Small account challenge, Day 8
This morning was rough. Here’s what I mean.
Last night I picked up $OPGN in my small $1,000 account and $HMNY in my other account. I won’t be making trades in my other account anymore, as I need to start moving that money out for what I was saving it for. The good news is it made me a couple hundred dollars in a week so that’s just free money!
But in my small account, I played $OPGN. It was a good overnight hold pick. But this morning when I was watching it on the 1-minute chart it was super choppy and although it looked like it might be consolidating, the choppiness had me nervous. Then I went past my “sell in five minutes of open” rule and I got really nervous. So I sold about ten minutes after the open. If I had been paying attention to the 5-minute chart, I probably would have waited at least another five minutes which would have reaped me 7% profit instead of the 1% I got.
This is not necessarily bad, to trade scared because you never know which way a stock will go. But in hindsight, the 5-minute chart looked good and the level 2 data had the volume waiting. Gaining $8 is better than losing any amount, and I won’t cry over missed profits.
I say the pick is disappointing because the other stock that popped up was $AKER. I don’t really know why I didn’t go with it, $OPGN was a good pick but compared to $HMNY I should have gone with $AKER. It is up 20% today. Oh well, this is the trading life.
The other thing that changed for me, is I’ve started using thinkorswim to watch my stocks in the morning mainly because of the level 2 data and the time and sale data that I can’t get from TC2000. But I have my TC2000 setup just how I want it (with a 1m, 5m, and daily chart in the same window) and I’m very comfortable trading based on those charts. I don’t think using thinkorswim is a bad idea, but the charting is definitely not as good as TC2000. Why won’t they get level 2 and time and sale data though? It drives me crazy. I’m going to a Worden TC2000 training class in Durham, NC next week so I’ll ask them face-to-face.
Check out the chart. I sold right before that pop over $2.32. You can see how obvious it was that I should have kept holding.
This brings my small account balance to $1,127.89
stocks mentioned [post_tags]
