Yesterday I thought about shorting Baidu at $318. I am glad I didn’t do so. Baidu is holding up above that price and didn’t follow Google dropping. I guess traders are waiting for its earning report on Jul 23rd.
I traded again today I was tire of watching. And I lost again. I short Bank of America at $13.30. It went up to $13.47 after that. I covered it when it fell back to $13.33. It kept falling after I covered it. I shorted it because its earning was not a good one basically. It reported profit only because the big gain on selling stake in China Construction Bank. The gain was more than 5 billions instead of 2 billions that I guessed in this post “Bank of America Earning Forecast and Financial Statement Analysis”. If the gain was 2 billions then Bank of America will show 1 billion lost as I was expecting.
Seems to me Bank of America will report no profit or will report loss for the coming quarters. I kind of think Bank of America will keep falling starting from here. But again I don’t trust my judgment.
Here is the trade today and balance.
 Transaction 2009/07/17 |
 Account Balance 2009/07/17 |
Account Balance Changes: -$50.33
Like I felt yesterday Intel’s result dragged up the market. I lost on the Baidu put and I sold them. I traded on GCI (GANNETT CO INC) today. I noticed this stock in my trading tool’s news window. I felt this company was kind of under valued even at today’s closing price but I didn’t follow this company for long. It reported 2nd quarter profit of $0.46 a share and its stock price was at $4.50 at close. Its forward P/E is quite low. I have no confidence on my own judgment any more so I am not going to keep it. I feel I just need a break. After more than a month of hard work I am still at loss. So I may not be trading for the rest of the week.
 Transaction 2009/07/15 |
 Account Balance 2009/07/15 |
Account Balance Changes: -$260.59
I covered my short position on Bank of America and brought some Baidu Jul 290 puts. I felt I took the wrong side. I felt the market turn bullish after Intel report better than expected earning. Technology stocks may go up tomorrow and so will Baidu. Baidu likes to follow Google or the Chinese stock market as far as my observation goes. Looks like it is not going to go down either way. Google will report earning on 16th. My put option will expire on 17th. Looks like the chance I make profit on this put is low.
 Tansaction 2009/07/14 |
 Account Balance 2009/07/14 |
Account Balance Changes: +$18.72
Today is a big up day especially for the financial sector. Meredith Whitney upgraded Goldman Sachs dragging up the whole financial sector. All the big banks were up 6% to 9%. That was a lot in a single day for one analyst call. Of course it was not all attributed to Meredith Whitney. But she did choose the right time to show off her power. I on the other hand traded in and out of Bank of America and lost almost $250. At the end of the day I hold 2000 shares of short position on Bank of America. I feel uneasy at the moment because that is a lot of shares and I will lose $200 dollars for every 10 cents if BAC is going up. I take the short side most of the time today because I bet the big bank’s earning is not going to be as good as the market expected especially for Bank of America. Meredith Whitney didn’t upgrade any other big banks except for Goldman Sachs. She said big banks in general were in better shape. That is something we have already known however.
I made a lot of trades on Bank of America. I don’t usually make so many trades in large amount in a single day. I did that today because I found a technical indicator in my trading tool seemed to be pretty effective for the past couple of days and I wanted to see if it really worked again. The technical indicator I was talking about is RSI (Relative Strength Index). See the bottom part of the following graph. If it is over 70 then it means the stock is over bought and if it is under 30 the stock is over sold. I short sold 2000 shares at $12.80 when RSI was above 70 but it kept going up and it was above 75 at the end. Today’s trading pattern looks familiar to me. Short covering pushed up stock price at the end of an up day. I lost on the same pattern more than a couple of times by taking the short side too early. Looks like I am going to make the same mistake again.
The following are the transactions I made today.
 Tansaction 2009/07/13 |
At closing price I lost $242.29. BAC actually went up to $13.07 in after hour so I lost $160 more already.
 Account Balance 2009/07/13 |
Account Balance Changes: -$242.79
Yesterday I thought the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index wouldn’t have a good reading today. It turned out to be true but the market didn’t drop as much as I expected. I was thinking the DOW would drop over 150 points at some time today and BAC would test the lows of yesterday’s $11.30 when I saw future dropped more then 70 points before market open. I was busy during the day and I set an order to buy BAC but never get executed. Close to the end of the day I took a short position on BAC in hope that a selling attack would happen but it never happened. I noticed that JP Morgan dropped a lot. It is going to release earning next Thursday. I originally though BAC is going to be the first big Bank to release earning on next Friday but JPM is one day ahead of it. And the first big Bink to release earning is actually Goldman Sachs which is on next Tuesday. So there will be a lot of earning to watch next week.
At the end of today I pull in about $30 gains on the BAC trade. No gain is too small to have.
 Stock Transactions 2009/07/10 |
 Account Balance 2009/07/10 |
Account Balance Changes: +$29.71
Yesterday I kept my 800 shares of PCX (patriot coal) in hope that it would rebound when oil price rebound. In early today there was report that oil price was held stead above $60 a barrel and PCX was up at around $5.45 not long after market open. The DOW was up 40 some points at the time. I thought that was it and the rebound of PCX was disappointed to me. I was eager to find a chance to sell PCX. I sold it at $5.47 early in the morning. Looked at how it closes. PCX was at $5.63 and the Dow was only up 5 points. So once again don’t under estimate the tie between oil price and energy stocks. Energy stock can be affected by oil price more then by the general market. So this is a bad move I made today. I brought these 800 shares at $5.76 a couple days ago.
I did make a good move. I bought some Bidu (Baidu) puts and sold them later net about $120. So my total gain today is about $250. Not a lot but my account is back above my initial capital of $30,000. I have learned to be happy with small gains and I love this thinking “Go slow. Preserve capital. Learn the fundamentals. Achieve consistency”
 Account Balance 2009/07/09 |
 Stock Trades 2009/07/09 |
I feel the overall sentiment of the market is still bearish. The market is waiting to see how the financial sector was doing in second quarter and is very cautionary. I bet the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index tomorrow will not have a good reading since unemployment rate is still going high. And I feel good holding only cash.
Account Balance Changes: +$259.67
Today is a perfect trading day for day traders. It is perfect because it has multiple ups and downs and that is what a trader is looking for. If a trader can master all this ups and downs then great profit can be made. But I didn’t make much profit. The market was very nervous about Alcoa’s earning and I was very nervous about it too. My nervousness made me avoid two short attacks on BAC. I bought 1000 shares of BAC at $11.95 and sold them at $11.98. I later bought 1000 shares of BAC again at $11.78 and sold them at $11.84. This two trades only net me $30 in total. I sensed the nervousness when I sold them but I dare not to take the short side. My nervousness also make me miss the big run up close to the end of the trading day. I didn’t regret for not taking the short side but I regret for not buying into BAC again when it drop below $11.50. I sold DRYS (Dry Ship) for a profit and I trade on PCX(Patriot Coal) to make some profit too. At the end of the day I still hold 800 shares of PCX and my account is up $134.61. Not a lot but I feel good that I was able to avoid a loss on trading BAC
 Stock Transaction 2009/07/08 |
 Account Balance 20090708 |
 BAC Graph - Shows where the two BAC trades were taken |
Account Balance Changes: +$134.61
Yesterday I was planning to sell PCX and DRYS today so that my account could be up above my initial capital. I saw this opportunity in early morning but I didn’t act on it. I was expecting more. Actually news already pointed out early morning that oil was continue dropping., It made sense that it would put pressure on energy stocks however I didn’t pay attention to it. I kept expecting a 4% bounce backup on PCX after yesterday’s almost 10% drop. It certainly wouldn’t happen when oil was continue dropping. I just didn’t sense the connection between oil price and energy issues. That’s definitely another lesson learned.
There is always ups and downs in a trading day and there is always opportunity to make profit. To train myself to make more right decisions than wrong is the purpose of the “Stock Trading Lesson Learned” category. I also watched Baidu today I wanted to trade on its call options and I set an order to buy its Jul 280 Call at $6. The price was set too low however. My account was down almost $300 at today’s closing price
 Account Balance 20090707 |
Account Balance Changes: -$272.80
Last night when future was down more then 80 points I was expecting the stock market to drop at least 100 points at close today. So I took profit when I saw opportunity. I sold BEAT and USB at a profit. I traded on FAS but lost a little bit. At market close when I saw the DOW was up 40 some points and some of the hard hit stocks didn’t bounce back I couldn’t withstand the temptation and bought a couple of them. I bought PCX (Patriot Coal) and DRYS (Dry Ship). I think if the DOW tomorrow can remain unchanged or up a little then PCX and DRYS may rebound nicely. I didn’t buy a lot though. I am still bearish on the market with the earning season coming. The following are the transactions today.
 Transactions 20090706 |
My account was up about $100 at closing price. I believe at some point tomorrow I will have the opportunity to sell all my position to make a profit and my account can be up above $30,000 which was my initial capital.
 Account Balance 20090706 |
Today I focus on a couple news related to Bank of America. First is “BofA’s bad loans up 10% in 2Q”. I think this is the news that caused BAC tanked today. Second is “Whitney’s New Take On Modified Loans”. Meredith Whitney thinks that with the held of regulation and government incentive loan modification will soar and that will lower loan loss reserve which will benefit banks in near term. I don’t know how this two factors will play out in Bank of America’s second quarter income. I remain cautionary on Bank stocks. Bank of America ever dropped below $12 this morning and quickly bounce back. I was busy on something else and didn’t get this opportunity.
Account Balance Changes: +$118.29
I paid 180 dollars of commission today. As you know I am using TDAmeritrade. Its stock trading commission is $10 per transaction. How did I get to that far? Well I thought trading option is also $10 per transaction. So I bought 100 contracts of Microsoft Jul 24 Call option at 0.32 per share and sold them at 0.36 or 0.37 per share. I thought I was able to net about $400 on that transaction. In fact I was only able to make about $230 on that.
 MSFT option commission |
It turns out that there is $0.75 commission per contract in addition to the 10 dollar transaction fee. I was trading 100 contracts so there was $150 extra commission in addition to the $10 transaction fee. That is a lot and that is something I didn’t know before I did this trade. It was lucky that I was still able to make money. A lesson learned from this is when dealing with option it is better to trading those options that prices are high. If you know any broker that offer low commission on option trading please let me know
It is a big down day. Unemployment number is not good. But my account was up thanks to the option trade. I am still holding 500 shares of Beat that I bought yesterday and at the end of the day I added 500 shares of USB (US Bank) at $17.13. I became more willing to take the long side. But I wish I shorted Bank of America this morning.
 Acount Balance 20090702 |
Account Balance Changes: +$114.81
PS
I have to revise the gain today to +$94.81. Closing price of USB came in a bit late and it turns out to be 17.04 instead of 17.08.
