Bread and Butter

Most of my trading profits come from a handful of companies. I trade a lot (2600 trades last year) and it is too difficult for me to focus on more than 8 -10 companies. I've tried in the past and I just end up losing money. GOOG accounts for much of my trading success. I watch it continually and have a pretty good handle on how it moves and it's chart. Here is an example of the type of trade that I try to do on a daily basis if the trade presents itself. This is a base hit in my world. Nothing flashy, just steady income.

GOOG is down to start the day, the market is decent, volume is mediocre, it has recently closed above both the 20 and 50 day moving averages, I just didn't feel, based on my history with this stock, that this selloff was going to stick. I bought calls. Not super deep in the money because we are far enough away from expiration, but with enough premium that if the stock elevated I might get a point. My vision for this trade was intra-day with perhaps holding overnight given the action. I was able to gain the point by the end of the trading day and so I closed the trade. Not complicated, I felt I bought close to what the low of the day was going to be and I think I closed given my parameters of the trade at the right time.

GOOGLE
07/26/2010	O	STC	GOOG Aug10 480 Call	10	$16.80	$9.00	$16,790.61
07/26/2010	O	BTO	GOOG Aug10 480 Call	10	$15.80	$9.00	($15,809.11)	981.50
Total Realized Gain/Loss for GOOG					$981.50