Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't posted since last Tuesday. I had my last finals for the academic year on Wednesday, got home late Thursday night and had a busy day today, so I had very little time to post, much less trade.

I did have one big win, however - I was in on GEVO at .5344 and out at 1.16 which almost doubled my account for the day and brought me back into the green from the red for the year for the first time in a long while. That felt pretty good, as it always sucks to have lost money, even if you're learning things along the way. I just feel a lot better, y'know?

Anyway, a specific question/topic is on my mind and it's been bothering me lately as I can't seem to find a clear answer.

How do you spot moves and/or patterns quickly?

I have gotten pretty good at recognizing a pattern when I see it, but often times I see stocks where, when they're 30% or so up and really start showing up on my scanners, they've already executed most of their big move for the day or gone through the pattern pattern that I'm looking for, and it's not clear enough what it's doing now or worth getting into in terms of risk/reward ratio, and I've been missing a lot of opportunities in this manner. I've tried fine-tuning scanners to try to catch stocks that are squeezing as they squeeze, but often times a lot of little penny stocks get caught in the net (like an OTC stock that's had one trade that's risen it 200% or something) and it takes a lot of time to sift through these stocks, which often means that any opportunities displayed in this scanner are missed anyway. 

This also occurs in the larger, more general percent-gain scanners...there's so many stocks to watch that it's hard to keep on eye on what's coming and going or making big moves, plus the best patterns often aren't the big overall percent-gainers...to me it seems like a lot of the best opportunities are stocks that were down 7% and reverse to then be up 7% for a 14% gain, or something like that (just a loose example).

So yeah, what do you guys do to spot patterns and/or as they form? Just get a general scanner and keep a very diligent eye on what stocks have just appeared? Or is there some other method that has worked for you? Let me know in the comments. All help is appreciated.

Talk to you all again soon,

-Ben C.