sd's -Adapting in 2011

[sd]

Friday pm at EOD I finally had some cash cleared to make some trades.
In this week, the market had reversed it's losing ways and has made a substantial 5% up move, floating a lot of boats along with it.

I reentered BIIB, and went long FFIV , LULU, and ROK-
Got some diversity in sectors going there.

[sd]

[sd]

[sd]

7-9- update
Of the prior trades, ROK hit my raised stop -out for a small loss.
Still holding both LULU, and FFIV - both are net positive but Friday's action saw the market selling off on Job's report and they weakened as well.
Thursday, with the market holding strong all week, I placed an order for EMR which filled and stopped out for a $38.00 loss.
I also took a partial position in a new ETF focused on cloud computing. got filled at the open, and when I got home Friday pm, I added to the position near the close. While the market had sold off during the day, it was coming back in the pm as it digested the bad jobs report and possibly potential good earnings next week. Price action of SKYY looked positive going into that last hour and so I added a few more shares .
I also Bot some Gold using the leveraged UGL ETF-= Looks to be in the midst of a range- choppy price action- but if there's concerns about the Eurozone, and the US economy, -and we definitely are facing inflation here- it may be good to hold some-I have yet to decide where to set a stop- will determine that this weekend.
I also Bot MSFT -cost $26.51 Thursday- It had good price action
Friday as the market sold off initially early on , MSFT opened lower but didn't go below the prior day's low and closed at a new high . I had set a $26.15 stop initially.
Too much to do outside this weekend- A brick paver patio is the project of the past week-
One chart of SKYY- sd

[sd]

MSFT looked interesting, recently putting in a new low in a downtrend, and then moving higher, recently just getting above the downtrend line off the counter trend rally high months ago.
My entry was not until 7-7 as I had some cash clear, and well into the up move. I hadn't looked at the chart until this week.
it appears msft has good momentum , and it held up strongly on Friday when the market was selling off.
I moved my stop to just beneath the low of the entry day $26.38 knowing price deserves a pullback $26.51 entry cost.
$28.00 appears it should offer prior holders the opportunity to get some of their money back, and so I'll sell 1/2 just below @ $27.90. I will decide how to adjust the remaining position .

Daily chart looking at some counter-trend attempts the past 6 months-SD

[sd]

Monday 7-11 Market sold off again today-
Both FFIV and LULU stopped out for small gains on raised stops.
UGL had a nice gain today and in after hours I see a pop up in SKYY which was not the case at the market close- it was down.

The added reason for the market sell-off was concerns about Italy, and a possible contagion break down- The EUO - Euro short gapped up sharply and broke out of a wedge formation.
I was tempted to take this trade tomorrow, but will add to my UGL position first, as it also moved up higher.
The rationale for UGL is that people are fleeing to Gold for protection. UGL is challenging 2 recent attempts to move higher, so I will view this area as resistance and move my stop to the price low of the day.

The MSFT trade- well, today it fell back with the larger market with a doji on the daily - It is reasonable considering the recent vertical price action that a pullback was in order.
Price is still well above it's fast ema on the daily, however, my rather late entry in this uptrend tells me to raise my stop to minimise a net profitable momentum trade turning into a losing investment. Therefore, I will set a stop $26.49, the low of the day.
Have a chart of the EUO breakout-sd

[sd]

UGL has continued to move up this week. I also added SLV as it has broke higher and SLW - which has been moving up for 2 weeks.
UGL recently paused Thursday, I raised split stops, intending to lock in a profit on a price pullback below the uptrending fast ema on a 60 minute chart. Price continued higher Friday, and as I was looking at the chart, taking off moving averages, looking at price, the parabolic sar looked interesting as an entry/ exit signal over the course of price moving lower,
I squeezed as much time as I could into the chart to get a low, high, low and new high trend.
Particularly with the recent run up leg (10% of the total profit ), If that was not factored in, the sar return would have locked in a net 4% profit if my calc's are correct.
May 18 low to July 1 low price came full circle back to breakeven.
Since I don't have the ability to monitor trades intraday and to act on them, my results would lag.
I'm expecting UGL to snap back hard on news the US will not default on it's debt.
The other aspect is using SAR as a buy-stop- on the declining sar - it captured the best part of the large upswing off a downtrending leg fairly early-
Worth considering in this choppy market- SD

[sd]

[sd]

The market rallied today, AAPL had great blow-out earnings, as did VMW- which set the tech sector up- RVBD dropped 20% on a big miss though-Who to trust?

With some talk that the US won't default on it's debt, both gold and silver lost ground today- Both of my positions stopped out for gains, and I feel comfortable enough to put in a limit buy-stop for ZSL-

My thinking there is that Silver had not been moving with Gold until recently, and if it was a flight to Slv in view of the financial crisis looming, Slv had not performed as well as Gold, and should give up the gain quicker.
I also went long skyy- VMW had great earnings, but RVBD dropped 20%- Chart wise, SKYY is just making a possible change of trend higher. A first day up move - to be suspect with a tight stop.
have a buy stop on Qcom $57.30-57.60 limit.

And with AAPL's blow out earnings, , and hitting $%400, I'm looking to enter at a $368 limit-
SD

[sd]

7-23 update.
I got whipsawed big time on my ZSL trade and filled and stopped on Qcom as well.
Will get some charts posted at some point -
The ZSL trade cost me a full 1% port loss, something I rarely experience- or allow to happen by my own hand, and I think this speaks to a level of overconfidence I had in thinking I had a good grasp of what the political situation would cause the gold and silver trades to react to.

view Silver and Gold as instruments that may not necessarily perform well in a bull market- To me, they offer a defensive play on investors fears that there will be some financial or stock market breakdown, and the rationale for these "gaining" in strength is that investors may be taking trading dollars out of equities and increasing their weighting in what they feel is more stable when the market news is talking about macro events - like Europe go bust through Italy, Spain, Ireland etc, or the US potentially defaulting on it's debt.. They do not necessarily trend with the market
Note that while both Gold and Silver had a nice run-up together that ended April 30,They are not viewed by the market in the same light.
Both had a tremendous run up until April 30, and then both fell sharply-
GLD dropped May 1 for 4 days and lost 5% , and then based and trended generally higher, breaking higher JUly 11.
Silver dropped May 1 for 4 days and lost 28% and then generally trended sideways/lower until breaking higher jULY 13.-
That suggests to me that SLV is looked at as the 2nd sister- at the financial duress prom-
The recent rise back in Gold and Silver is due to investor concern of the markets-
As news that agreements were being reached in the US debt resolution, both GLD and SLV started to weaken on market interpretation of what the News meant.
It seems that Siver particularly does not correlate with the market these last months-While Silver can gain as a commodity having some industrial uses- but it also can be a vehicle for a skeptical market- but not as strongly as Gold as a hedge.-
Just my opinion.

Why take the trade I did? I felt it was news motivated, that the reversal in price would see a few days of pullbacks- As the market rallied, I felt sure that the ZSL silver short would see several days of quick upside- and potentially more-
My first error was I did not adhere to my usual range for stops on entry- I allowed my interpretation of what the market would do and combined that with a relaxation of my stop level-and the desire to get in early on what I thought would be a breakdown of SLV's recent upside move- At least a pullback to test the range breakout....

What proved interesting last night after hours was the President coming out and saying the talks had broken down and default is back on the table- I expect Gold and Silver will react strongly on Monday if the weekend talks don't prove meaningful and the debt date looms closer.
SD

[sd]

Too blazing hot to work outside in the yard, so I'm reviewing some charts-
Looking at price action with Gold and Silver and then the $indu & $spx.
Stock charts has a correlation indicator now that allows one to compare one price against the other.
No surprise, but the commodities and the market sometimes trade together, but often don't- approx 30% of the time or so I'd guess according to the indicator. GLD and SLV have a high correlation.

looking beyond that, some weekly charts- Note how volatile slv has been, while GLD has been steadily making higher highs and higher lows- Gld has not been the big winner silver has, nor has it been the big loser SLV has on pullbacks.

[sd]

The ZSL trade -
If we should learn by our losers, this should be a good lesson- It's not that I won't try change of trend trades, I'll become more nimble with reduced risk. SD

[sd]

I had a good trade in UGL, and am pleased with the outcome-
I entered the position 7-8, added more 7-9, and stopped out 7-19.
I'm pleased I added to the position and went overweight-
I also trailed the stops based on both price action and Sar levels.
In this case, the trade maintained momentum for that period, and my exit captured the bulk of the move.
While price pulled back slightly, it is ranging sideways- I expect it to react higher Monday if the US Debt talks don't show improvement.
The present price range sees $88-85.40 as the levels, so the risk is well defined by the swing low and the next higher swing low- It may be possible to get an entry back near the lower level, but I'm anticipating price to gap higher at the open Monday. I'll be applying a buy-stop entry above $88.10-
I may try for a low limit near the bottom of the range as well.
That's something I don't usually do, but if I can establish a tight stop entry position several dollars cheaper, it's worth a try or two-SD

[sd]

Patio project took up most of the prior 3 weekends -Tried to get creative and that always makes for more work.
Pleased with the outcome though-
Now I've got to apply myself as diligently to my stock trades!sd

[bankedout]

That is a very nice patio! Good job! I would like to have a patio some day.