My grandmother who introduced me to the stock market passed at the age of 98 this week.  She will be missed and remembered always.

Holding APWR long and ignoring the daily price swings has not been exciting, but I really can't predict what will happen with the price so I'd prefer not to experiment.

Today contract news came out for APWR but the overall market and commodity pricing seems to trump everything, so I don't expect any major movement based on news.

Today I violated one of O'Neill's rules -- don't buy breakouts in a bear market.  I attempted QCOR, but I was a little late in the morning and missed a 0.50 rise, only got a 0.10 rise, then it fell to my stop and exited at a tiny loss.  Both times I have used a stop in the last week (and it has been a very tight stop of 1.5% both times), it has protected me from larger losses.

The disparity in income between rich and poor, the leveraged funds, a slowing global economy, shaky banking practices, and politicians saying "the fundamentals are fine, recovery is imminent" all have common elements with today.

*Edit for after hours:  This is my first failure when averaging down an APWR slide.  So now I am 6 for 7.  I sold part of my holdings at a loss, possibly adding it back in the future.  Overall market selloff + alt energy stocks getting slammed = not a good time to be long.

Now that I see market futures are up over 2%, and the Nikkei is up over 2%, that seems for the moment to support Cramer's view.

Short covering will be pretty heavy in the financial sector, I am sure, and I expect that sentiment to carry broadly across all sectors.  For APWR this adds to the possibility of a short squeeze of the unlucky traders who held their short positions over the weekend and are now looking to escape as quickly as possible.  Early escapees may have caused the spike at the end of the day Friday for APWR.

Related Stocks:  APWR

At the moment I am feeling great about my current position and averaged APWR price.  The market panic has aided me also.

*Edit for after-hours:  Fearlessly I continued to add to my APWR holdings as the price dropped, the fearlessness coming from having done this 6 times in the past (successfully), with a difference this time as my patience allowed me to get a much better averaged price, and prevented a large drawdown.  Surprisingly the price spiked at the close and I am already in a profitable position.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Today's breakdown pattern looked beautiful, so I rated this a great setup for a reversal soon and got back in at close to 19.00 after some sideways price action and faded selling volume.

In the past I would have bought in earlier and have a larger drawdown.  This is part of my new strategy to play better setups and reduce drawdowns.

Related Stocks:  APWR

My more focused psychological outlook says a good chance exists that short sellers will use today being the first losing day in a week as a signal to short.

* Only trade very high percentage setups

* Reduce volatility and drawdowns

* Become better versed in market psychology

I would like to add a % return goal, but any fixed % goal seems ridiculous to me.  I've had a 46% return in Q2 and another 46% so far in Q3.  Putting a goal of another 46% for the rest of the year is way overconfident, and a reasonable goal of 4% or 5% seems tiny in comparison.  Most likely I could beat the S&P 500 for the rest of the year just by stuffing the money under a mattress. For now I will leave off the % goal and just see what happens.

The drawdowns I have had the last few months have been unsettling.  Although I was confident with my averaging-down strategy and it ended successfully every time, the stress and risk was too much to sustain. The frequency with which this type of trading happens will be greatly reduced.

I have accepted that the only edge I have is a psychological one.  It was not luck or financial skill that got me where I am today, it was a sense of how the other investors and traders would act.  Sean Hannon and Timothy Sykes have painted part of the psychological landscape for me.  When you can figure out why investors are moving money, you can profit from it.  This goes way beyond analyzing the business fundamentals of a stock. To increase my understanding further, I have ordered enough books to keep me busy for a month or two.

I have to constantly remind myself that I have no edge.  Any prediction I make has been predicted already by everyone, with the only difference being the mob mentality usually takes it way too far.

The theme for this week seems to be "how to profit from a natural disaster", which is distasteful.  Any stock picks based on that theme are sure to have a mob with similar ideas rushing to trade.

One day I will sit down and calculate the total dollar value of the stock I have traded this year, and the % profit I have made based on that number.  It will not be a pretty picture -- probably only a 2% profit margin on the total value.

Tuesday could be a different story for panic selling, with Friday already letting some helium out of the balloon, plus what looks like a guaranteed large jump in oil prices because of Gustav.

Here's to a relaxing Labor Day weekend!

Tomorrow happens to be the day before a holiday weekend.  The last time this happened was July 3rd, one of the best buying opportunities I've ever had.  Volume will be light, so volatility will be heavy.  Traders don't want to hold over holiday weekends, oil prices will be up because of the Hurricane Gustav, and end of the month profit taking will be present. 

A lot of selling pressure will exist, in my opinion, and selling has an extreme magnified effect in a low-volume environment,  which likely will create even greater buying opportunities.  The recent weak, low-volume rally could easily reverse.  All of the top market worries over the last few months have not been resolved, so a rally seems silly to me.

If I'm wrong, no loss for me, but if I'm right then I will be prepared to pounce on any surprisingly good buys that appear.

Stops are a new way for me to show my incompetence as a trader.

On a positive note, the sale price I did get put my portfolio dollar value at a new all-time high.  I am now 6 for 6 when averaging down on multi-day slides in APWR during the last 6 weeks, with the end result being a great profit.  A 7th try might cause me a nervous breakdown.  I am considering a self-imposed suspension from the market until next week to collect my thoughts.

Chances are, another price dip will lure me in again.  How can I resist what has become almost a sure-thing?  APWR has now passed AMZN on the Covestor top 100 buy trades for the last month, which is shocking to me, and mostly my fault.

The wild swings in the price are not good for my portfolio's risk rating, but I am not going to worry about that.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Monday's earnings report before market open should provide some fireworks.  Yet another Strong Buy was initiated by another analyst today, although analysts have been completely ignored for the last few weeks, awaiting earnings.

Related Stocks:  APWR

The selloff won, and APWR price dove after being up in pre-market.

Now it was time to decide to wait until after the typical APWR selloff in midmorning, or not wait because APWR announced the earnings conference call would be Monday, only a 2-day notice! 

I decided it was a nice setup with a lot of upward pressure in a market-selloff environment.  My ideal buy-into-fear opportunity.  If I'm wrong I have plenty of room to average down.

Related Stocks:  APWR

The dip that followed was small, only a few %, and not enough to get me back in yet.  Price action in the mid morning to early afternoon doesn't interest me, so I'll check back in later in the day.  I do always have a crazy-low bid entered at all times, usually around 7% to 10% under the morning high price.

*Edit for after-hours:  I see my math was totally wrong this morning, to my benefit.  I added 0.35 to my purchase price not to the previous day's close.  Sigh.......perhaps it is better that I am not trading as often now, even though it worked to my benefit this time.

Related Stocks:  APWR

I plan on reentering at a lower price when convenient, assuming the APWR of old has returned and a 3% to 10% dip appears.

As I type this, a 4% pullback has occurred from the daily high. 

Another reason for getting out -- freeing up cash for Tim Sykes' picks! 

Today I followed Tim's FOUR bounce play with a small position.  Figures I would hit the one out of 20 picks that lost money.  I take comfort in the fact that I followed my rules and got out of the position when it didn't go as expected. The amount of money was small but the percentage was significant so my chart is going to look messy tomorrow.

At the end of the day I got back in APWR at a good price, about a 7% discount from the day's high. 

This appears to be yet more good news for APWR, most likely not to be announced in Western media until after the earnings audit is completed.

Related Stocks:  APWR

My options trading friend bought options when the price was around 21.75ish, so now I have officially had influence on at least one trade that was not my own.  He explained to me the MACD is crossing at several different time frames, and the price is right at the 13-day EMA, about to cross it.  I nodded, pretending to understand.  Add the positive news today and the nearing earnings announcement (no exact date yet), and next week is looking very bullish.

Related Stocks:  APWR

I trust nothing I read about APWR anymore, with manipulators, pumpers, and bashers slinking along in the shadows at all times, undoubtedly with pockets full of boiler-room payoffs.  Daily trading has become a carnival.  TheStreet.com had a video interview saying if you follow APWR's daily price you may go crazy, and that is accurate. 

To give you an idea of the lunacy, I called investor relations and received far more information than I felt was appropriate.  Quite frankly I was amazed at the amount of information I received which I have found in no other source available to the public.  I also fielded a phone call from a random person who tracked me down through a message board, who had even more information which I consider insider info.  Had I acted on this person's information I would have a much better averaged price right now and a significant amount of guilt. Having a brother that is an intellectual property and patent attorney, I know when info has the potential to send me up the river like Martha Stewart.  When I say carnival, I wasn't kidding.

For someone looking to get into APWR now, the best choice is to either wait until after the earnings report which appears to now be coming at the beginning of September, or buy and hold and don't watch daily prices.

Related Stocks:  APWR

1) Many people are smarter than me.

2) I've read one finance book in my life.

3) No company PR or bookkeeping can be trusted, especially small Chinese companies.

Given the above, the great returns I've been getting must be a fluke.  I've broken every mainstream financial planning rule.  I'm not diversified, I invest in high-risk stocks in a high-risk short term way, I follow Timothy Sykes who advocates a radical trading method, and I've even day-traded and used margin again. 

Surely within weeks or months the universe will set things right and give me the financial walloping that I have coming.  Then I will open the Yellow Pages, look under Financial Planner, and pay a nice fellow to manage my portfolio and underperform the market for the next 30 years.

Earnings are nearing and with no negative news at all and much positive news, the fundamental numbers of the company should also provide strong upward pressure. The chance of more news and/or another analyst initiating coverage is always present.

My judgement has been good so far.  The only thing that could use improvement is my timing, but that has an element of luck to it, so I am refusing to allow imperfect timing to sway my judgement.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Once again I averaged down during the entire slide, but ran out of buying power near the bottom.  The late afternoon recovery was truly remarkable, and I'm not sure why it was so extreme, but it recovered past my averaged price by over 3%, which I really did not expect.  I thought I would be holding for weeks until earnings to see a profit. Perhaps false rumors of a stock dilution, plus the large overall market rally combined to amplify the usual price action.

Nothing makes me more frustrated than missing the bottom of a slide.  I'm not sure why because I don't expect to call the bottom exactly, and yet I have the feelings that I should have hit the bottom anyway.

Only mild interest in AMZN, DRYS, and APWR at the moment.  I was hoping some large sell blocks would go through in APWR to hit a few crazy bids I have out there, but nobody is buying or selling much today.

At the end of the day I decided the current APWR price was decent, better than most of my recent initial entry points, even though the price action is acting very strangely the last few days.  It feels like I am forcing a trade, but I am happy with the price and perfectly willing to average down again.

Since my trading history can't be used as trading advice, the only thing I have to offer are brief moments of entertainment.  I hope that is enough.

Today I added WEL, which Tony Ellis suggested on Tim Sykes' message board. Tony has had amazing success this past year.  This one might not be the ideal Sykes-style setup but the chart and breakout above the 52-week high look good.

I found an answer to a previous question I had, when I was wondering if selling a stock in the morning then buying it back in the afternoon was considered a day trade.   The answer was in a document located at nyse.com

The amendments redefine the term "day trading" to treat the sale of an existing position held from the previous day as a liquidation, and the subsequent repurchase of that position as the establishment of a new position not subject to day trading margin requirements.

Related Stocks:  WEL

I'm happily sitting on the sidelines with my popcorn, watching the market perform a grand show.

APWR almost tempted me back in, but the last few times the price has slid all the way to the close, the next day started out with a big drop.  The chance of a drop and a continued slide beginning first thing tomorrow morning (assuming no positive news) is somewhat higher than 50%.  That would mean a price in the 24s, and possibly the 23s again.

I attempted to get in on CNEX dropping 40% in a matter of hours (another Tim Sykes pick) but wasn't able to borrow shares.

After the slide hit bottom this morning I exited at the 1st top of the recovery in the afternoon.  Once again most likely missing part of a larger rise, but resulting in another record high portfolio dollar value!

A VISN trade on a breakout yesterday went badly, but I had a stop so took just a small hit.

I now have 2 day trades this week so have to be careful of the pattern day trading limit.

Fritz tells frequent stories, and on at least 5 occasions they have been about going postal.  The first story was told after just a few weeks of Fritz being on the job and in our carpool, and began with Fritz describing a previous job.

"I was being harassed by a hot woman manager at the university where I worked, and I complained to Human Resources.  They turned it around and made ME look like the bad guy, then fired me.  When I went back to get my personal stuff, this guy wouldn't give it to me, and I said 'You really shouldn't fire people like this, because someone is going to come back and shoot the place up'.  The guy's eyes got really wide, then a few minutes later a security guard showed up with his hand on his Taser and walked me out."

Sara and I said something like "You really said that to him?". 

Fritz replied, "Yeah, and I thought about it a few times too."

Me: "Thought about shooting the place up?"

Fritz: "Yeah, they really shouldn't fire people like that."

Yet another reason to up my life insurance.  :O

Although Covestor doesn't track cash positions, my chart is not far from reality -- the chart says 88% while my actual return is closer to 75%.

Perry at Covestor called me this morning and we had a nice chat about the website.  I don't know any other site that treats its visitors so well -- customer service, tech support, all the way to the president -- the user experience has been special, and I really wish the best for Covestor.

*Edit for end of day: Back into APWR.  News brings in tons of buyers, then over the next few days they all get shaken by the wild price swings causing the price to drift down until the next news.  I feel badly for the new investors every time it happens, but I continue to bank on it.  Anyone willing to play the short side of this as well could really make a lot of money, although predicting the downside seems too difficult and scary to me for a company like this that in my view could jump to new heights at any time.

Another Tim Sykes opportunity missed -- I promised myself I would be more prepared for opportunities, but again missed an easy one as I wasn't watching the breakout of ZYXI this morning.  Another quick 5 to 7% opportunity evaporated.

Wal-Mart is a strong lobbyist for an increased minimum wage because that raise will be spent on the type of products Wal-Mart sells.  Wal-Mart workers make more than the minimum wage anyway, so an increase doesn't add to their expenses, but does add significantly to revenue.  Today many workers get that raise, and this will be important to Wal-Mart's bottom-line for the next several years.

Related Stocks:  WMT

Most likely I will miss a piece of an even larger rise, but I am satisfied with my current state -- the largest dollar gain for a single sale, and a new record portfolio value.

Related Stocks:  APWR

If that doesn't happen for another week or two, I will continue to be bored holding long.  I feel like I am sitting on a sick amount of soon-to-be-realized profit.  The current price is a great entry point, in my opinion.

Related Stocks:  APWR

My options trading friend is happy with his AAPL short, and is hoping Apple lowers guidance for the future, then will bail on that position near the end of this week. 

He thinks the APWR chart is looking like a bullish ascending wedge.  Earnings should be about 3 weeks from now at my estimation, based on what was said during the last earnings conference call, so we should see some nice price action soon.  The current action continues to be unpredictable so I am not playing it like I once was -- and may never again.

Added LBAS, one on Tim Sykes' watch list, just for fun.  We'll see if I can pull anything out of it before Tim shorts it.  I also made a bid of $3.01 on UBHI, another of Tim's watches, after it broke $3 this morning.  After chasing the ask price for a bit, I gave up, then watched the price spike to $3.25.  There's no end to the way I can mess trades up. 

I'm having too much fun -- maybe a savage kick in the wallet will rein me in. 

Yesterday I messed up another Tim Sykes trade on IDAE.  Fortunately I made an equal amount on IDAE in another account,  $10.04 ahead overall.  Of course then the stock ran another 10% up after I sold.

Today yet another Tim Sykes trade was messed up -- I missed the early entry point on MNLU, then later tried to get in on the afternoon pop and my broker didn't allow the trade online and I didn't have enough time to call in, so I missed MNLU twice.

I'm starting to get extremely annoyed with the mistakes I have made, missing 5% on CNEH, 15% on IDAE and 12% on MNLU.  The best I can do is document the mistakes and not make them again. One thing I can do for sure is be better prepared before market open.  I have also learned of a few restrictions on OTC stocks that have gotten in the way of trades that I am now prepared to work around.

China and other Eastern countries are making a serious strong commitment to wind power, and APWR will be selling large quantities of premium wind turbines designed by a top German engineering company.  T. Boone Pickens is betting the farm on wind, and he is smarter than me, so I feel confident in the future of the wind industry. Check out the Pickens Plan, an alternative energy plan to help wean the U.S. from foreign oil.  About halfway through the pickensplan.com home page video, a vitally important global wind map is displayed.  Close attention should be paid to this map, as it clearly shows the U.S. as the #1 wind resource on the planet, but just as importantly, shows India and China as the #2 wind resource.  APWR is perfectly positioned to supply this demand in the East.  Also listen carefully to the size of the financial numbers T. Boone Pickens is throwing around.  Hundreds of billions of dollars per year, trillions of dollars per decade are at stake.

APWR has a rock-solid financial foundation with 35% annual earnings growth prospects, pointed out by an increasing number of fans, including Fool.com, Zacks.com premium investment services, Roth, and Jim Cramer.  This company is real.

That being said, I found a trading opportunity cavorting in the noise of APWR daily trading.  It seems obvious to me, but it must not be obvious because I have never seen anyone else comment on this.  The opportunity is this:  APWR buyers buy in the early morning and late afternoon, and APWR sellers sell in the time between, creating a 5% to 10% price swing three out of every four days.  Remarkably predictable, this price swing can generate gains even when the APWR closing price has gone down from the previous day, without short selling. More than a temporary pattern, the predictability has continued week after week, month after month.

Whether holding long or taking advantage of short term action, APWR will create outperforming returns for many years.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Notice that a few days ago the price was 20 and today it was 29, but the price difference doesn't affect my thinking in any way. I don't care about what the price was a few days ago, as past prices just don't matter to this pattern.  I have no problem doing the same thing at 20, 30, or 40 if the buying and selling stays predictable.

Just as I commented on the previous post, APWR can have you down 10% in a matter of hours, which is very nerve-wracking, especially for the new investors that found APWR on a recommendation list and dreamed of green energy riches, only to have the dream shattered in the time it takes to watch an episode of Lost.  Either buy and hold for the long term, or if short term leave yourself room to average down.  As I noted in the past, my return in APWR is not much better than if I would have just held long at my original purchase price of $13.07.  Thanks go to TIm Sykes for putting this stock on my radar in the first place.

Related Stocks:  APWR

My options trading friend is suggesting we will be seeing possibly another further 5% selloff in the overall market over the next week, plus he is betting on AAPL going down.  After the selloff he is planning to bet on the upside for shipping transportation, coal, and fertilizer.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Bargains are still everywhere, and I'm particularly fond of Amazon, although I hesitate to buy retailers in the current questionable retail environment.  In a past post I speculated that Wal-Mart would get a large boost from the economic stimulus checks, but I have revised that thinking after speaking with a night manager at a Super Wal-Mart.  She informed me that the stimulus checks in fact are not adding significantly to sales.  Many Wal-Mart customers get only the minimum stimulus check of $300, and sales have not been boosted as I was imagining.  The real boost to sales for the local Wal-Mart was the Onieda tribe members receiving a large one-time lump sum payment funded by casino earnings.  Wal-Mart sold out of everything, and had to import goods from other Wal-Marts in the area.  I'm not sure what kind of statement that is for our society, when good retail times depend on casinos.

Tomorrow I will attempt to get a good morning spike sell price once again.  I think some short covers will exaggerate the spike.

If anyone is reading this and thinking of buying APWR, here are a few tips -- buy between 10:00 AM and noon, Eastern time, on a dip in the price.  For whatever reason, sellers dump large blocks during that time and not many buyers are around.  Always use a limit order -- market price will cost you an extra half a percent sometimes.  It helps to set the limit a few cents higher than an even 25 cent increment, like if you want to buy at 23.00, set the limit around 23.03 -- it'll cost a few cents but then you avoid the large support that sometimes sits at the even numbers, never quite reaching your price.  Do not buy from 9:30 to 10:00 AM Eastern time, that is by far the worst time to buy, as the price usually dives 3% to 10% within a few hours almost every day.

Related Stocks:  APWR

Several days now I have made a profit being long while the price is going down day-to-day.  It can be done!  APWR is now 34% off its high while I am off less than 1%, which is a big improvement over last week's position which I thought was great.

Related Stocks:  APWR

The market has so many tempting bargains right now.  My options-trading friend feels sellers will outnumber buyers before the holiday, so holding off on purchasing until tomorrow may be prudent.

*Edit for after hours -- two bids hit in the afternoon, so I'm back in APWR at a much better price than the last time.  The suspense is building.  APWR is now off 29% from its high, while I am down about 2.5% from my high as of market close with plenty of room to accumulate if needed -- which is a significantly better position than I was in a few days ago when APWR had dropped 6% under my averaged price and I had run out of adding ability.

I feel for the investors of the funds that had large APWR sell orders today, some as much as 50K shares, because those fund managers really blew it, selling during a low-volume holiday week in a low-float stock in a market downturn with a clear lack of buyers.  That is a setup for a perfectly abysmal sale price.

Related Stocks:  APWR

I attempted to get in on Tim Sykes call on CNEH -- but had an issue with my buy order and no time at market open to get it resolved, so missed out.  Potentially could have been a 5%+ gain in 1/2 hour.

Many here say to limit your losses and would not have done what I did, but in my mind it just kept becoming a better opportunity so how could I do anything but buy?

I did have sell orders in for the morning spike predicted by the pattern I've been following.  Both should have hit, but I disregarded my previous formula and missed them both.  In the past I was just adding $0.35 to the previous days closing price, that that would have resulted in sells on both Thurday and Friday.  In reality, I added $0.43 on Thursday and missed the high price by 1 cent.  I can't really fathom why I changed the number to +0.43.  On Friday I had the order in for + 0.35 then cancelled it, only to see later that the morning high price was 4 cents higher than that.  I remember thinking it looked like the price was running up and I didn't want to miss the run.  Should have just stuck with +0.35 because that just about guaranteed a good morning sale in the past.

If I would have stuck with +0.35, Thurday and Friday sells would have resulted in a small profit, around 1% gain between the two days, the key point here being that these trades were long, and would have made money with APWR's price going down day to day.  I've always thought this pattern could make money even on down days -- just wished I would have pulled it off those 2 days to prove it.

With the continued pattern of accumulating on the dips, my APWR-only portfolio has gone down 5.3% from its high while APWR's price is down 21%.  Covestor calculations have me down 10% but actually it is 5.3% -- scaling the size of the investment up at different points of the days must throw the calculations off somehow, or they just can't take that sort of activity into account, sort of like how cash positions aren't tracked.

Next week being a holiday week should make things extra-volatile.  I can't predict which way the market will move or if APWR will bounce or slide in the short term.  I am prepared to hold through a period of loss.  I don't expect APWR to be predictable with the current extraordinary market circumstances.

Due to road construction, we had to take a detour to Fritz's house, and as we drove by a Casual Male XL, Fritz said it was a great place to shop, and in fact, "That is where I got this polo shirt."  As an investment Casual Male (CMRG) is not doing well and is near the 52-week low, perhaps in part because Fritz only bought one XXL navy blue striped polo, wears it 150 days a year with enchilada and sneeze stains on it (I personally witnessed  one of the sneeze wipings), then gives fashion advice like a spokesmodel.

Fritz informed us he was out late drinking the night before and got pulled over on the way home for not turning his headlights on all the way, and passed the field sobriety test the nice officer decided to give him.  I need to up my life insurance before it's Fritz's turn to drive again.

Related Stocks:  CMRG

Yesterday the pattern only worked halfway, convincing me to buy but not recovering, and today it worked perfectly, for a net 2-day gain of about 2%.  If I would have missed yesterday which ended -3.5%, today could have been a 10% day by itself.  Thankfully I am trusting in the predictable price action.  Morning spike of 1% to 3% (selling opportunity), following by a 4% to 6% drop (buying opportunity), followed by a recovery of some size (could be small or large -- selling opportunity).  If it doesn't follow that perfectly, wait for the next day.  Most days work, some do not.  

News on ACH of disappointing producting and lower earnings really is hurting the price, probably far too much, but I almost never buy hammered down companies if bad news has been announced, so I probably won't get back in this one, although I have seen Alcoa price constantly overcome similar bad news like higher production costs.  Looks like it will be a while before aluminum begins acting like other commodities and springs upward.  Most likely it will happen within the next year, but I won't tie up money for a year waiting.

Related Stocks:  ACH, APWR

Recently we added another carpooler, Fritz*, who has made the drive into a circus on wheels.  While I am saving even more gas money to use for investing, Fritz is beginning to concern both me and Sarah with his words and actions.

Sarah was the first to notice that Fritz wore the same navy-blue striped polo shirt 4 days in a row, covered in dandruff and stains.  Currently after 18 days of carpooling with Fritz, this shirt has made an appearance 9 times.  Fritz smells strongly of processed meat.

More to come.

*Names changed

2 days in a row now I have missed buying APWR, once because I was looking for too large of a dip, and the 2nd time because the dip happened too fast and I didn't have my order in.  I really should have gotten at least one of these 5% opportunities -- they were there for the taking, following the same pattern both times.  I basically don't care at all what happens to the price later in the day, as only the morning price action is predictable.