Broker: ETrade

This morning, I saw a dip buy opportunity in ECYT. There was an early-morning meh spike @ 9:39 AM, topping off at $6.08 before plummeting again.

I had been keeping an eye on this stock all day yesterday because there was an 8K filing the day before (with great news for them) and so the stock skyrocketed. A lot of the other companies that are more questionable tend to spend the day after a spike fading, but this one kept rising the day after.

After the first day spiking on Oct. 2nd, the after-hours market on Oct. 2nd saw the stock plummet. The following morning on the 3rd, it rose from the dip and spent the entire day rising back towards its 52-week high.

Although the volume wasn't as intense as the 1st-2nd days when all the PRs and news were flying, the volume wasn't dying either, so I figured many traders were still enthusiastic about this stock. On top of this, the pattern the past few days was reaching highs at the end of the day and then dipping overnight or early morning (not pictured).

So I made the call and it turns out I was right. Before it was 11:30am EST, the stock had almost reached its 52-week high of $6.55 again (achieved Oct. 3rd). I don't have much money, so my starting portfolio is rather small, and I would have only invested about $800 into this play.

When I had made the call, the price was $5.68. Assuming I had played correctly, I would have gotten out a little after the stock hit its high and downturned, so probably around $6.40. That's $0.72 / share, or a 12.67% gain. On $800, that's + $101. Subtract trading fees and I'm down to $90.

For many other traders, especially the experts on this site, that's pennies. But for me, a noob with a small portfolio, it'd have been one of my largest wins.

Sadly, it was not my day today. I had gotten the notification on my phone that the order was filled, and it seemed like business as usual so I didn't bother reading the notification. Turns out that they had only filled out the order for 10 of my shares, and the rest never made it.

When you issue an order for fewer than 300 shares, you can't check the "All or nothing" box. What had happened was that they only filled out 10 shares of my order, and the rest were never filled (Limit Order only executes at the given price, whereas a Market Order adjusts to the market price). The rest of the 140 shares sat sadly in an open order, waiting for the $5.68 to roll around again... it didn't.

I set alerts because I work a day job and cannot afford to stare at the charts all day. I had gotten the alert that ECYT hit my threshold of $6.20 and I got super excited. Then I checked my portfolio and saw I was actually down $3. That's when I saw what had happened.

It took everything I had not to pick up my laptop and throw it across the room at work. It's one thing to lose money on a trade because I had made a bad call - I can own up to those. But this was an administrative error... the pain of making such a stupid mistake was far more painful than the pain of losing money.

On top of this, I was hit with a notification today that since my account balance is under $25,000, I can only make a maximum of 3 trades per 5 days, or else my account will be put on suspension (or something like that). So even though I'm more determined than ever, I am forced to sit back, take a deep breath, and do no trading for a few days. The only thing left to do is go back and study some more.

I'm getting closer. I'm so excited for it that I can taste it. More of my trades are in the green now, and each time I click my mouse I feel my skill level and knowledge increasing. It's not even about earning the money anymore - the feeling of winning a trade, even if small, is exhilarating, and I am getting addicted.

Cheers to many successful trades ahead. A warm thanks to Tim Sykes and his team for all of the learning materials they've created and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn.