The market seems to be changing from Bullish to Bearish. Every long trade I have been watching the last 2 weeks that was a good setup to Tim's Patterns has failed to break out. $AKER for example was a contract winner and reported "good" earnings. It even had a good  8% gap up pre-market on Monday when those reports came out. But sometime around mid-market, it tanked and has been red ever since. In the bullish market last year, this would've had a much bigger spike throughout the day and even lasting into the following days. Now the general trend of the market on all the penny stocks is they go up pre-market to 10am and then either consolidate or go down mid to end of day, even with good/great catalysts.

$ACRX is another one. It's a Biotech stock that received FDA approval on Monday. Getting FDA approval for Biotech stocks is like an endorsement from a big tech firm during the tech craze of the '90s. Same experience as AKER. The stock rose 17% by about 11:30 and then consolidated all day. The stock has been down the rest of the week and now it's pretty close to it's "pre-catalyst" valuation. 

 I would have loved to get in and do a swing trade on $FUSZ but I avoided because I couldn't determine safe support or resistance lines on the daily chart. I first saw it on March 19th when it broke Feb's resistance line. Since it had 2 prior red days I wasn't sure support would hold. I was thinking it would crack the next day or mid-week as a fake-B/O. The other issue I had with judging FUSZ is that the stock is less than a year old and was up at least 50% from the IPO. At the time, I wasn't sure if this stock was a pump or actually preforming better than originally thought. For example $AMZN was around $2 when it first went public and was up 2-3X the following year. Sure $FUSZ maybe no $AMZN but it is in the tech sector which was really hot last year. My point is that it was hard to judge where this stock was going due to no history of the stock and being in a good sector so I didn't touch it. Since it is clearly a pump and dump, I'll be looking for a great dump and then maybe a nice sized bounce if the market plays out. 

I'm someone with a very small cash account. In fact, my brokerage account is even below the margin minimum amount rule ($2,000). I also am very busy with my day job so I tend to favor overnight or swing trades while I learn and to grow my account. AKER and ACRX  were great setups for overnight or swing trades due to the added catalysts and good volume traded on the day. However the market seems to be shifting from stocks that go up and stay up for a few days with good catalysts to stocks that only go up briefly interday and then no price action or negative action or pump and dumps like FUSZ.

It seems that I am learning how to be a short seller and these patterns are becoming predicable in this new market. But with my low account value, I can only paper trade shorts. With not even $2000 in the bank as well as the $2.50 rule, the reward of short selling is very small compared to the risk.  If the contract and earnings winners aren't playing out well for long/swing traders, I'm not sure what's left that will actually grow my account. Sure i'm minimizing losses as I cut quickly; but even when I take quick profits due to the low %gain, I still end up with a loss in total account value. In some cases my losses due to fees is equal or greater than my loss on a trade. When your trying to grow a really small account, even cutting losses quickly can be devastating due to the added loss of brokerage fees. I love my broker but if only I had 10x more in the account, it would be a different story: I would be at IB short selling. Until I grow my account, I'm not sure yet where I fit best in this market shift.