Ending the year on a good note...

The year is ending on a good note. Yesterday, my CALM went all the way down to 6.58 only to make a nice little run late in the day to turn positive and close at 6.85. I'm liking the chart setup right now. It looks like 6.58 was the 20 day MA and an area of nice support. The bar that formed yesterday is very bullish. Let's see if the strength continues on Tuesday. I'm still staring at a paper loss of -$1250 right now. EWE!

GOOG continued it's downtrend like expected. $420 is now an area of resistance, so whatever happens, the stock should not close above $420. I'm still liking my target of $400. My 2 contracts of GOOG Jan $420 puts which I bought at $10.60 closed at $13.00 on Friday. So, I have a paper profit of about $500 now.

MDII, I still don't like how it looks, but the fact that Friday's high was above Thursday's high means that there's still some strength left in it. I'll play this one day-to-day. I'm definately not going to let this stock turn into a huge loss though. My paper loss on this one is -$1800 right now. EWE, EWE!

What else have I done in the past few days? I got bored on Friday, so I deposited $200 into Golden Palace Casino. That lasted about 30 minutes. Blackjack is such a scam.

I played a little at Party Poker. My Aces got cracked by Queens. I ended the session down $500. The good thing is that I'm still up a little from the all of my recent poker sessions, not including my $1k win at FCP.

After watching Negreanu play headsup $500/$1000 limit yesterday at FCP, I decided to try to play some headsup myself. I logged onto UltimateBet and played some $3/$6. I won about $200 in 30 minutes. One thing that I'm learning from headsup play is that being aggressive is a MUST. You should also be playing about 95% of your hands regardless of whether there is a preflop raise or not. Another thing is, you should be raising on the button the majority of the time. Check raising with second or third pair is a good thing and check raising with flush or straight draws is also recommended. These are just a few of the things that I'm noticing from some of the better players.

Remember, the only way to become better at something is to watch and learn from the better players. Or better yet, play with them. That's how I see it.

In the sportsbook world, I put a load on the Miami vs. LSU game last night. I was given a "hot tip" from a friend of mine. He told me to pick LSU on the money line (+220). So, I took the money line for $100 and the spread (+6.5) for $220. I hit both of them for a nice $420 win. I also took the 1st quarter under (-7.5) and under 41 for the game for $100 a piece. The 1st quarter under was good and the under 41 was no good, so those bets cancelled each other out.

For today's games, my "hot tip" friend says Oakland on the money line. I don't think I'll take the money line, but I'll probably take Oak +7.5. Also, I just bet on Fresno State -6 in the 2nd half for $100. Let's see how that goes.

Well...it's time to get ready for the big New Years party tonight. Be safe everyone. See you all in 2006!

Boogster

FCP; stock market plays...

I was able to bring the $117 that I left in my FullContactPoker.com account up to about $300, then I bluffed all of my money away. I woke up at 5am for some reason and started playing. I need to tell myself, next time, to stay away from online poker until I'm fully awake. I tend to make dumb mistakes like bluffing all of my money away when I'm not in a fully coherent state. Oh well, I still cashed out with $1k, so I'm content with that.

Yeah, I'm still holding my 10k shares of MDII. I don't like how the chart looks right now, so I'm looking to exit out of my position as soon as I can. I don't know why I entered the stock in the first place. The intra-day chart looked compelling, but I never received a buy signal. That's my first mistake. My second mistake is entering the stock after a run-up. Bad idea...oh well, I need to stop making stupid little mistakes like this. This one's gonna cost me...

I made another trade yesterday. I bought CALM at 7.10. 5,000 shares. Within 15 minutes, it ran all the way up to 7.44. Ecstatic to see such a nice $1,500 paper profit in such short time, I didn't even think about selling some of it. Unfortunately, the stock never made it back to the intra-day high and now it's trading at 6.75. I let a nice $1,500 profit turn into a awful $1,500 loss. I'm still holding my position. I think it'll recover, but next time I have a $1,500 profit in 15 minutes, I think I'll take some profits... Live and learn...

On a good note, GOOG tanked today. Down 6.55 points on mediocre volume. The good thing about today is that it broke below support at $420. The chart that's forming is a downsloping wedge which almost always means lower prices are coming. This may be a unreachable target, but I'm looking to dump my puts when the stock goes down to $399. We'll see what happens over the next few trading days.

On another good note, I purchase a gold stock, GSS, in one of my long term portfolios a week or two ago. I bought 3,800 shares at $2.50. It traded all the way up to $2.78 today. I really like the chart setup. This stock is definately headed higher. I'll probably look to take some profits soon and hope to buy back lower. There seems to be a little bit of resistance here. The trend is UP though.

Here's a compelling stock for tomorrow: GTE. I rarely buy stocks that have gone down so much over the past few weeks, but looking at the chart, there should be a short term bounce soon. There's no way that I'd hold this stock overnight, but as a day trade, GTE looks very compelling. I'll be watching this one closely tomorrow.

Have a Happy New Years everyone!

Boogster

Slowly rebuilding...

I signed up for Daniel Negreanu's new site, fullcontactpoker.com. It's a Poker Room skin. Although I absolutely hate the interface, I thought the competition was fairly weak. Perhaps, I'm just on one of those new player "runs".

Anyways, I deposited $300 last week and I'm up to $1400 and change right now. So, sticking with my online poker rules, I cashed out a little bit....$1300 to be exact. I left $100 and change in my account to see if I can build that up to $1000 again.

I played $4-$4 NL most of the time. I didn't really get involved in any big pots, except for when I had the goods. Which is how it's supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be calling an all-in bet, only to be found drawing to be drawing dead with one card to come. I tell you, I'm never going to forget that hand...



Alright, I'm out. Gambling-wise, there's not a lot going on right now. I'll be playing online occassionally and throwing in a few sports bets here and there, but nothing big.

In the stock market, I'm still holding my 2 contracts of GOOG $420 JAN puts. I still think that I might have jumped the gun, but we'll see. I also bought 10,000 shares of MDII today at 1.14. It's trading at 1.06 x 1.07 now, so that's not a good thing...we'll see how it closes the day.

Boogster

I broke the cardinal rule of NL poker...

Oh man...it's been crazy the past few days. Sorry for the lack of updates...playing poker for four days straight for 10-14 hours a day is not easy. It's draining.

I'll try to do a day-by-day.

WEDNESDAY
I went down to the poker room around 1pm and started playing some $2/$5 NL. Most of the regulars were there again. It's tough beating the "regulars", but I knew that I definately had a chance. The first hand of after I sat down, I got AK offsuit in the late position and made a standard raise up to $25. The small blind reraised me to $100 and everyone else folded. I had position over him, so I figured I'd give him a call. The flop came J-6-2. He bet out $100 and I folded. $100 down the drain, just like that.

On the third hand, I got AJ in middle position with a $25 raise in front of me. I just called, along with the button. The flop came 872. The preflop raiser bet out $70 and I quickly called with the nut flush draw. Then the button went all-in immediately behind me. He had roughly $500 in front of him. The button called all-in for about $350. Now, I had to make a decision. I had about $325 in front of me. I put the button on trips and the preflop raiser on a big pair. Assuming these were the right reads, I'd still have about 9 outs depending on whether the preflop raiser had a club or not. Even if I only had 8 outs, I'd still have the odds to call. I calculated that I had about a 35% chance (or 1:2) of hitting my flush with two cards to come. And it was easy to see that I was getting roughly 3:1 on my money. So, I called. Unfortunately, a club didn't hit and I was down $500, JUST LIKE THAT. Three hands.

I took out another $500 and started working my way back. At around 3:30pm, I went up to the room to check on my stocks because the market closed at 4pm. I was happy to see that my 10,000 shares of BGO had gone all the way up to 2.80, which is where I sold it for a nice $900 profit. I wasn't happy to see that my CKR had dropped back down to 13.60, but I still didn't feel like it was time to sell just yet. So, at market close on Wednesday, I was still holding 2 contracts of GOOG Jan $420 puts and 2000 shares of CKR at 13.90. At 4pm, I went back down to the poker room.

After another 4 hours of play, I finally cashed out with about $650 from my initial starting bankroll of $1000. I ended up losing $350 for the entire 8 hours of play. Not good.

After my $2/$5 NL session, I decided that I needed some fast action, so I went up to the casino and hit the blackjack table. Bad idea. Very bad idea. The next thing I knew, I was down another $700. It was an awful day that was getting worse. I was down roughly $2350 overall from poker and blackjack. I brought about $2500 with me, so I was running low on cash.

I decided to call it a night and head back up to the room around 11:30pm. I was out like a light within 15 minutes due to the lack of sleep in the previous two days.

THURSDAY
I woke up around 9:30am, just in time for the stock market to open. After scanning a few stocks, I found one that looked compelling, BCRX. It had gapped up way above resistance and was making it's first pullback. I decided to buy 1,000 shares at $16.89. After dropping all the way down to $16.58, it started to stabilize at around 10:45am. I looked at the intra-day chart and decided that it was definately going to go higher throughout the day. I decided to hold it. I also decided to put a stop loss on CKR just below the intra-day low at 13.39. If I got stopped out, then oh well...I'd have to take my loss.

Around 11:30am, I went down to the poker room. It looked like a soft table. There were a lot of preflop limpers and a few "tourists" who were giving money away. I found my marks. Within the first two hours, I was up to $1000 from my initial $500. Things were going well. On one hand, I had pocket Kings and the other guy had pocket Queens and he incorrectly called me all the way down to the river where he folded. I made about $250 from that hand. On yet another hand, someone put me all-in after a flop of 5-6-A-A. He had A-8, and I had A-J. My kicker held up. I won about $350 from that hand. Things were going WELL.

After losing a couple of smaller pots, I was down to about $800 when I broke the cardinal rule of NL poker. What is the cardinal rule of NL hold'em? Always leave yourself outs. Here's the hand that broke me:

I had 68 in middle position and decided to make a loose call because I was getting bored. Two other players called the flop with me. The flop came 79T. I had flopped a low end straight, but I was definately not happy to see three hearts. I bet out $25 just to see where everybody was. The small blind called my $25 bet. A T came on the turn. He lead out with a $50 bet. Now, I was confused. I thought to myself, okay, he's got a Ten with a big heart kicker, probably an Ace, so he wanted to protect his hand...that's why he lead out with such a big bet. I decided to raise him up to $175, just to see where I stood. Well, after asking me how much money I had in front of me, my opponent declared all-in. WTF?!?!?!? I had about $600 in front of me. After thinking about all of the possible hands that he could've been holding, I didn't know what to think. Someone called the clock on me, which meant that I had 60 seconds to decide. I HATE the fucking clock. The fucking clock cost me $600 last time. And this time was no different. I pushed all of my chips in. He showed K2 for the King high flush. I was drawing dead on the river. Zero outs.

So, after playing well the entire morning, I not only dropped my $500 in winnings, but also the $500 that I took out. After that awful hand, I left the poker room. I was done with poker for day. I was furious for making such a bad call.

It was around 3:20pm when I left the poker room, so I went up to the room. I found out that my CKR got stopped out at $13.39 for a $1,020 loss. However, my BCRX went all the way up to $17.59, so I sold it for a nice $700 gain. -$320 on the day in the stock market. Not good, but not bad either. I should've stopped out on CKR earlier.

At 4pm, I wanted to get my losses back. I was down $2850 at that point. So, I decided to hit the blackjack table for a few. I figured that it was make or break time. I took out another $1000 from the ATM and hit the $25 table. Less than an hour later, I was down another $900. With $100 left in chips and another $100 left in my pocket, I made a $50 bet. The dealer showed a 9 and I had 8-8. I split the 8s. Then another 8 came, then I took out my last $100 bill and split those too. Then a 3 came, so I had to double down. I had my last $200 on the table. Luckily, the dealer turned over an 8 to make 17. I won $150. I was back in business. I had about $350 in chips now. About 2 or 3 hours later, I had about $2200 in front of me. Yeah, I went on a MAD run. I finally cashed out around 9pm and decided that I had enough gambling. I cashed out with $1500 from a starting bankroll of $1100, so I made out with a nice $400 win at the BJ table.

It was time to go. I was on the road by 10:00pm and made it back home by 1:30am.

Here's my final tally for the entire trip:

Monday: -$900
Tuesday: -$400
Wednesday: -$1050
Thursday: -$100

Net Total: -$2450

All-in-all, this trip absolutely sucked! I'm not worried about the money because I know that I'll get it back in one way or another, but what I'll never get back is that atrocious call that I made. It's left a scar in me. I'll always be scared to make a call like that ever again. I'm still thinking about it. I have dreams about it...nightmares...I'm only kidding about the nightmares, but the scar is true.

I'm planning on heading back to AC for a week in the middle of January. Don't worry, I'll be more focused next time. And no, I won't be playing blackjack anymore...okay, never say never, but I promise that I won't be playing as much blackjack anymore.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Boogster

Monday and Tuesdays at the Borgata are tough...

Alright, I've determined that playing $2/$5 NL on Mondays and Tuesdays are tough. I sat down at 12:30ish yesterday and played till 4am. The first table was a "must-move", so that one was actually pretty good because it had a lot of new players, but I was only there for about 45 minutes or so. In the "main" game, I sat there with the "regulars" for about 12 hours and ended up losing $400. The "regulars" hardly ever pay you off and they rarely bluffed. It's hard to extract money from them...HARD. They are stingy with their money. As a poker "pro", that's how you're supposed to be. You don't give up any more money than you have to and you take as much as you can. That's the way it works.

Anyways, honestly, there's not one single hand from yesterday's $2/$5 game that's even worth talking about. I got trash hands the entire day. And when I did get a nice pocket pair, I got no action for it. And I wasn't even playing tight.

Actually, there is one hand that I made a bad read on. This was the hand that I lost the most on. I had AJ in middle position and made it $25 to go. I think there were one or two callers. The flop came Q94. I bet out $35 into a $75 pot. The guy to my left just called. The turn brought an A. With the top pair, I checked to my opponent behind me. He bet out $100. WTF? Maybe he had a 9 and turned two pair? I had about $225 in front of me. His $100 bet was rather fast and for some reason it smelled fishy to me, so I just called his $100. On the river, a J came and that made my two pair. I pushed the rest of my stack in, $125 or so and he reluctantly called thinking that I may have hit a straight or a flush. He turned over 44 for trip fours. God dammit, I thought I had him beat! I tell you one thing though, I definately didn't put him on trip fours. Good players don't call a $25 raise when no other player has called in front them. This idiot called, so that's why I didn't put him on a pocket pair. Perhaps he's the good player and I'm the idiot? I don't know...

After sitting at the $2/$5 game for 12 hours, I decided to hit the $1/$2 NL game to see if I could get some more action because I was getting bored. Immediately after I sat down, I noticed an asian dude with about $1000 in chips in front of him. He kept yapping about how he was going to bust everyone at the table and this and that. I didn't realize it at the time, but he was actually a pretty good player who "acted" like he didn't know what the hell he was doing to try to get more action, which he did. He got a LOT of action. I've never seen so many players pay him off when he had the nuts. NEVER. Everyone at the table wanted a piece of that $1000 and they were willing to risk their entire stack with middle pair to take it. Idiots.

Early on before I caught on to his game, he took a small bit of money from me as well. He raised every pot blind to $15 on 8 out of every 10 hands. So, when I looked down and saw AK offsuit, I decided to raise him to $50 just to see what he would do. I mean, I had a good hand, so I wasn't worried. After thinking for a little bit, he called along with a player in between us. The flop came J-7-2 and he declared all-in immediately. I saw him do it earlier and there was no way that I was going to pay him off, so I mucked it quick. He said he had two pairs, Jacks and sevens.

On another hand, I had 64 in early position. The asian dude made his standard preflop raise, but only to $8 this time. He got about 6 callers including myself. The flop came 863. Since I was in early position, I lead out with a $30 bet. It was a pretty strong bet. I had a diamond draw as well as my middle pair, so I figured I try to act like I have a strong 8 or trips. So, everybody folds to the aggressive asian dude to thinks for a second and just calls. He had position over me. A 9 came on the turn. I paused for a second and then I checked to him. He declared in a soft voice that he was all-in. I had about $350 in front of me and he had me WELL covered. I didn't think he had a strong hand, but there was no way that I could make this call. I wasn't about to put $350 in the pot with middle pair and draw unless I was absolutely certain that I was in the lead. I mucked my cards and he showed Q2. Like usual, he started yapping about how he knew that I couldn't call him.

After losing a bunch of small pots to his aggressiveness, I made it my sole objective to bust this MF'er before I went to bed. At around 3am, I look down and see AQ in middle position. The asian dude raises it to $15 blind in front of me, so I pop him to $40. One player goes all in for less than $40 and then the asian dude just calls my $25 raise, like I expected. The flop comes 699. I had position over the asian dude, so he looks down at his cards, and says "how much is in the pot, oh around $120....lemme see if I have a 9 or not....I do have one...I bet $100". I knew the MF'er was bluffing, so I paused for a about 15-30 seconds and then just called his $100 bet. The turn brought a 6. He checked rather quickly and then I went into my acting again. I bet out $100 and he mucked it fast. I only took $140 from him, but it was sweet revenge. While I collected my money, I handed $10 in tips to the dealer and said "this one's on him" and pointed to the asian dude. Everyone at the table got a good laugh out of it. I got my revenge. The asian dude left shortly after that hand. I decided to leave as well, since it was about 4:30am and I needed some sleep!

It's 11:46am right now and I'm checking on my stocks. I'm still holding my 2000 shares of CKR at 13.90. I wasn't happy to see it drop down to 13.4, but the chart hasn't changed, so I'm still holding. As I write, it's back up to 13.8. I may sell today depending on how it acts towards the end of the day. It looks like it may have further consolidation before going higher. It WILL go higher though...that's what the chart says at least.

What else? I bought some google 420 January puts at 10.6. There are a few reasons why I bought the puts:
1) the 20 day MA and 40day MA are converging to the downside.
2) RSI is confirming that the latest new high was less powerful than the previous one
3) volume is decreasing on the upside

So, I'm hoping for GOOG to drop like a brick from here.

Believe it or not, I was able to day trade SIRI yesterday for a nice $400 profit. I bought 8000 shares at 6.41 and sold at 6.46. It went up to 6.88 today, so if I would've just held onto that puppy, I'd be up $3200 now. Oh well, I'm not complaing about a $400 profit in 15 minutes of work.

I also bought 10000 shares of BGO today. BGO is a gold stock that I've been trading for a few years now. I've done pretty well trading it. I bought it at 2.71. My target is 2.83. Let's see what happens.

Alright, time to get showered up and head back down to the poker room. I'm anxious to get my money back plus more.

Boogster

I hate losing...

Alright, quick update. I decided to start off my week in AC playing some blackjack. One hour later, I was down $400. MF'er. Blackjack is a -EV game and it always will be, unless I become one of those card counting freaks. I never learn. I must admit though, I do enjoy the fast action which is why I play the game.

After the quick blackjack exit, I decided to head down to the poker room. It was around 5pm or so. I sat down at the $2/$5 NL table and bought-in for the max of $500. I didn't recognize one face at the table, so that was a good sign.

I was at the same table for about 10 hours straight. During that time, I got pocket kings about 5 times. One time, my opponent had kings as well and we chopped it. Another time, my opponent had aces and put me all-in. I only had another $111 left and there was $167 in the pot, so I called him, just in case he had the AK. Fortunately, I caught a King on the flop and doubled up. Nice.

Everything was fine and dandy with the kings, until the last hand of the night. I made a slightly oversized raise of $30 preflop. Of course, I got two callers. The flop came KJ2. Nice, top set, however there was a flush and a straight draw out there. There was roughly $97 in the pot. I had about $245 behind me. The small blind bet out $60. He didn't look like he was going anywhere even if I put him all in, but I wanted to make sure I locked in another $60 in profits just in case he changed his mind if I would've pushed all-in on the flop. I raised him to $120, double his bet. This would give him a chance to push me all-in as well. All of my money was going into this pot regardless. The player in-between folded. The small blind called. An A came on the river filling both the straight and the flush. He declared all-in. MF'er. I had around $125 left and there was $460 in the pot, so I was getting around 3.68:1 on my money. If he had a flush or a straight, I'd be getting 1:3.4 on hitting one of my outs. If he had anything less than a straight or a flush, he was dominated. I called. The river brought at Q. He showed 9T for the straight AND the flush. That was the end of my disappointing day.

I went to sleep bitter last night. Bitter that I lost. Not really the amount that I lost, but just the fact that I lost. I don't think I played bad. As a matter of fact, I think I played well. I can't even complain about the cards because I got decent cards. So, why did I lose? Why DID I lose???

Oh well, enough guessing for now. It's time to shower up and get back to work. Those MF'ers are going to pay today.

Boogster

Sunday bets; Heading up to Atlantic City for a few days...

I netted +$65 on Sunday. I had 6 wins and 5 losses. My big bets were Seattle -7 for $360 and Pittsburgh -5 for $345. I won one and lost one, so I ended losing the juice on those two games. I hit the late game 1st quarter under 6 for $210.
That's the game that brought me back to the positive side for the day.

I finally rolled over $30,000 at Bet Royal. I had to wager 5x my initial deposit of $5,000 in order to withdraw any money because they gave me a 20% cash bonus and a 10% free play bonus. Unfortunately, I only have $3980 left. So, I ended up losing a total of $1020 from my initial deposit. Wagering wise, I actually lost more because I lost the bonus money as well.

So, let's see, here are my stats from October 1, 2005:

Bodog: +$295
Millsports: +1375
Sports Interaction: +$12
Bet Royal: -$1020
Statfox Service: -$374

Net Total: +$288

Two and a half month's of work and only a small profit to show for it. It's obvious that sportsbetting is not something that I'm good at....yet. I'll figure it out eventually. I'll have a profitable system soon enough.


On another note, I came across this blog today:

FX Trading

This guy was a professional Forex (Foreigh Exchange) trader for numerous institutions before finally making the leap and trading for himself. After he went out on his own, he decided to write a program to do all of the trading for him. Now, all he does is click a button to start his program and then he's off to do whatever he wants for the day. Sounds pretty sick to me.

I have a background in programming, so I'm pretty certain that I can do the same. It'll just take a little time to figure out how the API works, but it could be a fun little project. Check out his blog when you get a chance.

In the online poker world, I'm continuing my run at Party Poker. I'm at +$845 right now. I've mainly been playing $2/$4 NL.

I'm heading up to Atlantic City for a few days this coming week. I'm staying at the Borgata again. I'll probably bring about a $2k bankroll and I'll most likely stick to playing $2/$5 NL. Again, I'm going to treat this week of playing poker like it's my job. I'm going up there to make money...that's my one and only objective. We'll see what happens.


Boogster

$120 rebuy tourney...

I played in a $120 rebuy tourney on Saturday. There were a total of 12 players. 6 players rebought for $80 within the allowable first two rounds. So the total pot ended up being $1920. A little bit of that was taken out for miscellaneous fees. The top four players got paid out the following:

1st = $941
2nd = $530
3rd = $369
4th = $128

After five grueling hours of play, I ended up placing 2nd. $20 was taken out as a "plaque fee", so I took home $390 in winnings. Not too shabby for 5 hours of play, I guess.

I played pretty much straight forward. Raising on my good hands and mucking on my less than good hands. I made a few bluffs here and there, but nothing really to brag about.

After listening to Matasow and Negreanu talk on Matasow's cardplayer.com internet radio show, I realized that I was playing the prior tournaments a little too aggressively. That's one of the major reasons why I haven't been doing too well in my past 5-10 tournaments. Matasow basically said that he plays very very conservatively early on in a tournament. He waits for the "donks" to hand him their money meaning, when he has a strong hand, he bets it strongly because the "donks" will call anyways. It makes sense. These days, you don't really need to slow play because the idiots out there will call you anyways.

In Saturday's tournament, I made this adjustment to my game and I walked away as a second place winner. Even though there were only 12 players in the tournament, I think I played well overall. The other players feared me. That's the image that I want to portray in every tournament because when other players fear you, you have a great advantage over them. In instances where they would normally bet, they check instead and vice versa.

Okay, so that $390 in winnings will go towards my big loss in Indiana. I still have about $1k to make up from those losses. I'm not going to count my stock market winnings on that day because I can't really mix the two. My stock market winnings will always be separate from my sportsbetting and poker losses/winnings. And even though I won $3k in AC a few weeks back, those were already banked, so they don't count either. ;)

Let's see, what else. I made a mad run at Party Poker playing $2/$4 NL. I won back all of my losses that I had at UB plus more. So, in the online world, I'm back to black. The latest tally before I won it all back was -$1300 and now I'm at +$335.

What else? In the sportsbetting world, I put $330 on the Atlanta Hawks +1 on Saturday night. I won that bet, so my two losses last Monday night has been negated. I'm at about +$500 right now for the entire sportsbetting season. Not bad, but not as good as I was hoping for.

In the stock market, I have a hot one for you all. The ticker symbol is CKR. I bought 2,000 shares of this puppy on Friday at $13.90. It closed at $14.02. I'm still holding. Here's a daily chart:



Looking at the chart above, four days ago, CKR gapped up and surged above all overhead resistance on strong volume. The day before that big up day, CKR produced a bottoming tail and actually closed lower than what it opened at, thus the red bar with a long line below it. The past three days have been consolidation days with about a 50% retracement into the big up day. A 50% retracement means that it's a strong stock waiting to go higher.

Now that we have the setup and we've entered the stock, it's time to figure our when to sell the stock. Here's a 1 year daily chart with a black line drawn at the nearest resistance level.



Looking at the black line going across, we can see that our initial target should be around the $14.60 - $14.80. So, that's where I'll be selling my 2000 shares.

We'll see what happens on Monday. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes. :)

Boogster

Good day in the stock market...

I had a good day in the stock market yesterday. I'm at an all time high right now. I took a big hit a month or two ago, but have since recovered with some nice trades. And the great thing is, I'm all cash.

I made a total of three roundtrip trades yesterday. Two were winners and one was a loser.

I'll start with BGO. BGO is a gold stock that had gone down 5 days in a row prior to yesterday. Remember, strong stocks that have gone down 3-5 trading days makes it a buy candidate.



Above is a daily chart of BGO. Notice the 5 red bars before the last bar. Not only was there 5 red bars, but there was also support at the 40day moving average and the 50% fibonacci retracement line from it's low at 2.22 and it's high at 3.13. The Commodity Channel Index (CCI) was also in oversold territory at -200. That's 4 indicators working in our favor, also known as a beautiful setup.

Now, let's look at the intra-day chart.



Above is the 15min chart of BGO. Notice the gap up yesterday, then the first pullback with a bottoming tail and then the nice move up that followed. I indicated the first pullback with a blue line below the two pullback bars. I bought 10,000 shares of BGO at 2.75 and sold at 2.80 for a nice $500 profit. I didn't like that big red bar at around 1:15pm. We now know that it was a just a pullback, but at the time, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. My philosphy is, when I'm not sure about the direction of a stock, then it's probably time for me to get out.

The next stock was WPCS. Someone mentioned this stock in the #daytraders IRC chat room, so I put it on my watchlist. Here's the daily chart:



I like the fact that this stock gapped up way above overhead resistance which meant that it was a strong stock. It opened around 9ish and made a little run up within the first 10-15 minutes. Then a pullback occurred. The pullback took the stock all the way down to 8.41. I bought the stock a little early at 8.86, but I was certain that it was going to close the day much higher. I was right. Let's take a look at the intraday chart:



Again, I noted the actual bottom by the blue line. Notice how most bottoms look the same. A big red bar, then a green bar with bottoming tails on both. I sold this stock at 9.59 during the late day run for a 73 cent profit. A 73 cent profit off of 1000 shares is $730. Minus commissions, that's around $700.

The last stock was my only loser for the day. GSS, another gold stock. Let's look at the daily chart.



I bought 10,000 shares of this stock at 2.32 because the entire gold sector was attempting to make a run and GSS was way oversold. It was also down 4 days in a row prior to yesterday.

Now, the intra-day chart:



Looking at the intra-day chart, GSS never really got going. I guess that's what I get for trying to day trade such a low volume stock. I sold at 2.30 for a 2 cent loss. -$222 after commissions.

It was still a good day though. Today is quadruple options expiration day, so we're in for a lot of volatility. The market's been open for about 45 minutes now and I haven't made a single trade yet. I'm going to wait for the right opportunity. High volatility usually means unpredictibility, so maybe it'll be a tradeless day for me today. We'll see.

Boogster