Today's Entry: STP

I entered STP today on weakness. The stock has shown strong strength in relation to the market, and shows a strong volulme pattern on the recent move up. My target is the September high.

Trade: SDS

I entered SDS today. It is extremely oversold and RSI shows a positive divergence. The last 3 similar states have lead to decent, tradeable bounces.

Great Advice on Taking Partial Exits

MSTR is a good example of the "Partial Profit" or "Let it Ride" exit strategy. I entered the breakout-pullback setup at $84, with a target under the old high a limit order set at $89.85 (I always set the target a little below the round number). From there I move my stop up to the $84 entry level to lock in the profit.

The stock continued higher today, and closed with a new breakout bar (though on relatively low volume). This provided me with an opportunity to move my stop up again and lock in more profit. I moved my new stop up to $87 to lock in a $3 gain on the remaining shares. $87 is a good level since a failure of the breakout bar would be a negative signal.

Remember not to randomly pick new stops when "stair-stepping" your stops. You don't want to be stopped out by a random movement/natural volatility. Always look for support/resistance areas when picking the new higher stops.

The partial profit exit strategy will sometimes decrease the potential gain when the second half of the trade gets stopped out. It's easy to think to yourself, "I could have made more by just taking the full profit at my original target". However, it keeps you in the huge moves. These huge moves are well worth the cost of not taking the full profit at the intital target.

Short Entry: MON

I went short MON as it pulled back to resistance levels via a bearish flag pattern.

Today's Entry: GOOG

I bought GOOG on the breakout today. Stop is at $548.

Breakout-Pullback: MSTR

MSTR has formed a classic breakout-pullback setup. The stock recently broke out on huge volume, and since has consolidated in an orderly fashion.

I entered this trade around $84, which I posted in the Trade Report last week. My intitial target is $90, where I would take a partial profit. At that point I would move my stop up to entry.

Game Plan for Tuesday

Here is the trade report for Tuesday, along with analysis of today's SPY short and more setups:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=d5z8q8w_1422cfb7fcgv

Breakout-Pullback Setup: CSH

CSH has been trending nicely. It recently broke out and has now pulled back to support.