Weighing Opportunity And Risk In A Slow September

September is now in full swing and it’s turning out to be a profitable, if hardscrabble month.

Although I’ve managed a couple of standout days, including last Wednesday’s $6,600 winner in OpGen, Inc. OPGN and this past Tuesday’s strong trades in InspireMD, Inc. NSPR and Francesca's Holdings Corporation FRAN that added more than $8,000 to my account, the remaining six trading days have essentially been flat.

Nevertheless, I am up in September roughly $14,000 after commissions. That’s just about even with my average monthly pace since the month started with a shortened week.

Apart from those to standout days, the theme of the current market is remaining on guard for whatever opportunity presents itself while still maintaining good risk management controls.

Some of the hazard of the current market can be chalked up to less-than-stellar breakouts, which was on clear display in the choppy charts we saw on Monday’s trading session. Momentum did pick up later in the day, but by then I had already come up against so much resistance that I didn’t want to lose the profit I did make in order to trade myself into the red.

Wednesday was similarly disappointing. However, whereas Monday was a case of stocks being a bit erratic, Wednesday just saw momentum lag in both of the stocks I traded. While Yuma Energy, Inc. YUMA started solid, I ended up overtrading and giving back all of my profits and then some. After that, I jumped into China Online Education Group COE after it hit my high-of-day momentum scanner and ultimately got stopped out for a -$300 loss.

Which bring us to Thursday, in which I put up a solid $3,000 in profit. Again, despite a strong opening gap-and-go setup in Sintx Technologies, Inc. SINT on the open, the stock’s with the best momentum just didn’t show enough follow-through for any home run trades.

For the rest of September, I think I’m going try and be more cautious as the day progresses and keep an eye on the relative volume of any breakout stocks that might come up on my scanners. Moreover, given the fact that seemingly strong volume in stocks like YUMA and COE didn’t keep them from collapsing,  I’m also going to mindful of any trades I make after the first half-hour of the day.

Still, despite the modest struggle, this is still a healthy market to trade. I’m looking forward to seeing what opportunities the next few weeks hold.

Warrior Trading is a content partner of Benzinga