Finding Stocks That Move Well Intra-day

Greetings.

A little introduction.

My name is Robert. I took Gary's classes quite a few years ago. Unfortunately, I had had a modicum of success in the market on my own before ever taking his classes. As a result, I had a difficult time unlearning my bad habits and sticking to his rules. As one can imagine, this resulted in me losing several baskets.

I finally decided that it would be prudent to stop throwing my (and my wife's) real money away, so I bowed out. I did, however, want to maintain Q-Charts so that I could keep watching the market and practicing. After a few months of paying them their high monthly fees without my even being in the market, I stopped that as well.

After that, I had a couple of years where I couldn't have seen the market even if I had wanted to due to being on deployment. Now that I'm out of the military, I have a little more time on my hands, as well as, a little money put aside for a new trading basket. I'm a little older now (not necessarily wiser, though) and am ready to get serious about trading.

In the last couple of weeks I discovered ThinkOrSwim which is allowing me to watch the market in real-time for free. It also has a pretty nifty practice mode which I plan to take advantage of.

I found this forum about a week ago and have really been enjoying reading through the postings. I want to thank each of you who have posted your real money trades. They have helped me quite a bit because I've been able to go back and look at them on my charts to try to learn from you.

I made my first real money trade in years last week. It wasn't much, but it really felt good to throw a tiny little brick onto the pile.

My goal is to make short trades (in today, out today) using calls and puts. As such, I need to know which stocks move well intra-day. Having been out of the market for so long now, many of the stocks which were on Gary's list years ago are no longer working. As I stated, I haven't been following the market for quite some time, neither do I know anyone who is trading; so I don't really have a good feel for what's working right now. What to do?

So, I wrote a program today to scan through about 3,000 stocks looking for the ones that have had the strongest intra-day moves over the past 120 trading days. Because I want to be in and out on the same day, I didn't take into account the difference in price between one day and the next. I only considered the dollar move (either up or down) within each daily candle.

Since this seems to be a community where people are willing to share their knowledge to help each other out, I decided to post my results. No doubt many of the stocks will be familiar to you; but perhaps you'll find something new that is worth investigating.

I think most of the column headings are pretty self explanitory, but if not:

Avg[120] -- the average intra-day (that is between daily high and daily low) price movement during the past 120 trading days. This does not distinguish between an up day and a down day; just the dollar amount of the move during the day.

Mean[120] -- the mean basically ignores the highest high and lowest low to provide a better feel for the intra-day movement.

Max[120] -- the maximum intra-day movement

Min[120] -- the minimum intra-day movement

Match Dow -- how closely the stock followed the dow (i.e. - if the dow went up, the stock also went up and vice versa)

Match Nasdaq -- how closely the stock followed the nasdaq

>= $3, $4, or $5 -- the number of days that the stock moved at least the specified dollar amount

I plan to spend some time looking at each of these charts this weekend so I can pick a few to put in my basket.

So there you have it. If you've managed to read this far, I hope you are able to find something useful in the data presented below.

-robert

Robert, welcome to the forum. I guess as you can see, there are some really good people on here who are willing to help.

The information you provided will be very, very helpful to me. To have a breakdown that is as specific as the one you provided is good to have. I will incorporate that data in my notebook. Some people might know how to develop such a breakdown, but I have absolutely no idea, so again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Rookie30

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Some people might know how to develop such a breakdown, but I have absolutely no idea, so again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Developing the breakdown is one thing; actually being able to trade on the information is another. I can do the former; still trying to learn the latter.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome, Rookie.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Thank you for your service in the military as well as all others that have served. This forum and RTT site is a great additional tool to have. The postings on here and the willingness to share and help from Darcy, Rookie and others have been very beneficial. It is helping me in my journey of trading and I hope in return that I can be of help to others as well. Good luck trading!

Thanks, TCB. I'm able to watch the market live this morning, so here's to a good day.

Cheers.

Welcome. Always nice to have new folks. Thank you for your service to our country. You must have spent some time breaking all that info down. That looked like a lot of work. Hope we all can help you in your trading. Again welcome and now off to trading!

Thanks, Darcy.

I'm watching Apple closely this morning. It looks like the BBs are starting to narrow on the smaller charts so it could break out in either direction. I'm trying to be patient and not jump too early as it sets up. I have to learn to let the trades come to me.

And I'm done for the day.

I jumped on Apple as it moved up this morning. I purchased the Jun13 435 Call for $15.05 and sold it 7 minutes later for $16.25.

I'm not confident enough to let it run right now, but I am perfectly happy to throw a little brick on the pile.

I was looking at VMW as it has met most of the criteria for a put on the charts but broader market mixed so I didn't enter. 233, 55 and E chart all look good but don't know how much it will go without support of the broader market as futures are turning???

Good trade Robert

Thanks, again, TCB.

As for VMW, (do not take anything I say too seriously as I'm still learning to read the charts well). It looks to me like it could easily fall about another $2.00 to the $75.00 region over the next couple of days (based on D & 233 charts). I'm just spit-balling, though.

Robert, may I ask what entry criteria or chart did you base your AAPL trade off of? Thanks

TCB- Smart decision to not trade a mixed market. I have gotten torn to peices in the past. For me, I lost so much confidence when ALL indicators point to a trade, and I entered. I usually found out quickly that the broad market overrides EVERY SINGLE INDICATOR I USE! I do not fight against it. When I am in a trade and trading in the direction of the broad, If it turns, I am looking to get out.

Robert- Good stuff! I think you are a lot better trader than you think. Your attention to detail and the ability to apply the rules will pay dividends.

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TCB
Robert, may I ask what entry criteria or chart did you base your AAPL trade off of? Thanks

TCB,

I was trading off of the small charts. Click the below screen shot to see some notes. As noted above, after getting in the trade, I immediately put in my GTC sell order for a small profit. I'm still trying to peg consistently good entry points where the stock is moving right now. After I've gotten good at the entry, I'll work on trying to extend the trade -- until then, I'm happy with any small win.

I'm still learning, so what is presented below isn't necessarily the best trade, but maybe it'll help.

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Rookie30
Robert- Good stuff! I think you are a lot better trader than you think. Your attention to detail and the ability to apply the rules will pay dividends.

At least one of us is confident. Thanks for the support.

Just threw another tiny brick on the pile.

Bought CF Jun13 190 Call for $6.80 at 09:34. Sold at 10:45 for $7.40.

Good entry; bad exit. I had been watching the pre-market chart and knew that it was going to pop up on the opening. My goal was to hit it for a quick dollar. Once my option rose to $7.80 I decided to try letting it run a bit so I entered a trailing stop hoping that as the stock rose it would automatically raise my stop with it and I could glean a bit more profit.

In actuality, the stock backed up quickly and stopped me out at $7.40 which was below my actual stop.

I'm happy for the little brick; but I really need to work on my exits.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 09:15AM by robert.

I reanalyzed the VMW trade that I saw at the open on Monday that I mentioned earlier. After looking at it that afternoon I decided to enter on the 233 chart as the overall evidence of the trade on the bigger charts were too overwhelming to let it go. I missed part of the move that I would have got had I entered off the 55, and 13 "E" chart. My GTC was hit today around 2:15. All of the charts still look good to continue down, but HIS.

I had also entered a trade on LULU on 5-16 off of the 55 and 13 "E" with 233 as trend. I exited yesterday when 233 turned up toward end of day and 55 was really heading up. After entering the trade went sideways but stayed in until I saw the big turn up yesterday and then bailed because I thought it was really going to go against me but I had a feeling that it would come my way but left anyway. If I had a stayed I could have had a nice profit today as the stock reversed and had a big move down today. UGHHH!!! Looking at the 55 chart yesterday when it turned up (BB were in a squeeze and indicating upward breakout) would there have been any reason to have stayed in the put? Does anyone see anything that should have convinced me to stay? Just trying to analyze it so I will not make that mistake again. Hoping someone might see something that I missed. Thanks

The 55 will fake you out all the time. The 233 "trend" was still up on the 16th on the entry. If you ever want to verify your trend, you go up one time frame to find siginificant evidence. The daily was sitting on support of the green CC line and was not on the TBBB. I also have the 8 period moving average as a "trend line" and unless a candle body closes beneath that then I do not anticipate the trend changing. In my opinion LULU is now a trade due to my criteria however I am not recommeding anyone to trade this based on my opinion.

Thanks for the insight BCT. I see what you are saying. Looking at the 233 at close yesterday, with candle close above 10 ma and DMI crossed up, weak trend on adx, macd hist. trending up and stochastic lines narrowing about to cross, and daily candle still above 10 ma, along with CC ma's up, isn't it screaming to leave as this had the potential to go higher? Again, no disrespect, just trying to learn from this bad decision but according to the evidence is why I left as I thought it was heading further up and tried to cut losses before it did.

I apologize but I dont fully understand your question however to reiterate what Im saying in that when you indicated you got into a 55 trade with a 233 trend and I am saying the 233 was not trending down when you entered.

I think a lot of students look for trades first on smaller charts and then look for a trend. The trade chart compels them so much that the trend chart is not valued as much. I think its completely the opposite. I think you should be so compelled by the trend first then look for trades on smaller charts.

TCB,
My humble opinion is, the BBs were too tight on the 55- on day of entry. There was not enough space from TBB to BBB. My mentor taught me to never trade or make a decision if my BBs are "tight". If I am going to berth to the next largest chart, I still want my initial decision chart to show distance decent distance from the top to bottom BBs. I feel I am squeezed to make that decision- if they are tight.

If you look at your MA chart, you also can see that you do not have a clear "E" on the 55-which was your decision chart. The other two most important components to this trade are, the MF and the ADX/DM line. Both are flat lined on your 55.

Please understand that I am by no means a good big charts trader, but as I practice and backtest hours and hours. I am finding that the little things can bury you on the big charts. In essence, if you think you have the trend pegged, but you missed a few key indicators, you are in a tough spot because your charts can turn over and you think the trade is coming back, just to see that it never comes back in your direction. Honestly, those points I made regarding your LULU trade, are ones that have hurt me in practice- The little things!

I am finding that big chart trading is technical and it is very important that you are very familiar with candle formations and early signals. The MF and DM lines are critical on your trend chart. Be really careful with the Direction Movement line. We are trained to trade in the direction of the lines. NOT THE DM LINE! When the trend is coming to an end, the DM line starts to point down on the trend chart. When the "E" forms, you will typically see the DM line point up. These two indicators are truly amazing and keys to my trading regardless of the chart. Just my humble thoughts......

BACK TO PRACTICING!!

Thanks Rookie I have been dissecting that trade so that I can carry the learned knowledge forward. I feel I forced that one, making something there that wasn't at the time.