daytrade diaries....friday

Yikes! I logged on to find a red heart next to my nic, which as everyone knows, is the international symbol for 'Trader with cardiac risk'. If I start getting chest pains in the next few weeks I'm blaming you lot.
:)

I only trade on the long side, so typically on days when the DOW is significantly down, I look for intraday scalping opportunities. This usually entails trading the pullback and bounce on some of my regular trading stocks.
Although yesterday I could have traded just about any of the stocks that I listed in my morning post, it's usually better to have some kind of selection criteria to zero in on the most likely candidates.

Here's a couple of possibilities:

A breakout stock. Look for a stock that has broken out with volume on the previous day or two. There should be enough heat in the stock to allow for a bounce, once the opening dump is out of the way. The chart example below on the daily and intraday charts is MGR.

A pullback stock. Look for a stock that has been trending up on volume and has then started to pull back for 2-4 days. The bargain hunters are likely to be looking to buy once the opening selldown is done and this should provide a bounce opportunity. The example here is AIO.

These are strictly scalp trades so I don't get too greedy. Instead I will look to get a few more scalp trades away during the rest of the day if possible.

You will need some kind of entry/exit strategy, and mine are based on the Bollinger Band and Stochastic applied to a 5 or 10 tick intraday chart. I keep one eye on the depth screen and course of sales as well. Sometimes instinct plays a part too.

Good trading and don't be afraid of the big bad DOW.