial entry point late in the session for a nice bounce.



Thanks to HCPG, I'm really liking the 3 minute time frame. I can see the bases forming much more clearly than the 5 min.

Institutional buying was in play today. This usually happens once or twice per month (near beg. and end) in bull markets. Prices spike off the open and just keep running. After the early run, pullbacks are generally shallow and many stocks close near the highs of the day.