Thursday, July 17, 2008

Day Trading to Stay Green

So a lot has happened since I have posted last. The S&P touched 1200 since I last posted and highlighted the break of 1300. Oil traded up to within 1 dollar of 150, and has since toppled nearly 25 dollars. I unfortunately did not take my bearish stance as planned beyond a short term trade that I was early in and ended up exiting for a loss, but would have returned nearly 700% (I had an average cost of of about 1.50 and it is now worth nearly 10 dollars).

Can't look back, have to look forward. Recently I had calls on GS, which has gone up 20 dollars in 2 days. I was only along for the ride the first day, I left a few contracts to go to today but sold at the open and still left quite a bit on the table, but oh well I still made a good profit. That all important line of 180 was reached and I was not convinced this was a rational rally that could be supported(read there was not enough economic evidence to break above that resistance). So I bought puts assuming we go back down if any financials are inline with write downs or have unknown issues. I am down on my puts but it should play out as it looks like an ugly day tomorrow.

I day traded puts 3 times on GS with all of them being successful, i would enter at 180 and exit as it bounced down, one time I came back and it was above to 184 and I figured we would have a sell off back to 180, so I took a ride down again. All times I entered, set my target and set a limit order and walked away. Once I only got filled on 5 of the 20 contracts so I had to sell the rest for only a small gain. These trades were the only reason I was up today, as my AAPL calls barely participated in the rally then sold off at the end to be even.

GOOG missed as well as MSFT so I fear the worst for apple tomorrow. Both were down 6% afterhours, Apple is down as well.

I am hoping the money I gain back from my GS puts will help offset my loss from AAPL. I plan to do some day trading again tomorrow likely on GOOG, possibly GS, or AAPL. I think it could be an ugly down day so that will be the way I play it with puts unless I see otherwise.