Thursday, January 11, 2007

Trade of the Day - U.S. Global Investors, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:GROW)

Today was a bit of a disappointment given the overall market performance. Maybe I was in the wrong sectors. GROW was a NR7 (narrowest bar over the last seven sessions) price expansion candidate and JNPR was a range breakout play.

I took a long entry in GROW on the second fifteen minute bar as price pushed through resistance on high volume. Shortly after moving up to the $58.50 area, price started to consolidate, eventually breaking higher and tagging $59.50. So far so good. At this point, I felt it was safe to move my stop up to $59.00. I was stopped out with one of my worst fills ever. I felt robbed. That's the problem trading stocks with a wide spread - be prepared to lose of huge chunk of profit on stop outs. Better to sell on a limit order before price craters.


JNPR long on the 5 bar as price flirted with the opening range high. I was stopped out of JNPR as price took a midday swoon.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I trade 99% gap plays, but I was watching GROW as per your post. The spread scared me away. I couldn't believe how much it was at times. I think I saw almost 30 cents at one point. Eeeesh.

TJ said...

The slippage on my stop loss was slightly more than that. Very discouraging.

Anonymous said...

Hi jamie. How do you like NYX as a 'potential NR7'? Any chance of a squeeze higher soon? all appcreaite your comments.

Basim.

TJ said...

Hi Basim,

I don't see an NR7 on the daily chart for NYX at the moment. But we did have a nice one on the 60 minute timeframe yesterday at 11:30, just before the big move from $104 to $109 in the afternoon. Did you catch a piece of that momo move?

Anonymous said...

From what i can see today's range is the smallest of the past 7. It's not as narrow as i would have liked to see it. I have been in it since it broke out above that 104 resistance. It frustrated me today that it didn't participate in today's rally. Maybe one or two more days of narrow ranges bars would be nice prior to another round of breakouts. Up volume patterns looks great. let's see if it breakouts soon. If it does I have a taregt of 130. What do you think?
Basim.

TJ said...

Basim,

Check out the articles linked to the NR7 post above. Today's volume was quite high. We want a NRB with very low volume.

My near-term target for NYX would be $112.00 - a retest of recent highs. A break of $112.00 could see price go to the same distance between last week's low and $112 which is probably how you came up with $130.

Anonymous said...

Jamie, I saw the same problem. I usually use market orders on my sales but the spread started widening after 58.50. I decided to place a limit order to sell $0.05 BELOW the stop which luckily got filled. -TVH

TJ said...

Thanks TVH,

I will try the limit stop order next time I get into a stock with a wide spread.