The buyers came out in full force today and we finally got an up day on above average volume. It seemed like everything went up today. I got the feeling that a lot of people were pressing today trying to make up for a lackluster year. A lot of heavily shorted stocks really got gunned as people looked for short squeezes. You did not want to be short today!
One of the biggest gainers today was PLAB (+25.7%). It reported earnings last night and gapped up about 15% or so. I was targeting it for a day trade from the opening bell. (I have to say that I was trading in demo mode today and probably will be for the rest of the month. More on that later.) PLAB gave a nice "dummy" entry that would have brought a tear to the Chairman's eye if he weren't on his way to China right now. I had a humorous exchange with Duru about PLAB today over AIM, hopefully he won't mind me posting it. A year ago, before I kept seeing MaoXian catch these screamers time after time I would have let PLAB go, thinking I'd already missed the move. But now I've seen the light. :-) Here's the chat with Duru:
Mike (9:33:42 AM): PLAB Duru (9:33:50 AM): I know! Man!Mike (11:01:23 AM): "in" PLAB
Duru (11:04:05 AM): Was there a dummy entry?
Mike (11:04:30 AM): yeah, at 20.37
Mike (11:04:56 AM): looking real dumb right about now :-[
Duru (11:06:38 AM): ugh...but the stock is pretty stratospheric now!
Mike (11:08:26 AM): makes it real tough to jump in, huh?
Duru (11:08:53 AM): yep...I know...exactly why you should!
Mike (11:08:57 AM): LMAO
Mike (11:09:10 AM): you've gotta love the market
Duru (11:10:03 AM): indeedMike (11:33:46 AM): PLAB :-D
Duru (11:34:24 AM): Good "recovery" in PLABDuru (1:42:16 PM): sheeyat on PLAB!
Duru (1:42:35 PM): Crushing short squeezeMike (2:34:16 PM): LMAO about PLAB
Mike (2:34:23 PM): come on in
Duru (2:34:35 PM): =-OMike (4:01:05 PM): PLAB turned out to be the trade of the day
Duru (4:04:06 PM): PLAB was nutsolicious! I hate it when I am a fan of a stock and soars without me like this. =sigh=
Mike (4:04:37 PM): especially when you had the dummy entryDuru (5:30:41 PM): Just now looking at PLAB intra-day. Dummy entry is sitting there loud and clear. :-[
Mike (5:47:30 PM): yep yep
The key point was what Duru said at 11:08:53. That's something that I battle all the time. The light bulb went off for me with MaoXian's dummy technique when I realized that my risk could usually be well under my maximum 5% loss per position. Here's the chart of PLAB (15min. candles):
On a related note, CKCM, which I profiled yesterday, came flying out of that pullback pattern (up 17%). I actually missed the early pop but managed to find a spot to jump in:
Of course they don't all work out that well. Here's one that I got stopped out of:
But I'll take two good sized wins and one small loss any day of the week.
