Made some nice money on my swing trades Wednesday but lost some money on a personal trade that was supposed to be prep for my new day trading newsletter ha. Heading into today I’m a buyer if the market holds up after the economic data. Hard to find solid swing setups before the holiday so please don’t expect a barrage of trades but if I find a good setup I’m be ready to get in.

Tonight’s class will be a quick one, just some brief back and forth reflection on 2011 as well as what’s in store for 2012.

U.S. stock-market futures pointed to a higher open for Wall Street, bolstered by a rebound for European markets and as investors awaited further signs of health in the economy from data such as jobless claims and leading indicators.

U.S. data is expected to move front and center stage on Thursday, with weekly jobless claims and final third-quarter gross-domestic-product data both due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. At 9:55 a.m. Eastern, the University of Michigan’s final December consumer-confidence index will be released. At 10 a.m. Eastern, leading indicators for November and the FHFA home-price index for October will be released.

Near perfect alert on the BPAX bounce minus a small pullback out of the gate which is a great example of how support is not broken unless it closes below that level. Same goes for resistance, it’s not broken unless the bid closes above that level. Anyway, BPAX gave an easy 10% swing return and actually ran to $.51 a few hours after I sold or over 20% from my alert at $.42. Hitting the exact top and bottom will never happen and even if it did for me that would mean it never would for my subscribers. But nailing 50% of the run is awesome and if we can do that regularly it’ll be a great 2012. I had been watching BPAX for 5-days before I made my move and it’s the perfect example of how timing is everything when trading small caps. Here is my first and only blog post on that topic.

PZZI bounced yesterday so there was no chance at a $5.22 fill. Therefore I sold the 500 I picked up on the bid and I’ll rebid if it dips next week. Nailed Tuesdays low perfect but only got 1/10 of my shares at $5.22 so no sense on holding them. Took the $150 profit early Wednesday. Probably looking for $5 on this one but I’ll let you know.

Lost some money betting FAZ before the 300 point move Tuesday, tried to work out of the trade Wednesday and only lost more money. This was my first time betting an ETF like that and I couldn’t have picked a worse day. Wasn’t an alert so it doesn’t impact you guys but just goes to show you, market looked horrible Monday only to bounce 300 points Tuesday. Looks like my move will cost me about $5k and that’s a solid portion of my 2011 profits. I bring this up so you can learn from it – if you place a bet and your are wrong sometimes the first loss is the best loss, get out and live to fight another day.

This leaves me with only one swing – long position in the account and that’s USAT. I don’t expect this one to get any traction until January at which point I’m looking to accumulate more shares if it does. Until then I’d like to see it hold above $1 per share.