LVS: A Look at the End of Day Execution Chart

I traded LVS a little today. Wish that it was the only thing that I traded because I managed to rack up some losses early on but was fortunate enough to make them up and then some with LVS. This stock was an animal today...it just kept charging higher. One thing that I do on a daily basis is take screen shots of the execution charts for all the stocks that I traded that day. I have this setup through LightSpeed, the broker, with a 5m bar chart that shows all of the buy (green dots) and sell (red dots) for the day. My LVS chart for today is interesting. Reviewing these charts is helpful to me both on good and bad days.

As you can see from the chart, I made 5 trades in LVS today. I had more than 5 positions because I scaled into or out of some of the trades but I'll still consider this 5 total trades. Trade number one was a good start. It made money quickly and hit small profit target right off the bat. I usually book profits quickly when I trade within the first 15 minutes of the day because it's hard to get a feel for the market as a whole with such a short amount of time trading.

Trade number 2 was my big money maker. The reason that I found this execution chart interesting is because it really puts my trades in a good perspective in relation to the price action. I loaded up for this trade and I tried to hold as long as I could. It felt like a huge move that took forever, but it wasn't that big in relation to the rest of the day's action. Goes to show that one or two well managed trades that offer up a .30-.40 profit can make good money for a day trader.

This is what a good day's worth of trading one stock looks like for me. Sure I booked profits a little soon and I would have come out way ahead if I'd a just bought the open or the opening range break out and walked away or closed my eyes until the close, but this trading is what works for me. I can look at this chart and say that I should hold longer after the fact, but if today would not have offered up much follow through, these trades would look like solid gold. Obviously I'm still learning to gauge follow through but overall I'm happy with today's trades in LVS.

Hope everyone had a good Monday.

TLT