Near burn and miraculous save

MRNA!!!

I had a small, rational opening trade on SQ for +26% on the front 2/3 and flat on the back.

Then MRNA. I got calls. Then it dropped out and I also took puts. Then I'm in that f* Friday situation that sometimes put myself in where I can get burned on the decay and lose in both directions. 

But I got saved by a literal miracle. MRNA launnnched and even though my puts lost really hard, my calls gained bazillion.

So, +6% on the day, and B"H up 26% on the week. 

No charts today. Shabbat shalom.

Thinking "eh"

 Win streak in tact. 8 green days in a row.

Started in the hole. Jumped into NFLX calls too enthusiastically. Also took a big loss on NIO puts, which I deserved for chasing, literally opening puts at the bottom (I'm making rookie moves, really?!).

JKS and TSM huge winners. 

But, then indexes were choppy and not really helpful. 

What worked? I'm not really sure! Waiting helped me find good entries, and not waiting got me burned. Always worth waiting. Say to myself "eh" instead of "go go go". 

Stayed too long in the market and now too mentally spent to do charts.

terribly frustrating day, but green B"H

 Premarket, the vibe was maybe one of those "up is down and down is up" days. Interesting that I had a feeling it would be a frustrating day. Even in the moment, I couldn't express why (zero setups? inside indexes?). But I'm glad at least the my instinct about it is becoming more distinct.

You'd think... (ugh)... that I'd scale down, take it easy. But I was kind of in tilt from my first trade: AAL, went to my target but didn't fill me, then stopped for a loss (later it went beyond my target upside and then dropped the bottom out hard). 

Meanwhile PLUG (first try) jerked me out. 

AAPL was hard work (this is a red flag), but I was in love(🚩) and I added, twice(🚩), then stopped, then traded all around it like a maniac, until finally for the trade that got me back green. This ticker could have absolutely wrecked me today and I was sooo lucky.

And then PLUG set up again and actually made my day.

But I traded until about 11:30 which is not ever my intent. Need to get on the bike, pronto.

No charts today.

Overtrading, but up on day

 I traded out of bounds today, and it was not worth it. I even risked tilting. NOT GOOD.

At 9:42, I closed my last gapper trade and had a feeling my setups were expired. But then I kept looking... and took another trade. A loser. 10:05 I should have been done. This is a tilt trigger! Classic: thinking I'm done, then trying for "just one more" and it's a loser.... sets me on a course to make it back, but I'm not in a good space then. When the gut says quit, then quit.

After that, I took 3 more trades, and only got back to where I was at 9:42. What a waste of time and psychological capital. 

Took 2 trades that had wide spreads and instantly regretted it. Exited both tiny green, but these are not good for my mentality. I went smaller as a compromise, but I still just don't like sweating it.

Paper trade against fomo, BA short 230.55 at 11:12 (after already net losses on BA). Will check when I get back.

Have to go. Charts maybe later. 

5 day win streak

 +10% on traded capital today. This is still my reduced account, and I've been moving gains into the reserve account. The reserve is building nicely!! I may keep this scheme forever. Controlling my trading capital and knowing I have reserve capital helps with sanity. I've known this about myself for a long time.

What I need to be on alert for is tilt triggers. Today was the first day in a few days that I've had a red trade at all not even a partial. So today was the first time I started to feel the feelings. I kept my head straight. These were not "total losers", though. Meaning it didn't go against me right away. Those are even worse. 

What is working? Is it the market, actually? Is it the greatly reduced size I'm trading? I do want to press harder (faster, bigger gains), but I also can't lose my head. Maybe it's that I'm only trading just the opening setups. Maybe it's that I'm more worried about FOBU (fear of blowing up) than FOMO. I'm trying hard to protect capital.

UPST beautiful hit and run! 

VALE I was looking for something similar to UPST, volume open that would run up strongly. When I saw it turn back up, I grabbed. But then I realized the potential move was tiny so I got out for small loss.

Will come back to post the rest later...

PTON ... did Yogi call it out? I think Yogi draws my attention to nms and I wind up trading them to my detriment. This one was ok, but NVDA was not...

SNAP Not sticking around to see how far it goes against me. Just take the small loss.

MRNA Beautiful intraday bull flag. Was hard to hold, and didn't want to give back, so I yanked a bit early.

Always $study

 Watching trading videos is my best way to always be learning. I've recently been loving traderTV.live. Their live trading open/close shows are great (even to watch after the fact!). I've also become aware of strategy videos they make. 

Today's gem was about money management, something I've also discovered about myself and my own trading: it helps boost confidence in the highly aggressive trading to know I have other money socked away as a backstop. 

I think this is why I trade better (more confidently, more profitably!) when I trade reduced account size. 

I have been parking the "dry powder" in a checking account, and I do sometimes move it into the trading account for a little extra oomph (not always for the good). Would I do better to invest that in something and not touch it so much?

I think eventually I will get my account up to a level where I find I just can't size up anymore bc liquidity. I suppose at that point I'll truly have excess money.  I'd have 3 chunks: #1) trading capital, #2)backup capital, #3)even more capital. 

Actually, maybe the #3 money will be the money we live on. Maybe that's how I'll know we're golden...when there exists a #3 and that is our cash flow money to live on.

How big do #1 and #2 have to be, before I can start allocating to #3? I don't know yet. I suppose it will be when I discover my trading sweet spot and know that I have sufficient cash above that. And/or maybe at some point I will decide to start "paying" myself instead of pressing for more and more growth.