Recently in Buy Category

I have not been trading on a regular basis for several months now. My main concentration has been working on various consulting jobs with my TickerHost.com business and also trying to find a new full time job (send me an email if you have any job leads.)

For the the last month I have been trying to get my feet wet again on my QQQQ swing trading methodology and I'm going to start posting my trades again. The last 4 trades have been profitable but I'm not including them as part of my track record since I didn't document them here.

Yesterday I mentioned via twitter that I purchased 50 contracts of the July 36 Puts (QQQSJ) at $0.80. I'm looking for a move of the Q's down to the $35.50 range in the next couple of days.

Here is the chart I'm looking at today. The Q's are at the top of the trendchannel and the Stochastic is close to rolling over.

I just bought some calls on the Q's in anticipation of a bounce off the lower trend channel I'm following. I think this next move takes me up above $31 on the Q's over the next couple of days.

For this trade I purchased 40 contracts of the Mar 31 Calls on the QQQQ (QAVCE) with a cost basis of $1.25.

I bought some puts on the open looking for a strong move down today. For this trade I purchased 40 contracts of the QQQQ Mar 30 Puts (QAVOD) at a cost of $1.10.

As I said earlier, I'm thinking we will see somewhere south of $30 over the next couple of days.

I had some fairly good timing on yesterday's trade. Well the market turned up right after I took my profits on my puts from yesterday. The Q's went back up to the top of my trend channel so I'm going to try the puts again. I'm still thinking we will see the lower $28 level sometime this week and I want to take advantage of that move. I was not going to be in the market today since I was going to be away from my trading desk. However, the recent snow storm cancelled my plans, so here I am doing another trade.

For this trade I bought 40 contracts of the Feb 29 Puts on QQQQ (QAVNC) with a cost basis of $1.00.

The Q's have reached to the top of my trend channel and it looks like the move the past couple of days has reached an exhaustion point. So I'm now thinking the Q's will start to head lower from here over the next couple of days.

For this trade I bought 20 contracts of the Feb 29 Puts on the QQQQ (QAVNC) with a cost basis of $1.05. If the market continues to go higher today, I may add another 20 contracts at a lower price.

The market made a nice turn this morning and I decided to take my profits on this trade. I sold my calls for 17% gain for a one day trade.

For recap I was in 20 contracts of the Feb 30 Calls on the QQQQ (QAVBD) with a cost basis of $1.05 and I sold for $1.20 at the open.

The trading on the Q's have hit the lower end of my trading channel and I'm ready to go long for this trade. They are showing some near term support at this level and I think we head higher for the next couple of days.

So I purchased 20 contracts of the QQQQ Feb 30 Calls (QAVBD) with a cost basis of $1.05.

I'm entering my first trade of the year near the close of the market today. We have had a tremendous move up today and my indicators are showing we are very over bought. I'm placing a small trade in this account with an expectation we will see the market give back a chunk of these gains on Monday.

I purchased 10 contracts of the QQQQ February 29 puts (QAVNC) with a cost basis of $0.97.

Here is the chart I'm looking at for this trade:

We have reached the top of my short term trading trend channel. We have also reached highs of MACD and Stochastic.

I'm entering my second trade of the day with a potential move back to the upside. For this trade I'm in 40 contracts again with a position in the QQQQ Jan 31 Calls (QAVAE) with a cost basis of $0.85. My mental stop on this trade is $0.80 and I'm looking for the Q's to move back up to above $30 in the next couple of hours.

This morning with the news of the automaker bailouts and a sharp rise in the futures we had a strong move up in the Q's this morning. That took them out of my oversold reading and we are testing the highs of from yesterday. I'm now thinking that we will fail this test and we will end the day lower than the open. With December options expiration today we will see a significant amount of volatility and I expect some wild swings today that I can take advantage of. I typically try to swing trade for overnight or a couple of day holdings. But today I'm thinking it will be mostly day trades. Since I'm doing day trades I will be using larger position sizes.

So my first trade today is to buy 40 contracts of QQQQ Jan 29 Puts (QAVMC) with a cost basis of $0.85. I'm setting a mental stop at $0.80.