My Trading > My Trading Journal > December 23, 2011

My Trading Journal

December 23, 2011

9:58 am (PST)

The Vietnamese ETF (VNM) is making new 52-week lows. This is a market which is the fastest growing trading partner of America. Apparently, the market is heading down because of inflation pressures, which (from what I've read caused a currency devaluation some time in the past). I found it when scanning BarChart's new lows list. I have an order for 7,000 shares @ 15.03. I wouldn't mind averaging down to 14.75 next week. I'm just looking for a 3% (or so) move in a few days. I'm not concerned if I miss it. There is very little volume in the stock and the spreads are wide.
Here are a few links:

4:00 pm (PST)

I got filled at 15.03 - 1 tick off the post-open low. I'm only looking for a quick 2-3% jump, with only 2-3% risk. Normally I wouldn't bother with such a small gain/loss, but ETFs which are based on a very broad index (like the S&P - or a country index) don't ever gap down 20-40% like stocks such as NFLX or GMCR do, so there isn't much gap risk. The maximum daily risk tends to be around 1-3% - assuming you are not in a particularly volatile period. This allows a swing trader to play these indexes for small 2-3% gains over 1-2 day periods. I used to do with occassionally with the QQQ a few years ago. Barring any major currency-related crisis drop, things should go OK.

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