Thursday, February 17, 2011

Day Trades - TCK, CLF, TBL


Bear flags have been hit and miss in this market. Mostly they've been fake outs. So why was TCK a good short? From the daily chart above, we noted a huge volume spike on the Feb. 9th drubbing. So we see a huge red stick with volume, plus bear flag with NRIB observing the downsloping 5 ema as resistance closing at the base of support. This bear flag felt like it could work.

Small size on break of $58.00 and added at the first consolidation BO. Took a partial after 3 consecutive WRBs on 15 min. timeframe (not depicted). Got stopped on balance as price capitulated into $56.00 and bounced.


CLF gapped up on earnings. Price chopped around in the first hour and then started basing in an increasingly narrow range, forming a flat base at $99.50, and setting up a gap fade.

Price breaks down, retests the base and runs lower for 3 consecutive 15 minute bars. Take a partial as price approaches $98.00. CLF snapped back sharply. I thought the second half was going to get stopped out at BE, but, it came back down and I was able to salvage a decent profit on the second half.

Looking back at the 15 minute chart, there just wasn't enough volume expansion on the initial leg lower to expect continuation.


TBL was another earnings gap from the Trade-Ideas scanner - gap up min. $1.00, RSI on 15 minute timeframe minimum 60.

TBL gapped and ripped then spent most of the rest of the session in a tight narrow range. Normally, I like to buy the BO of the upper range, but time was of the essence, so I decided to buy the bounce off of the bottom of the range, then if the BO failed, I would have some profit from the trade. Turned out to be a good strategy as price/volume expanded into the close. The base BO also set up perfectly with a low risk NRB on the 15 min. timeframe.

Entry and exits depicted on 1 minute chart below.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Jamie,

Nice observations on TCK bear flag. I have been taking some low risk test short positions, but as you mentioned most have not followed through (yet).

TJ said...

Hey Jim,

Saw a few stocks ripping lower on the TI scanner this afternoon ACOM, SNDA, and GMCR. Also, caught a nice short day trade in POT a couple of days ago, but no follow through yet.

Ashish said...

Hi Jamie,

How do you plan to monitor the breakouts in AMRN (above 9) and PNRA? Have you set alerts or would you actively follow them in your watchlist? I am bringing up these questions on the issue of how to prevent watchlist bloatage.

Thanks,
Ash

TJ said...

Hi Ash,

The WL bloating effect is a great point. It tends to happen during earnings season as more and more companies beat, gap and extend. If the markets correct, we'll be able to distinguish the real winners that hold up well, from the average earnings gapper that follows the market trend.

The AMRN setup was taken on Friday. I'm adding to an existing swing long. I saw PNRA go and passed. I seem to be doing better on the short side last couple of sessions.

One way to alleviate WL bloating is to review the entire WL every night and prepare a focus list of stocks with actionable setups for the next day. I don't use alerts too often, because I find most of them go off on the open.