Taking Stock Of 2019's First Stocks Traded

Happy 2019, traders!

Before I launch into this week’s article, I want to revisit some of my figures from last week. At the time, I claimed that I had banked more than $500,000 in profits for 2018. Unfortunately, after reviewing my official receipts, it turns out I was about $175 shy of that impressive figure.

Still, $499,826 is by far my best year yet, and I’m happy I was able to share every trade with the Warrior Trading students and all of the subscribers on the YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Anyway, I kicked off the new trading year in solid fashion with just over $2,000 in profits, hitting the register on all four of my January 2nd trades. I took positions in 3 tickers, China Ceramics Co Ltd. CCCL, Regional Health Properties Inc. RHE and Marin Software Inc. MRIN.

My first trades in CCCL and RHE were picks off of the gap scanner, with CCCL trading up about 20 percent from it’s 2018 close. That was a pretty standard setup, and I was able to jump with 6,000 shares in under a $2 dollar pullback at the open and sell once it retook that level.

RHE, on the other hand, came up on the gap scanner up more that 1,000 percent. This is due to the company initiating a 12/1 reverse stock split, which is one of the main catalysts I like to look for when weighing potential trading opportunities.

For those unaware of what a reverse split is: it’s a process by which a company consolidates its shares in order to increases its per share value, in this case by a factor of 12.

Despite the appealing circumstances surrounding RHE, it was not the greatest setup, and I had to leverage a relatively large position (9,000 shares) just to bank $1,2000 over two trades. Still, I’m happy I was able to take advantage of the volatility for two relatively low-risk trades.

Finally, I took a trade in MRIN after the ticker appeared in my high-of-day momentum scanner at $5.85. This was just a simple setup on the approach to a strong psychological level. I took a 9,000 share position and sold once it broke over the $6 level for about a $500 winner.

Unfortunately, I could have stayed in MRIN a little longer since the stocks squeezed up to a high over $6.40, but at that point in the day I was convinced it just wasn’t a strong enough market to see that kind of move.

And that was the first trading day of 2019. It was a solid, hardscrabble kind of morning, but I’m happy with it. If I can make most of the year like today, work in a handful of home run, $40k-or-$50k days, and keep my red days below $3k, I can easily hit that $500,000 mark that just barely eluded me in 2018.