7/24/2009 morning update

NQ discretionary swing trade:

• since we rallied so quickly from yesterday's late sell off and i didn't believe the NQ would be able to make new swing highs so soon, i sold my first NQ lot at 1589.50 at 943 am (booking 14.75 points)...this level was around the area that would fill this morning's gap down and the area of the overnight session's swing high...
• i bought that lot back 15 minutes later at 1575.25...
• if we rally back up today, i will sell this second lot somewhere in 1587.50-1597.50 area...currently, i have a limit order in at 1597.50...if we don't rally back up to this range by late afternoon, then i will carry this NQ lot overnight...
• i have another order to buy 1 lot (1552.50) just above the next lower pivot (1547)...a potential move down to this area on the NQ will probably coincide with a move down in the ES to the 950 area...

VCM discretionary daytrading:

• traded TUP to the short side for my VCM account this am...was in and out 2x, both winners...small profits, less than 1 R in total...
• this makes 8 consecutive trading days netting profits daytrading, mostly opening gaps...small steps...i did have a few losses, but they were all manageable, never even approaching the daily loss limit on any of them...
• i am going to continue working on this opening gap approach...
• i am not planning on placing any more daytrades in my vcm account today...this week has been my most profitable week at vcm since i started there in july 2008...while my $ profits were not enough to qualify for potential advancement to the next trading level, the trading performance trend of the past 2 weeks is definitely in the right direction...
• one of things i can do to potentially increase my $ profits, is to trade bigger size, trade more opening gappers, and/or trade additional setups that may occur later in the day...not sure yet which may be the best option for me...

Disclosure: Long NQU09.

***remember this is an illustration of what i am trading and my thinking...it is not a recommendation for you or anyone else to buy or sell this or any other security***