10-19-06 wrap up

I've narrowed my daily watchlist down to only include stocks with volume of at least 1,000,000 shares per day, and a current volume ratio of 2/1. I did this because while I was finding some good set ups that looked to have a reasonable risk/reward ratio I was having too much trouble getting good order fills on more thinly traded stocks. The net effect of bad order fullfillment is usually a badly skewed risk/reward ratio, and I found myself left with the options of either keeping my original stop to see if price would follow the chart trend (but if I was wrong I'd end up losing more than -1R), or cutting my position to bring my R:R into balance (but paying more commissions in the process).

Blah... trading is hard enough without having to face that choice several times in a day.

I'll leave the thinly traded stocks in my screens for longer term positions, but no longer for my day trades.

I had a decent trading day despite all the pre-options expiration choppiness.