I tweeted on the open:

A pattern to master for the open: The Opening Drive. See STX in the first ten minutes this am.

My inbox is dominated with trading reviews of SMB Traders thirsting to make more, blog readers the same, and new traders looking for the path. Well here it is. The clean, trending STX.

I traded it on the open. I should have made more. Others around me traded it on the open. They could have made more. I am sure many readers did. I know they will be writing asking how to make more.

There was the Opening Drive Play from the SMB PlayBook. A stock gapping up that’s first move on the open is not to go down and I got long. I sold into slowness on the tape. I bought back when it did not go down and sold into the next new high. These are momentum trades only for the active trader, but our more effective trades on the open.

For the swing trader there was 25.20. This became a level. Some time passed. STX was in an uptrend. It had room to trade higher on the longer term technical charts. Above and you can start a long. A move away to above 25.50 and then back towards 25.20 offered a chance to add into a pullback with a stop below 25.20 or 25.15 or 25 based on your time frame.

STX never violated our logical stop prices for really any time frame. And now it sits $1.90 higher. It was clean. It showed it’s strength. Our risk was definable. Our stops were definable and never were violated. STX traded much higher than its entry opportunity. It was In Play. It trended. These are the moves, these are the stocks that make you that MORE for your month.

Study this pattern. Dive deep into the characteristics of the trade. See yourself trading more patterns like this and with more size.

Now I have to go and have a long talk with myself.