When you speak of volume . . . do you mean wait until the intraday volume has reached [the specified] level? Or, do you mean by looking at the current intraday volume you would think it would hit that number for the day? For example, the 50 DMA volume for IPIC is about 288,000, today’s trade volume was about 433,000. I would think if I wait to see that it hits 362,000 it may be extended by that time.

Many times when a stock is making the move we want early in the session, you are right; if we wait, it may be up $4 by the time the volume hits the target level. What we do is look at where it is now and if there are block trades taking place. If volume is trading well in the first half hour to hour and there are block trades (our broker can tell us this) we will often go ahead and initiate a position. Not the full position, but a partial. Then we look in on the stock a few hours later. Is it holding up? Is volume still solid? If it has tested the pivot and is heading back up and volume looks good, we can buy more. If we are not sure, we check again in the last hour. Often a breakout will test a move early or late and then rally. Later in the session we have a good idea of the volume and we can add positions at that point. If it does not that doesn’t mean we sell out. It simply means we be ready in the event it cannot muster more volume the next session. Pull the stops up for protection if the volume is not there as those tend to be weaker and we might as well keep what we got or get out even.