Trader’s Narrative

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While you were watching the news about the AIG bonus dustup, hope you didn’t miss on AIG the ticker symbol. It is still kicking around on the NYSE and as a penny stock, it put in an impressive wide range day:

I have no idea why it jumped on Monday since there wasn’t really any news (other than the bonus fiasco). But a 66% jump (from last week’s close) is juicy and as a daytrader, even if you can catch a fraction of it, you’re set.

Even if we ignore Friday’s close and only take it from the gap up open on Monday to the close, it was a 36%. Not too shabby. The intraday high at the magical, round number $1.00 - something really special about round numbers that acts almost like a magnet. The more you watch it, the more you see this stuff.

You don’t want to chase a runaway train so watching for an entry point is crucial. A great, low risk entry point was available at around 10:20 AM (green arrow). Price action paused and then retraced slightly with volume dropping off. If you notice, there was some resistance at $0.60, which was then broken to the upside. This then would have acted as support. So placing a stop under it would have allowed you to define your risk levels intelligently.

No one really knew, of course, that this would turn out to be a huge wide range, trending day. But the tip-off was the incredible volume, as well as the large gap up open. AIG had already put in a bottom last week and rallied impressively already from its low of $0.33 so there was something afoot.