Friday, April 30, 2021

Oooofff

Big down day.

Down week

Down month.

Friday options, fire.

Next week I'll be trading with only 1/4 my account, or maybe paper trade. Need to chill out.

May is wedding month. Probably good to lighten up anyway, because of other stressors. Not to mention lousy trading climate.

Ugh!

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Fighting the battle

I traded great today. Felt synced. Took $1/10 acct pos size today. Made an 8% day, and so far a +15% week. Best in a little while, but not enough to turn the month green.

Was the action good today, different than other days? No. I still had frustrations to get even 10% p/l targets. The problem with smaller targets, is even though I lock some gains, the remaining position can still go negative. But that's what the market is giving now. 

I'm trying to not only take targets, but skim partials along the way. It results in a lot of transactions, but it lets me take gains and still ride. I think this is a good way to manage bigger positions. I'm going to try to stick with this for a few days. In the case of total losses it may burn, but in the case where I get my move it will add up and allow me to maximize my capital.




















One more trading day in April. As of today, I'm down 8% on the month. My first losing month in a really long time. Even so, my w/l days is 61% this month (vs 65-70% recent past months). What does this tell me? I think it tells me that statistically I'm still working a winning system, but I'm letting my losing days get too big. I feel like I got too big/bad both ways: 1000cuts by taking small positions and not stop additional trading at a certain point, and also getting whacked on big positions. Which is worse? I think 1000 cuts is worse psychologically. Even though small positions should help mitigate bad psychology, that's only true if I stop trading. If I grind all day, then no.

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Just 2 tickers

Traded a little bigger today. The frustration with going toooo small is it doesn't add up before the plays fizzle out. Today I took the best looking setups, went a little bigger. Gave first TSLA puts too much room, but managed to recover.

PINS gap below trendline. This was spready and hard to sit with. Glad for what I got.
TSLA relative weakness. Initial short didn't work and took my biggest hit of the day on the 9:38 puts. Calls went fast. Then the short finally set up. 

Neither of these followed through/easily. Nothing seems to go nuts like when the market was so hot a few weeks ago. I'm glad for the strategy of taking smaller gains. Singles. Need to book green, especially if I'm heavy.




Wednesday morning

Fed day. And a lot going on personally. I hope to hit and run today. BEH will be a day with moves. I'm tempted to go a little bigger today in general. Only a few decent setups. Most of all, keep my head. Stay clockwork.

No Hail Marys

(Tuesday journal)
I did pretty well today. Had to keep catching myself and refrain from the impulse to take that "load the boat" trade. I'm temped to take the oversized trade both for revenge or for greed. Oversized trades are a bad idea in both cases. Clockwork - small size, tight stop, pay myself. 

Taking "only" 10-15% feels little disappointing and doesn't give as much cushion, but it's "not nothing" and it adds up ok. 

Get what the market gives. That's my piece. Peace.

Monday, April 26, 2021

Stick with journaling

A green day. Not to $ target, but I got my % target and I can't argue with that. There were a few picks, and I dabbled in a few others. Best gainers, MVIS breakout, NIO reversal. Got hacked in the cryptos RIOT, MARA for mostly losers. AAPL small dabble for +/- flat.

Interesting trade today was COIN. Huge clear resistance 305, but miners struggling and my previous days' COIN trades have busted so I was really skeptical about 305. I waited for a strong pullback and got calls. I went in pretty big ultimately, took some off for 8% ahead of 305. And then came the moment when you have to have trades entered. I had a tightened stop below 305 (even before the bo), and tstop if it went to 305.5. Logic: lots of people watching 305, but such a clear strong resistance, it seemed like maybe pop/drop. In the blink of an eye I saw a bunch of orders execute before I even saw the price move (another reason to enter orders). It popped to 306 and dropped to 301 in a split second. My orders got filled for +5% and +4%. Not the huge winner I hoped for, but peace.

I've been feeling lazy about journaling, but these disciplines will be what helps me grow my account back to April 7th highs and beyond. 

Trade of the day MVIS


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