just wanted to give you a couple things I've learned in regards to your question about the GOOG call you bought today. what bubba and sdh had to say was good, as you know, they are 2 of the best quick day traders here.
looking at the charts, you are right that GOOG usually does bounce a bit off the 200ma. when you look at it though, it seems that those bounces develop over a few days, it might not be a big one the day it touches the 200ma, but over the next several days, the charts usually show a nice bounce. also, the fact that today is friday expiration day, there are many times when after the first couple of hours, the options quit moving like they should or would earlier in the week. so even if you get the bounce, the option price might not move much at all, especially if you are out of the money.
one thing i've learned, is that if you look at enough different charts, (for example a 1min, a 3min, a 15min, a daily, etc....and then today, 3 days, 5days, whatever) you can probably find one that will look the way you want it to. even if all the other charts are saying something different, in the past I've convinced myself that a stock is going to move the way I want it to, based on the 1 chart I find that tells me so. it's not the best way to make a purchase decision.
what type of trader are you? buy and hold for a few days, or day trade? that helps determine what the best charts are to look at. I really struggled with this a few months ago, i just didn't know which ones to look at for the type of trading I wanted to do.
another thing I started doing, is to watch the market overall to make puts or calls decisions. I used to fight the trends at times. you need to look at the market. is it red? how much red? is it green? how much green? today the market flashed green a couple times, but overall the indexes were red, and even more so late in the day. i used to see what i thought was a bounce coming on a red day, and do as you did, only to find out that it wasn't really happening. now I look at the market, and then when i'm looking to buy something, i wait until i see a very clear confirmation of a move. while you might get in a bit later, at least you get what you expect. if you don't see that clear confirmation, look at another stock! we've got so many to choose from. I used to have tunnel vision, and would play a stock because i wanted to play that stock. i've learned over the past 3-4 weeks that some really great trades can happen on fridays, but you need to #1 be sure that the stock is moving the way you want it to, and #2 get in early! by noon, most trades are lottos in my opinion because they are losing value so quickly at that point.
hope this helps.
