Description

My basic trading philosophy can be summed up by one simple quote:

"Trade the ticker, not the company" - Nate Michaud


Monday, February 24, 2014

Trade Recap: 2/24/14 XXII Short

I'm doing a trade recap on XXII because I believe it's a perfect example of momentum snapping on a bullish chart. As you can read in my watchlist from yesterday, my notes on XXII were:

"XXII - Four up days in a row without going red, and chart is starting to overextend. Volume is lighter so executions will be tougher; but I want to short either a large morning spike or a g/r snap."

This morning, XXII quickly gave me the shorting opportunity I was looking for. Below, you can see a one minute chart of the opening few minutes, with a white line inserted representing the previous closing price:

The morning spike quickly failed, and as the stock started to break down, I could tell by the level 2 action that there was a very good chance of the stock dropping below the previous closing price and giving me the g/r move I was looking for. I started shorting and wound up short a little over 7000 shares from $4.21ish. I'd like to note that I was trying to get far more size than this, but the illiquid nature of this stock made executions difficult. Below, you can see how the next hour of trading played out:

XXII had a very fast washout, dropping to a low of $3.61 in just three minutes. I managed to cover about 1500 shares at $3.65 but got stuck in the remainder of my position. XXII then had a very fast and strong recovery, bouncing all the way up to $4.14 in just ten minutes. Despite the fact that my position was suddenly going against me, I stayed calm, and I didn't chase the spike. I knew that in bounce situations retraces back towards the low are very common, as the stock usually needs to retest once. In this case, since XXII was fairly illiquid and it looked like it was setting a higher low, I covered the rest of my shares in the low $3.80s on the pullback. I knew I could always reshort if the stock continued to crack later in the day. As it turned out, XXII held up and closed the day at $4.22. 

XXII was a great example of following a plan and taking profits rather than staying too patient or getting greedy. I let the price action guide me and knew to cover the rest of my shares when XXII set a higher low. For the remainder of the day, I left XXII alone, as the easy part was over and I had gotten the move I was looking for. 

I hope everyone can learn from this trade. Please contact me with any questions!

30 comments:

  1. Hi Tim,
    Any chance you would share your level 2 videos with me and also share what promoters you are following right now? sitesbyus2008 [@] g mail dot com

    Thanks for blogging & sharing!
    Cliff

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anything I'm currently sharing is already on the blog!

      Delete
  2. Did you wait for upward movement to cover initially at 3.65?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I took that bit off while the stock was still weak. More luck than anything it was so close to dead bottom, I was just paying myself a little along the way

      Delete
  3. Great write up on the setup and what you're looking for in a breakdown with Level 2 quotes. Always look forward to learning from your posts. Thanks Tim.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Tim,
    I would also love to see some of your level 2 videos. I have been struggling with reading it properly and Im sure some of your videos would help. Keep up the blogging. It really does help...usaf201111@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://tradetheticker.blogspot.com/search/label/Level%202

      These are the only level 2 videos I'm sharing for now, but I will continue to add!

      Delete
  5. very nice to see it break down like that ! so easy to follow your thinking ! would love to see a higher resolution level 2 video as well on how you predict support/resistance action

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Future videos will definitely be higher quality!

      Delete
  6. Same here Tim, level 2 reading is the Achilles heel

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  7. Thank you Tim. Level 2 also would help tremendously. I watched your other videos.on level 2 but it wouls.be awesome.to.combine with the above blog.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you. Tim, how do you execute your orders? Markets, limit's? And do you route them to specific makers? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I always use limit orders, most of the time I'm routing to NITE, CSTI, or ARCA

      Delete
    2. Tim - I take it that selecting "best" for ECN/MM does not actually give you the best? Otherwise you would not need to specify NITE, ARCA, CSTI etc. right?

      Delete
  9. Hi Tim. Thanks for all the posts, it´s very educative.
    In the other posts, you just put EKSO in your mainly watchlist, I just want to know if you could play the morning panic on EKSO(becouse of the gap down) or if you wait for the rebound to enter.
    Thanks again man, appreciate what your doing here!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Loooooove your blog man. RIHT just hit my inbox to nice exhaustion gap yesterday.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Hi tim, i was just wondering how i could get pump emails in my inbox ?? do i have to sign in somewhere ?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please read my FAQ page, I have two posts detailing how to sign up to promoters. Thanks!

      Delete
  13. Love the blog!!! Have learned so much from you the past month!!!

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  14. Tim,
    Thanks for answering all my questions and providing a wealth of information for us all. Good man!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thank you Tim, God sent you here.
    g/r: i know it is price turns from green to red. I thought it was an interday action, did you also mean that price goes below the close of previous day? thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right, g/r means the price going below the closing price from the day before

      Delete
  16. Hi, Tim!

    Could you go over a long trade just like you went over this one? Why, when, how you entered the trade?

    I know it's a lot to ask for free, but It would really mean a lot to us, small traders who don't have the posibillity of shorting that much.

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Understood completely, I'll definitely try to go over more long trades in the future!

      Delete
  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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