Pivot High

Well, I was able to replay NOV short later in the afternoon.  Price action in NOV after dropping hard in the morning started to base at 12:00 noon through the end of lunch at 2:15 pm.  Once I notice that NOV was starting to roll over and the market was at minor resistance, I entered the play.  I had a nice tight stop of 11 cents and price moved away from my entry quickly.  Price formed a lower pivot below my entry price so I was able to move down my stop to this area on the 1 minute chart.  Again price moved lower breaking the prior low and continuing lower and then finally making a 2nd lower low where I was able to lower my stop a 2nd time.  Unfortunately I was trailed out of the play 3 minute later, a nice way to end the day with a little over 3 “R”isk units made which got my day profitable.  

nov 01082013

My next play was a short in NTAP which I also found on my gap list this morning.  Not a Tier I gap, but good enough for a short setup.  I entered on a 2 minute sell but soon after price put in a small higher pivot which caused me to move my stop to break even.  I was stopped out a minute later and decided not replay but as you can see NTAP finally headed lower nicely…

NTAP 1

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At 3:00 pm the market was testing the highs again and I felt it might be a good time to look for a short play.  CREE had been selling off nicely all day and started to break down as the market was rolling over just after 3 pm.  My entry came as a nice base break down with a nice 11 cent stop and what looked like a huge risk to reward of about .50 cents.  Price moved down nicely allowing me to move my stop down to break even, since I was already down 2 R for the day, there is no since to add to my misery today.  Price continued lower then CREE decided to attempt to break higher as the market decided to take out the morning high and threaten to go higher.  Price came to within .01 cent of stopping my play out and finally putting in a lower pivot just .02 cents from my break even stop.  Then price sold off hard and I started to feel like CREE might make it to my target in the .50 cent area.  Finally, I had hooked the elephant going lower, I took all of my profits at the .55 area with a little over 5 R trade which made my day.  I was finally able to squeeze out a profitable day with price finally doing what I expected it to do!  Here is the chart for my short play in CREE.

CREE

I also found JDSU gaping nicely over a red bar on the daily chart this morning, my entry was a 15 minute buy that I zoomed down to the 2 minute chart to perfect the entry.  JDSU had very similar price action to GILD with similar results, as I was finally stopped out of the play after JDSU had rallied upward nicely only to fail on a 2 minute base area.  Unlike GILD, JDSU did not recover going mostly sideways for the rest of the day.

JDSU

I attempted two long plays in GILD today which I found on my gap list this morning. GILD was not an immediate play, I just needed to wait for the proper entry.  My first attempt was a failed buy setup near the rising 20 ma, once my entry bar closed red, I just killed the play, no sense taking a full R loss here.  Finally, GILD triggered at 15 minute buy at 12:30 pm, I zoomed down to the 5 minute chart to perfect my entry and I finally entered at 1:10.  GILD move up nicely at first allowing me to move up my stop on a two minute pivot area but by 1:35 price action started to sell off hard with the market taking out my stop.  Price action did correct itself and GILD did move up higher but I found it hard to re-enter the play since the market was selling off hard during the same time.   Here is the chart for my long play in GILD…   

GILD

My next play was in CREE short which was another nice gap down play that I shorted the first 5 minute sell setup.  I zoomed down to the 2 minute chart for the entry just after 10 am but once the market started to rally I found myself exiting CREE early.  I made a big mistake here, this could have been a huge trade that I would have been in all day long.  Even though the market was rallying, CREE continued to drop the rest of the day.  I think this was a good case of over thinking the bar charts too early in a trade.  Here is my chart for my short play in CREE…

CREE1