Closed AIS, Holding FLOW

AIS

AIS was looking really strong again today, hitting up the $1.74 mark, but, near the EOD, it looked like people locked in some profits.  My trailing stop had crept up to $1.65 and the heavy end of day selling stopped me out.  I felt like its run was over, but the sudden drop at the end was really fast.  I guess its true that they fall quicker than they rise, and I'm not sure what I could have done to squeaked out more profits.  Perhaps in future, raise this trailing stop to the intra-day support.  For that, I was seeing $1.69 as the ultimate low, so perhaps a trailing stop to put me at $1.68 would have netted me another $40.  Here is the 5-minute intraday chart.  Its funny how yesterday's $1.65 and $1.60 held little meaning (although the $1.60 did bounce as support again) today.

I'll keep this on my alerts, and will see if we come back down to $1.55 and maybe try to play this as the new support range. Overall, this was a very successful trade and the trailing stop loss seemed to have worked out well.  I don't think my position sizes are large enough that the market makers would be able to identify them as stop-losses, so I'll continue to tweak this method.

FLOW

This guy pulled back most of its last 15-minute gains from yesterday back to test the $3.10 area.  This one is still holding, with current trailing stop loss poised to fire at $3.03, which I think is acceptable as I am seeing some intra-day support of previous temporary resistance at $3.05.  A drop below there likely indicates we will retest the $2.85 area.  Which I am not opposed to as I'd gladly attempt to play this one again.

Updated Charts and Strategies - AIS and FLOW

AIS

AIS gapped up and hung in the low $1.60s today, came close to just taking right off.  The one thing I do not like is how the daily candle turned out.  For some reason, its showing a high of the day at $2.00 which makes the daily chart hideous.  I am hoping that does not kill the momentum, but we will see.  I have a trailing stop at $1.58 right now which is just below the $1.60.  I may move this to a manual stop for the morning, in case its volatile and low volume takes it below $1.58 for some reason.  Although, in AH the bid is at $1.64.

Here is the support and resistance on the 15-minute intra-day charts that I am seeing.  Watching the level II at both $1.60 support and $1.65 resistance, its clear these are both very strong.  When we get to these points, the bid (or ask) sizes are in the 100k of share range which is a lot strong than any other area - it may have something to do with the nice round numbers.  I'm tempted to exit at $1.65 because of the strong nature, but with the trailing stop, I'm somewhat okay with letting this play out.

FLOW

This one has now also played out as expected, we've bounced off support at $1.84ish and have now come back to resistance at $3.20.  This was my target area for selling, but I haven't sold yet.  I may be getting greedy and hoping it breaks out past $3.20.  The reason I am hoping it breaks out is that I am not real confident in the strength of $3.20.  Looking at the 60-minute chart, it almost looks like $3.07-$3.10 had been some area of resistance, which would mean my initial theory on target resistance was wrong.... I'm going to let this one play out a little longer as it is not that volatile, my trailing stop should be okay.  I still have bigger hopes this can maybe trend upwards towards the $4.00 mark, but we'll see.

AIS, VICL updates

AIS

Looking nice again today, peaking at $1.67 so far - it says $1.69 but that must have been a quick one.  As I mentioned, I entered a trailing stop this morning per plan - $.08 from a start of $1.62 and it has squeaked its way up to $1.58 which I'm happy with.  There have been a few times I've been tempted to just get out of this position, but I'm going to test this trailing stop.  If the trailing stop triggers down here, I'll probably be cursing at giving up another $60, but I'd really like to get an exit method down, and there are most days where I cannot pay very close attention to use manual stops.

VICL

This guy spiked back up to about $3.59 and I was thinking about re-entering as it does look like it may have reversed its previous course.  My stop limit that triggered at $3.38 got blown through at the time on massive end-of-day volume.  Since that time, its moved up on some very small volume and because of this, I decided to sit on the side lines.  If it can re-establish a bigger base here at $3.50, I may look at it once again.

AIS and FLOW Still Holding

AIS

Well, I didn't expect AIS to take off so quickly, but I'll take it!  Reading a stock board I found a pasted article promoting AIS, which may have accounted for its spike.  Regardless, it appears my theory of $1.35 support was correct.  So now that we are at a $1.53 stock price, I need to re-evaluate my stop.  The $1.28 stop is no longer an option.  I'm tempted to tighten my stop pretty tight here, possibly bringing it up to the $1.48 support, maybe $1.46 to give it a little lee-way.  I don't trust myself with a mental stop however.  The reason I am planning this is because if it is going to get through $1.55, I need it to consolidate tightly underneath it, or just bust through on Monday.  Falling back below that mini-support at $1.48 and we're likely heading back to $1.35 - which I'd be happy to try this again!  See the 60-minute chart for further evidence of the $1.48 range being a good support/resistance target.

There were times today way I nearly sold based on some dips intra-day. I also modified my stop loss to $1.41 temporarily to lock in my profit on this trade. Never let a winning trade turn into a losing trade. The nice thing with this is even after the 12% spike, we still are only sitting at RSI14 of 66, not yet oversold. Which is why I would love for this to tighten up under $1.55 and then bust through and maybe giving us a potential breakout play. If that happens, I really don't have a plan and will have to wait for a sell-signal on the daily or intra-day candlesticks. At that point, I'll likely convert the stop limit to a trailing stop and let it run to test that method on a breakout. It sucks having to test-drive my exit strategies, but, only way to find out what works.

FLOW

An up day today, gaining a few more pennies. As previously mentioned, I've turned the stop limit into a trailing stop to lock in gains. Similar to AIS, hoping for a break past resistance at $3.20 - however, I don't think this has much strength here and should make it at least there, since we have added bonus as a gap-fill. We'll see how it plays out. This one is slowly rising to the mark which is what I think will be typical of these plays.

FLOW Update

As I mentioned previously, I am attempting to utilize a trailing stop on this now that it sits at $3.05. I put a trailing stop order in for $0.15 at this level, and the "activation" price initially is set to $2.89, this removes my stop limit. A strong break below the $2.84 support level would be bad at this point, so I don't even want to get there.

FLOW

VICL was first position that I completed round-trip, but I also purchased FLOW on the same day. It came up on my scans and triggered an alert when it approached my determined support.

I liked this support range at around 2.84 for FLOW, as it had been prior resistance in the last year which broke through it in December. It bounced off of it a few times through December before making new highs in the $4 range. Since those highs, its trickled back down and has once again bounced off of this support range. On 3/30, I took the opportunity to grab shares here.



The stock dropped pretty hard on decently large volume on 3/31 so I didn't buy right away, but I watched it on the 15-minute chart and you can see it started to build a pretty good base in this area. Since it stabilized, I decided it was worth the risk. I grabbed 600 shares at $2.85.



Stop and Target

I've once again used a stop limit order and placed it at $2.70, this is about 5.3% downside protection. The target area of next resistance is at about $3.20 range. This gives a 12.8% upside, but I can also see it trying to break past that and showing next stops at around $3.45 and then the previous highs in the $4. So, while the initial trade is only about a 2.5:1 risk to reward, I feel this $2.85 support is a lot stronger than the one from VICL. If it strongly breaks through this resistance, I may even move up the trailing stop and give up on this trade.

Now that I am already up on this trade a few percent, I am looking at implementing some trailing stops to protect my gains. I'd hate to turn a profitable trade into a losing one. I may setup a trailing stop here at the $3 for $0.15, so if the stock does move up to that $3.20 resistance, I'll lock in a $3.05 sell price which would give me a small 7% gain. After commissions, that just gets eaten away.... I may need to increase my position sizes once I get this method down. $20 round-trip on $2k is 1% of profit lost to commissions!

AIS

This is another attempt at buying down near support on an uptrending stock. AIS has had a nice run over the last year and had traded between $1.00 and $1.30 for about 6 months prior to breaking in early March. That run got it up to a high of $1.55, it has now drifted back down to the $1.35 previous resistance which I had marked as our new support level.

I must not have been paying attention on 3/30, as we did touch down on the support and I missed it. But on 3/31, I was watching more closely and received another bounce that pretty much solidified my theory. I purchased 1400 shares at $1.36 as it was making a strong case for $1.35 as support off the 15-minute chart.

Targets and Stops

The next minor resistance is at $1.48 and then the 52-week high of $1.55. So, the $1.48 is the immediate goal, but I don't think it is that strong as it hasn't had much time to develop, the volume up to $1.55 is also relatively small, so my overall target is the $1.55 area.  My stop on this one is with the minor resistance around $1.28 which also coincides with the 50-ma.  This gives 14% upside to 5.8% downside or basically a 3:1 risk to reward.  The added benefit is the potential for a breakout past $1.55, but I don't want to give that too much leeway because it could just as easily bounce off of there and glide back down to this $1.35 level.