Any idea how I could place an order in dollar amounts rather than based on share amount? If I could just have a dollar amount ready to go, then buy when i see the ticker symbol, it'd be nice. By the time You calculate pps and number of shares to buy, you miss a lot of the uptrend! Does your trading platform allow for ordering in dollar amounts (automatically converting it to share amounts)? I've seen some institutional fund web portals that allow that, but I haven't seen it in TDameritrade or Etrade, for instance.
If you place conditional orders for these right at open, with orders to sell automatically after a certain % gain, you can increase your odds of not getting caught. Don't be greedy.