Greed makes losses

No charts today, just narrative. 

Opening trade, NVDA prime candidate. Opening bar ran like crazy and I bought 1 call against fomo. After it pulled back and pivoted, I loaded the rest of a pretty big position. I got out of the first 1/3 great, second 1/3 marginally undisciplined but disappointing. The last third I held beyond reason. Greed makes losses.

Lesson learned the millionth time: It's better to stop for pain, because a stock that isn't "behaving" will bring even more pain.

Took that last piece home. 

Meanwhile, I bought 1 GS call. It went to within 6 cents of my target. That happened while I was in the grocery parking lot. Couldn't adjust conditional orders. I set a limit, but it missed and never came back. Greed makes losses, I held it to break even and then took it home.

Oddly specific lesson I've learned before: When stock gets near the target, and I'm not home to adjust orders, just take it the F* off! That's the trader life, that I can make money and also have a life. But I have to take the money.

So today I was at one point up 15% and at one point down 15%. Closed at -0.67%. Tomorrow I'm going to need some luck. Both these options I took home are tomorrow expiration.

10 trade review

I have placed 10 trades in 2020.
W/L count exactly .5
10 trade net account p/l +19.31%

Sentiment: FRUSTRATED.
Of course! a 50% w/l count is frustrating, even if I'm up.
I like how I'm trading. I like the picks, I'm generally sticking to my trusted setups. I'm doing a great job waiting for pivots, taking gains, and a pretty good job stopping against pivots. This is basic level discipline.

My emotions are stable. I feel rational. I've had 2 big winning days and 3 small loser days.

How do I achieve better results? Maybe rethinking some position mangement. I feel like with my winners I'm leaving a lot on the table, and then my losers catch up with me. I feel if I had bigger account/positions, I could leave a runner on, where now I need to lock in everything.

I like my position sizing, generally 2 equal $ positions. I would still like to consider conviction sizing, but I don't have good clarity yet on how that looks.

Yesterday was a particularly frustrating day, followed by an eating binge. Can't do that. Need to maintain discipline in all areas. Need to stick to best nutrition #vegetapill #noaddedsugar. Need to work out 4-6 times/week. Need more steps. All of these:
-trading discipline
-food discipline
-workout discipline
are my perpetual struggles and also I feel they are the key to everything I want.
Good health, sharp brain, trading profits.

To work on
Consistent discipline in my 3 key areas

LEN -33%

Trade my best setups or PASS.
WAIT for pivots to stop against.
Take MY PIECE. Peace.

Daily setup: gap up against bear bar
Entry/play: after opening wobble, established uptrend, I bought ndh/whole#
Management: Initial stop hit quickly after b/o fail. bounced off vwap for ndh, tightened stop. Last piece stopped on worst-case stop.
Psychology: Ugh. What was wrong with this trade? The melt was on lower volume and I gave it too much room. Simultaneously, market melted back toward day lows (at market ath, though).

WBA lovely +20%

Trade my best setups or PASS.
WAIT for pivots to stop against.
Take MY PIECE. Peace.

Daily setup: gap way down
Entry/play: short after pivot.
Management: Initial stop day high. Near day low, took a price target, then squeezed stop.
Psychology: Of course I wish I took more off at the price target, and then maybe given a wider stop to get to T2, which it did reach. But I got a nice piece.

SQ loser -25%, then revenge loser, another -38%

Trade my best setups or PASS.
WAIT for pivots to stop against.
Take MY PIECE. Peace.

Daily setup: gap up into ma tangle
Entry/play: After initial pivot and surge, waited for another pullback then bought calls next surge.
Management: Stopped below signal bar. F! Then it based just like BABA yesterday and surged again. But meanwhile, the market started dropping out hard. I thought this would reject the daily ma tangle so I took a small put position after bullish pb/pivot and I ate that one too, including giving it too much room.
Psychology: Really bummed to not still have my calls when it finally ran. Looking at the chart, I picked the wrong stop, by just a few cents. I feel like sometimes I'll eat those and sometimes I'll be really glad to stop, so I need to comfort myself that I did my thing correctly but it didn't work this time. However, there was NO good reason to take the revenge put. I should have waited for a new long signal instead of rushing into puts.

Gave back my MU gains. Booo.

MU beauty +31%

Trade my best setups or PASS.
WAIT for pivots to stop against.
Take MY PIECE. Peace.

Daily setup: gap up
Entry/play: very strong open, buy above 1st 1min candle
Management: Initial stop below 1 min candle. Price target, then trailed/squeezed
Psychology: Good. Dropped hard after my final piece and I'm glad to not ride those...even if it went bonkers higher after that, I got PEACE.

BABA +25%. Gut trade

Trade my best setups or PASS.
WAIT for pivots to stop against.
Take MY PIECE. Peace.

Daily setup: Volume screen mover. The daily setup is NMS.
Entry/play: Volume mover caught my attention. Used premarket levels (.42) for bo level. Opening bar down big volume, second bar hard reversal up to .5. Waited for another pb, and on strong run back up I preempted ndh.
Management: Had to go down again, and after some minor bouncing, I added on strong green bar, then trailed/squeezed stops.
Psychology: No regrets!! I got my first sell a smidge early, then got nearly top tick on the rest. I got MY PIECE. PEACE!