August 2008 Archives

The Q's are bouncing off the lows of the day and are currently down about 1.25% today. As we head into the close they have gotten very close to the lower trend channel and are close to the Stochastic crossover I have been waiting for. I suspect that we may get a gap up tomorrow morning so I'm placing my order at the close.

So I purchased 20 additional contracts on the QQQQ Sept 49 calls (QQQIW) with a cost of $0.70. This puts my average cost basis at $0.80 for this trade.

Here is the chart I was watching into the close. I'm expecting this short term move to take me back up to the $48.50 level over the next couple of days.

This morning I opened a long position right before the markets decided to roll over. I'm currently down over 20% in my current open trade.

The market up move this morning appears to be just a head fake and it looks like we still have some downside left in this current move. We have blown right through support 1 and 2 and it looks like we may end up around $46.95-47 before we make the next move up. The monthly trend is still pointing up and we are getting close to getting a sign of a bottom on this current weekly trend down. I'm thinking we will see somewhere above $50 on the Q's before the September contracts expire.

I'm currently not going to sell my open position since we are very close to this short term bottom and we still have plenty of time left in these September contracts. I will probably also purchase more once I see a change in the trend on my charts.

This is another example why if you are not watching the market on a regular basis, you can easily get fooled by these types of moves. I'm glad I went in light on this trade.

On an unreleated note, I have been testing the Think or Swim platform recently for my trading. ToS currently powers the OptionsXpress charting platform, so the change to this platform was an easy move. One added benefit is they make it very easy to generate charts that I can post on the website. Here is the chart I'm currently following. I'm closely following the Stochastic now to see it make a change in direction towards the upside for my next buy.

I'm testing the waters here and entering my first trade after vacation. As I mentioned earlier this morning I'm going to be conservative on the first couple of trades while I get back in sync with the feel of the markets.

I purchased 20 contracts of the QQQQ Sep 40 calls (QQQIW) with a cost basis of $0.90.

I'm back from a much needed vacation away from work and the markets. However, whenever I'm away from the markets I loose my feel for where they are heading. So I will be cautious on the next couple of trades so I can back in sync with the markets.

Right now it looks like we are at the lower end of the trend channel and we should be heading higher from here for the next couple of days. I will be looking to enter a call position sometime today to take advantage of this up move.

Currently the pivots on the Q's are as follows:

R2	R1	Pivot	S1	S2
48.84	48.50	48.23	47.89	47.62

We have a nice up move in the Q's (and markets in general) and the Q's are showing a little bit of a slowdown on the move this morning, so I took my gains while I could. The Q's are currently trading up over 2% this morning.

For this trade I was in 100 contracts of the QQQQ Aug 46 calls (QQQHT) with a cost basis of $0.41. I sold them at $0.52 which was a greater than 26% gain on this trade.

I will be on vacation next week (Disney cruise with the family) so I'm hanging up my trading hat for the rest of the week.

I just did a quick check of my portfolio and right now I'm currently up over 42% in my trading account this year. In theory I could take off the rest of the year and have a great return for the year, but what fun would that be.

As I mentioned on Friday, I'm trying out a new buying methodology. I purchased half a position on Friday at the close when my signals triggered. The market opened down this morning and I purchased my other half of a position this morning on this opening weakness.

With this new position I bought 60 contracts of the QQQQ Aug 46 calls (QQQHT) at a cost of $0.36. This bring my total position holding for this trade to 100 total contracts and an average purchase price of $0.41.

My plan is to be out of this position sometime before wacky Wednesday.

As I type the Q's are currently down over 1% and are sitting near the lows of the day. All of my indicators are telling me they are oversold and I want to get long at the close in anticipation of a good rally day on Monday. We may get a gap down reversal on the open on Monday but the short term direction is up from here.

For this trade I'm in 40 contracts of the QQQQ Aug 46 calls (QQQHT) with a cost basis of $0.48.

I'm trying out a new strategy for how I enter my positions. I'm finding my indicators flash the overbought (buy puts) or oversold (buy calls) a little early and I frequently have the chance to get a better entry either later in the trading day or the next day. So for this trade I'm buying about half a position and will either let it ride for the trade up or I will buy more if I can get a better price later on Monday.