Today in the AM Meeting one of our young traders discussed trading FCX.  It was In Play yesterday because of the news that they were eliminating their dividend.  So our young trader who I will refer to as ALJ (I don’t do nicknames like Bella) talked about important levels that he observed while trading the stock.

When we discuss a stock at our AM Meeting we look at the short term chart to find important inflection points from the past few trading days.  These levels are most relevant for an intraday trader.  Then we take a look at the longer term chart to get a sense of where the stock has come from longer term, and whether it has the potential for a more significant move intraday.

ALJ explained that FCX had traded heavy volume yesterday around 17 and had rallied two times from that level.  I told ALJ that he had identified a great entry point but that based on how strongly it closed my expectation was that we would have to buy in at higher prices today.  The level that intrigued me was 17.40.  In the afternoon yesterday after some consolidation FCX dropped through 17.40 but quickly reversed and closed above 18.  So I set an alert for 17.50 in case FCX had a quick drop at the Open.  I also set alerts for 18.15 and 18.25 in case FCX had a powerful upmove through yesterday afternoon’s high.

Whether I got long FCX on a quick drop to the 17.40 level or bought into a pullback after a powerful up move through 18 did not matter.  Both trades were great risk/reward based on FCX’s price action yesterday and the traditional patterns that stocks follow intraday.

After the market opened this morning my 17.50 alert triggered in FCX.  As you can see from the chart it touched 17.41 but reversed quickly and was at 18 within five minutes.  I didn’t place a trade as I was already involved with two other stocks and it is pretty tough to manage several positions effectively in the first 15 minutes of the trading day.  But when FCX had a powerful up move through 18 at 9:50 I was able to get long on its retracement to 18.10.  I was never more than 3 cents out of the money and it rallied about 70 cents.

At the end of the day when the market was tanking ALJ called out that FCX was approaching 17 so I got long.  To be frank, I was expecting to have to hit out my position as the S&P was getting obliterated.  But I was pleasantly surprised as it rallied 50 cents at the end of the day.

Thanks to ALJ and all of the other traders on our desk who share valuable trading information so that we can all make more money!