Just to be clear, my blogging here in profit.ly is really my trading journal. It's not private and I hope it will serve as a way to document my journey into this new field, while also waxing poetic about events in my life that may or may not influence my decision making process. It may come that in a month or two I'll be bored and quit posting/trading altogether, but that's neither here nor there. I'd like to think if anyone reads these and finds value, well, great! If no one reads these, that's great as well because ultimately these are for me. But I suppose the greater arcing theme is that I see that a lot of us newbies have the same questions, make the same mistakes, so why not get mine out in the open so you know you're not alone? You're not alone. I'm not alone. :D

I watched RolandWolf's video on biotechs last week. I've become increasingly frustrated with biotechs because the overnight-long strategy I've been employing has been complete dogshit. After some disastrous trades and a lot of just watching these stocks, I was convinced that I was missing something, but it's obvious to anyone with a scanner that there's money to be made. Roland's video showed me that it's possible to make money here, and Tim's video on Friday mornings using the exact stock I'd be watching friday (but not trading), yeah, I know this can be done.

One of the patterns I've been seeing over the past few weeks is that a biotech will get FDA approval. They release this news pre-market and the stock spikes up 40-50%+ before trading. Now, the trick here is that at market open, it seems many of these stocks will give a short little spike, then steadily fall during they day, with very few dip buying opportunities (they go down 20 cents, bounce 5 cents, drop 30 cents, bounce 7 cents, etc), and maybe if I were a seasoned scalper and had a huge account to buy 10k shares to play with where a 7 cent optimal trade would be decent money, my <$1000 account just can't handle. But it's worth watching because it's good to see how the patterns play out (and for reference for short selling). Anyway, I've noticed that with these outside-regular-hours releases, the big gains seem to occur overnight either in after-hours or pre-market, and then a lot of times, the stock opens flat, possibly dips a little, but there's usually a spike and then down it goes. I've also learned that trying to buy these at the end of the big gain day has been disastrous, hoping for a 2nd day spike. For these, the action is on the day of the news and that's it unless you want to try to short the 2nd day (since I've never shorted, I can't speak from anything but observation). $KURA friday followed the last part easily, but went huge at the beginning, including the overnight gap-up. As Roland said, as goes one, there will probably be another. (Speaking of which, I started watching $KURA in the 9s and my god I wish I'd bought 50 shares, but whatever, there will be more opportunities later, but I was also unsure of it).

This morning, I found on my aftermarket scanner (lol, I'm just watching the NASDAQ Big gainers after-market list) and saw that $MRNS was doing gangbusters in the afterhours/pre-market. I was a bit late, seeing it around 6:10AM PST, and did the math. Saw the news about the epilepsy drug so we have FDA approval, check. I see good pre-market trading, which means there's definitely interest, check. Trending upwards, looking for a good gap-up in the morning, check. Low float, check. It was holding steady around 4.75, so I decided to buy 100 shares pre-market. Unfortunately, I didn't have  solid risk level (4.75 seemed to be the support), so I think mentally I was prepared to cut losses around 4.70, but 4.75 was holding and opened higher. I was already in the green when the market opened, so I had to remember my rule about selling: don't forget to press submit order! I was wanting $5.25, a solid 50 cents a share and man, it blew past that pretty quickly. Instead of selling, I was wondering if may be could see another $KURA. I thought this unlikely because, well, some biotech is more sexy than others: Cancer cure > epilepsy (although I don't know if that holds true). And based on the plays I tried to make with bandages and diabetic approvals, a $1-2 gain seemed unlikely, but 50 cents? Sure. But I blew it (lol) and it dive-bombed below 5.25 and I missed it. So set my sell price at 5.25 and got on the change page just in case we got a little dip/bounce action, but the price action was pretty mild. I saw it climbing a little to the 5.10 mark, I adjusted my ask to 5.12 and it hit 5.16. I was executed at 5.12, I made a decent little 37 cents/share and I feel pretty decent about it. I don't think this was a good trade: speculative buy, but I did feel like I did the following correctly: Properly assessing that I had missed the "meat of the move" initially, being patient for the short bounce, getting out when I could, with a little green in the account. I can't say I have biotechs figured out, not by a long shot, but I have validated that I can make a little money with them if I keep my expectations low, lock in profits, and continue watching the stocks.  I was relieved to see that my call on $KURA at the end of the day was vindicated as it only had a small 50 cent/share pop this morning and has been following the pattern I've established in my head of a one hit(day) wonder pattern, get in early and get out even faster. Now I need to generate a report looking these little pops up and figuring out what they were for, etc. I think I may be on to something with what drives big, $KURA style gains vs these types of spikes that don't have long morning longevity.

Going forward to test this hypothesis: Keep watching for overnight gainers. Assess if the volume is building up towards market open ($MRNS was) that might indicate opening and gaining (if volume was fading, I probably would've not bought in. I believe this is a marker that Roland mentioned, as well), and getting out as soon as good targets are hit. I'm back to just 100 share trades for now until I can show consistency.

The Grim.

One of my best friends took his life last week. It was rough discovering this and on friday morning, I was home and opened my scanner to see the $KURA thing. It got my mind off of things for awhile. One of the reasons he listed is being tired of being jerked around in this job market (He's in IT. As am I) and I know how it felt. Interviews, interviews, and then ghosting. I've been through it: "We love you! We want to hire you. We'll have HR work up your papers and we'll call you in on Thursday or Friday and have you sign them and we'd like to start  you by next friday, is that good? We're excited to have you on the team!" and then they never call. You call them, they give excuses "Oh, we had a big meeting last week, the boss has to sign the HR offers, blah blah blah" until finally after a month, you say fuck it and resume the job search. How fucking rude. I've had it done to me, he had it done several times running. And frankly.. it sucks and it's stupid.

So, I've been learning this trade because I decided I want to get out of this rat race. I'm in my 40s, I don't need this kind of stress in my life and I know I never want to go to another smug interview where I have to dance for a bunch of idiots to try to earn a paycheck; I want to take my own destiny into my hands. I mean, I'm supposed to be Punk Rock. I already DIY my music, my films, a zine, my own chocolate. Why can't I DIY my life? 

And so, thanks, buddy. You've further reinforced the idea that I'm going to live by my own rules; I'm not going to be beholden to dancing for other people. Goddammit, I'm going to miss you, man, and I'm so mad you won't be around when I finally find the success I'm gunning for so I can show it to you. Never again.