A double top short paid before the tape went quiet
The morning's work came off pre-planned short levels: a resting order at a double top in RKLB, filled, managed down with the stop pulled to breakeven and covered in pieces, and an Oracle short scaled out across the move with the remainder parked near VWAP. A long in Google took two stops on our desk before the third attempt held into the consumer confidence print and came out at target. After that number the tape emptied out and the desk stood down.
The morning in figures
Net points are per share. Apply your own size to get your own number: at 1,000 shares, 0.93 points is $930.00. At 100 shares it is $93.00. At one share it is $0.93. The desk publishes the move, not a dollar result, because the dollars depend entirely on how you size, and that is your decision rather than ours.
The 1h 06m session is on the other side of this.
Everything above is the write-up. This is the morning itself, with the names on every call and the room talking through it.
The short levels were written down before the open and then waited on. An order sat to short RKLB on a touch of the prior high, a double top into a lower high, and when it filled the risk was defined immediately with a tight stop. As the move came in, the stop was pulled up, then to breakeven, and the position was reduced in partials rather than held for the whole distance. The full exit came well before the name turned back up.
Oracle was worked the same way from a level called out in premarket. First cover went in early, a stop was brought to breakeven on the rest, and the remainder was left with a plan to come out near VWAP or flat rather than be guessed at. That is the part worth watching: the decision about the last piece was made before it had to be made.
The Google long is the other half of the morning. Two attempts were stopped quickly, both at tight levels under nearby wicks, and the stated intent after the second was simply to re-enter if the setup still stood. It did, and the third entry held through the consumer confidence beat and came out at the target price. There was a brief ticker mix-up between the two Google listings, caught and flagged on the desk. Once the number passed, the range narrowed, commentary turned to risk war stories around spread and slippage, and no further positions were taken into the Fed.
Heard in the room
TrueTrader is a live trading desk: a group of traders working the market open out loud, every weekday. These are unedited captures from that room on this morning, in the order they were said.
Between trades, Benito riffs with members about scary movies with his kids, then lands on Gattaca and why it moves him.
“It's such a great film about the power of just willpower.”
Benito tells of a wealthy retired neighbor who hit financial freedom but just golfs and smokes weed all day, and seems quietly depressed.
“We we spend all our time trying to get our time back. We forget that once we do have it back, you have to do something meaningful with it.”
Every trade called that morning
Losers included. Rows with more than one leg were scaled out; open any row to see each exit.