My Trading > My Trading Journal > January 25, 2012

My Trading Journal

January 25, 2012

6:00 pm (PST)

Minor stuff: XHB was up about 40 cents to 19.30. My spread is back in-the-money so I hope XHB gowe back down. FOSL and BMC were up even more. ANF rebounded more.

At the FOMC meeting today, the Fed didn't come out with any notable news. But the TLT was still (inexplicably) very volatile. It jumped 2.5 points and then came all the way back down and closed down a little.

GOOG was down about 11.5 points to 569.49. I definitely should have held off for a couple of days to write that put spread. One of my most effective techniques is to look at a stock which had a large 1-day drop (like 10%-40%) and then to hold off for about 2-4 days while the stock drops even more. Many times, traders will buy the initial drop thinking that the stock has bottomed out. But this initial gap down serves as a fake-out while the stock drops more for a couple of days. I think GOOG will bounce from here about 10 points or so and my spread will be 20 points out of the money. What GOOG stock does after that (and for the next 3 weeks before expiration) will be the key question.

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