About profit goals

Account is up 26% week over week! Ba-BAM!

At the beginning of the week, I set a very ambitious p/l goal. By Tuesday afternoon I scrapped it bc I was not on pace and I saw that pressing for it was not doing me any good. And yet... I came out this week very close to that goal. I'm thrilled!! 

I'm on a 7-day win streak. My stats recently are amazing, but I have not yet recovered from the June account massacre. What a waste! I must keep check on overconfidence. 

Let this be a LESSON! 

I am not smarter than the market. 

I won't get it back in one trade. 

Don't rely on disproportionate gains to "save" me. 

STOP when losses are small.

I need to trade like clockwork. Clockwork works! 

When I'm out of my mind or even when the market climate is just not conducive to my style, if I'm losing and not gaining, I must go smaller to regroup. 

Today was a "up is down and down is up" day, but I saw it coming!! Gaps up were into resistance, so I shorted. Gap down was not behaving right, so I passed. 

But the real money today was MRNA puts. The trade was craaazzyyy (very choppy trade and outrageous option spread) but I managed to get a piece and not get burned. After that, only thing to do is walk away and chill!

No charts. Have to go cook. Shabbat shalom!

Gaps up failing (as of ~10:30)...

Gift horse

Up 2% day and I'm frustrated. I over traded for naught (naught! it's +2%, what lack of gratitude). 

Saving merit of my behavior, I kept it all small and rational. Just bummed to not have made more.

Biggest gainers on DDOG calls in the opening session, AMD puts a few times. NVDA calls for a sizable loss. 

No charts today.

I'm going out to play in the nice weather with my gift horse 😉

Spread, heart attack, gain. Peace!

Great day. Big spreads everywhere (not fun to trade big spreads). Took proper stops.

Looking at trade review, It was "up is down/down is up" in that ATVI didn't play out for a long and CVS didn't play out for a short. Good for me, I kept to my stops, didn't hack around. I took my losses and turned my attention elsewhere.

ATVI was on long list, but when it failed, I looked to short. Not my best setup. I missed the optimal entry, tried for the next push. Managed to get my partial at bottom tick and stopped the rest. Great example of:

-what partials are good for

-tight stop is the right stop

CVS, just the opposite. Was on my short list, but was not weak. Gotta take those stops. This was a pretty big loser bc spread, but I think I traded ok. Mama said there'd be trades like this... :)

NVAX beau-teee-fullll! First trade I took advantage of the opening move. Started small and took my targets and stops. Then a great pennant developed and I traded for the breakout. Spreads were $2-3 on $13-20 option. I would rather get some targets than leave it all to stops. I missed the top, but I got the zig. Peace!!

MRNA crazy redemption

I was sure I was going to end down today. NVDA whacked me again. AAPL flushed me out. Ate a big loss on BILI. And then came MRNA, which went practically straight up... Exactly what I needed for redemption. 

Against better wisdom, I loaded the boat. I skimmed off bit by bit, until finally I closed up on the day. 

I know this is not healthy for my trading... to pile in and have it work. Most of the time, piling in will wipe me out. A trade like this is a negative lesson--I profited (mightily!) from very bad behavior. 

I don't know how trading can exhaust me some days. Maybe it's all the focus and emotions.

I'm glad I have a new standing desk so I can fidget my way through it.

I've ditched pressing for a big trading number this week. I'm not on pace for it at this point, and I've changed my mind about trading that aggressively. I got lucky on MRNA today, but I shouldn't be counting on luck.

Can't show just my winners, so here's BILI, in which I added to a loser and I held way way way too long. Why mess up my pl like that? "Bad trade that works" (like MRNA today) create the habit of getting too cute, when usually it turns out "bad trade that slaps me" like it should.

turned big gains into small

I traded bigger size today. I want to press for a big green week. As a result, my same techniques had me at a very nice gain at one point. And my same techniques, amplified by size, got me out for just small gains. Going big cuts both ways like that! Still, green is green. I'll take it.