Opening losses, recovered

Account up 3% today, but that's after being down 4% earlier. Glad to have recovered, but I did too much hot dogging in the open. Positions way too big. That's arrogance! And then, I'm too big, too scared (cowardice? or rationality?). 

What if I could have avoided those losses, or had smaller ones, and then made the gains I made today? I would be up huge!

In addition, other cowardly trading. Not riding out reasonable volatility. 

So, BH for gorgeous gains today, but coulda' shoulda' - I need to stay cool and not hot dog it so much.

Recovering from minus

Some sloppy trading today. Increases my awareness of how I can avoid those -30% trades (hint: waiting). Managed to get barely back green. High awareness of market less hot today. 

That's part of the difference, perhaps. When the market is really hot, I can get away with sloppy entries. When the market is tougher, I need more careful entries. How to tell the difference?

A thought: Watch for this phenomenon, FUTU, the tight range, spike below (stops run), then finally the move everyone waited for. This is definitely one of the times not to have a hard stop, below a tight range. I was in this position too big and got out before the spike, but that would have been a heart attack. Even when it moved, the option didn't go to target (yet, though I'm out). // Later, 5 min chart, the whole thing flipped. So on the other hand...stops!!

Trades today:

Playing with data

Still playing with my trading data to see if I can notice any patterns, make any improvements. Tonight's experiments with 2021 to date data:

The histogram shows more clearly that I have high number of trades in the approximately +20% zone. In the scattergram, the points are overlapping such that it's impossible to tell the quantity. 

However, knowing that there is a density around +20%, what both graphs bring to light is I have a lot of losing trades! And the losers are bigger than I think, even if I am overall profitable. 

It seems like my losers are in bigger trades, more $2000 trades have losers than winners. Part of that, I think, is that I tend to scale out of winners, which is shown by smaller$ but bigger% trades. 

YTD, I am 72% winning days, average daily gain 1.23%. 

On first glance, it seems like I should make it a focus to reduce the size (if not the quantity) of my losers. How to do this? I like my stop technique, so I think I need better entries. Hm.. to ponder.

Big wins for MY 50th BIRTHDAY!

Today is my 50th birthday, and what an amazing trading day! Clockwork trading ftw. I have a lot of confidence in my trading right now. I'm able to size up, but still be conservative. I feel synced with the market. 

With that said, I haven't had a losing day for over a week. I don't want to be tested, but I need to keep in mind that I should be aware of this "I'm in sync" feeling on a down day in order to realize I'm not in sync... AND STOP. 

Hard earned up day. New round number!

BH! Today I crossed a new milestone number in my account. But today was not an easy day. I made mistakes, took sloppy setups, was lucky to get what I did. 

MSFT, the trade that could have really saved me, I accidentally took March calls instead of this week calls, so I used a ton of capital and made so much less. 

New week. Nervous again

This is a good market for a daytrader. Pockets of volatility for gains, and a lot of market uncertainty which makes me glad to be in and out (back to safety). The other thing that's really scary, is the connectivity problems at the brokerages. Will I be able to get into a trade when I want, and WAY scarier: will I be able to get out when I want. 

Win percentage for Jan based on DAILY RESULT: 69% green days