This morning I jumped out of SEIC. I played the breakout up last week and looked for a retest of support this morning. NO LUCK! The stock broke support and continued lower. One of my trading rules is to trade at the end of the day, but this didn't look good. I got out (mostly an emotional move). Any advice on what to do when a stock moves against you early in the day? How can I tell if there is any momentum in the move early in the day? The move hit my stop loss and kept going...

Amy

Amy, I am no expert but breaking the ascending support by $0.20 or so would have been my exit. I am watching to see if EEM does the same thing SEIC did but so far holding at support. MCO nice!
Bob H.
CA

breakout on RIMM . If it holds above 143 could run into the 160"s.

Sarah

Anybody else watching RIMM? Breaking out of channel since late Nov. with all time high and analyst upgrade today. Volume is strong. For risk to reward ratio I'm wondering if it'll pull back a bit tomorrow or if it'll just go on a tear from here. Thoughts? RBC capital raised target to $180.
Loretta

Beware all snowmen!!! I have broken out the hockey pucks and will be lobbing several of them at the poor unsuspecting blobs of snow soon. ICE started the day out great and has since tanked (could it be taking some direction from CME?) Sure wish I was in MCO.
Amy look at what SEIC did later in the day. I find this happens a lot. Takes a dive and then gets bought back up. However there are also days that I wish I'd sold everything at the opening bell.

LIKE TODAY!!!

I know Jeff's not a big proponant of the Market Forecast... but it has been forecasting down days for the last three days. Sure wish I'd listened on day one!
Chris and Catherine.

Jeff,

You are saying to wait for confirmation on anything, but you are long MNST and down in your portfolio today because you thought the market would rally. I am not questioning your trading style or abilities whatsoever, but dont these statements contradict? Otherwise you would have waited the confirmation of the DOW bounce and the breakout of the flag on MNST. I am asking because of my question from last Friday and this area leaves me with a lot of questions.
Thanks man.

Stephen

Stephen,

Not sure what you are talking about. PS- How do you know I am long or not with MNST? And what would that have to do with anything?

Freaky-

Jeff

amy-
watch those emotional plays! If your rule is at the end of day, try to wait. I can't tell you how many times I have done the same thing only to regret it several days later. Case in point for me is MGM. got in on the bounce a few day ago..it was down in early morning trading but rallied back in the afternoon, hang in there


GReg

Jeff,

I was just reading your post for today and it says Long: MSTR - and I confused it with MNST. And when I was looking at MNST, I saw a flag that had not broken or confirmed. Above where it said long, it had Recommendation - wait for confirmation on anything - and since MNST had not confirmed I was wondering why you were in it. I apologize for the mix up.

Stephen

I am in awe! I did not know I was in a group of bloggers that had in its ranks individuals with mind reading abilities. WOW, or is it just Jeff's mind that is being read? Sorry, I could not help it after Jeff's comment. Well MCO gave a bunch back at the end of the day but I am still in it for tomorrow.
So Jeff your out on the limb for 50 points. What sound effects are we going to hear for that : ) ?
You ALL are great and I am learning tons, thanks for allowing the humor.
Bob H.
SolCal

Thanks everyone for commenting on SEIC and waiting until the end of the day. Even at the end of the day, the stock did not rally to stop loss set at 63.00. The gap is what has me questioning my rule for trading at the end of the day. This is my first gap (even though it is small) that blew through my stop loss and I am wondering if anyone applies an exit strategy when this happens.

Thanks again...
Amy

Stephen,

Ah, now I understand. I was so confused on where MNST came from.

In your debate about whether or not to wait for confirmation is more of a decision of whether you want to take high or low probability trades. I mentioned waiting for confirmation since the market is a little rocky and waiting will lead to better quaility & probability trades.

To wait or not to wait is not a question of right or wrong. It is a matter of what you are more comfortable with.

Of course if it is keeping you up at night, you could always incorporate backtesting to see which would be the better approach.

Jeff

Here's a case against hard stops--
MHS
Look at that move today.
I know when there is a huge wick, sometimes the interactive chart has been wrong in the past, but I checked the quote on MHS on 4 different sites and all confirmed today's low of $57.93
RIght now the stock is up $.53 for the day at 67.92
And to make matters worse, if you look at the 1 minute chart the stock dropped $10.00 from approximately $68 to $58 and then in the VERY NEXT one minute the stock went from 58 back up to 68. All of this in TWO WHOLE MINUTES!!!!
What on earth?!!!
Did the market maker drop the price by $10.00, swipe away everyone's position with a stop and then instantaneously raise the price back to $68??
Any other explanations out there?
Conclusion:
Hard stops stink! (I'm not even in it-I sold before earnings which was too soon at the time-but I can feel the pain of anyone who may have been stopped out of it intraday!!!)

Valerie W

I'm also short in MCO - gave back a bunch after about 1:30 et today, but is still doing fine and I'm staying in for now, although I did wonder if I shouldn't have gotten out. On the other hand, I got into RIMM last week after it broke through resistance on the 20th. It tested, broke up again, tested down again and then back through again, and when it went down and stayed down on the 22nd, I bailed. Look at today's results and you know the rest of the story. Another testament to the power of news, although sometimes I wonder why some news has a bigger affect than others. About a month ago someone else said it was undervalued and should hit $175 this year, and it actually went down from there. Go figure.

John M.

Stock: MSTR
Trade: Apl 140 Call
Entry: Bounce @ 130 w/i 2 da.