holy quackamoley!

 NVDA launched straight up today and I am raking it in!

BA-BAM! What a trade. Last piece out. What - a - trade!! I still have a ton of cash left but I am DONE! Don't want to do anything here on quad-witching to mess this up. The rest of the day is golden!!

Obviously there was more on the table, but that wasn't my money. I had a fabulous trade.

trade, then go have a day

!פורים שמח 

Came in for a quick trade. TSLA massive win! Back to the day's activities.

Charts maybe later

beware the last trade of the day

I have a bad habit of giving the last trade of the day too much room. I trade in a cash account, and when I'm out of cash, I'm done. I don't want to be done. I typically lose more than win on that last trade when I give it too much room. Just take the same smart stop as I know to do. 

MU good daily setup, less relative weakness than others moving big today. Somehow I avoided stopping out on that spike down, but when it instantly recovered I added. Market shaped up too then, and this turned into my moneymaker trade of the day.

NVDA...I think I lose more than win in this ticker. I should go smaller or avoid. I would say my stop was too tight, but if I had given low of day I would have stayed in. That's not the answer, though. In retrospect, the real entry at 9:52 seems obvious (join my new firm "Retrospect Trading" 100% win rate!). With a stop against the low... size position accordingly.

$STUDY: I need to trade against pivots. Where was my pivot? I can't just pick a random 1-min doji candle to stop against (that's too cute) I need a real pivot to stop against. 

BABA... Gapped "too much" and dropped straight out at the open. Tried for a short on vwap failure as market weakened, but took an L and gave too much room. At least, as a step in the right direction, I stopped half where I "should"... though to counter that I gave the back half too much room. That's probably a wash. 

Nice green day, though.

What to trade w no gap setups

No great gaps this morning. What to trade? So I tried to short weakness. Of course I hoped for the daily breakdown, but still have to trade on facts.

Got lucky on the opening FB trade, weakness off the top. Took that target! I was surprised at first that I took off more than half (having placed that order in a rational moment, apparently, vs a more greedy moment). Turned out great to lock that, as back part didn't exit nearly as well.

FB trade made my day amazing. Subsequent trades to be small, not to mess it up. 

Looking for AMD break of 100, but NVDA setup looked better. Chickened out of NVDA, then tried AMD which also didn't work. 

Follow up - Can't try to stubbornly hold!!... I was so bummed to stop out, but look at these launch! Do I wish I had it long? I don't think that's my trade, but maybe I should look into a setup like, "refusing to break down".

Volatility is the land of expanding ranges

Trying to learn the lessons of trading extra volatility. I've been mentioning shorting the "second high" or trading the second setup. I'm seeing more and more these expanding ranges and AMD today was a perfect example. Trendlines work! The second high is an extended trendline of the highs (may include premarket). 

Stochastics also matter. A lot. I'm not sure I can elaborate yet on exactly what's different. Seems like the 5 min stochs need to cycle. Don't fight the 5 min stochs. Wait for it to cycle and don't be afraid of the expanding range/test against my bias.

I've been getting burned on trying to short the "h" on 1 min setup when the 5 min stochs are oversold and I'm losing. This is another way of looking at the expanding range. A low, a bounce (ex, to vwap) and the new low bounces off an extended trendline that is the boundary of the expanding range. The rejection can be strong.

Something else to note about volatility is that despite the big price swings, the option spreads are bigger and there's a lot of exaggeration in the pricing. So believe it or not, it seems harder to get my pl tgt 20% in volatility environment. Consider going for pl(1) 10-15%, pl(2) 20-30%...

Back to AMD, see yellow dots (black chart), the trade was short, but volatility bounced it for a new high first, and rejected off the expanding range (trendline! white chart) I got a small gainer off that. Coulda shoulda waited for the 5 min stochs to cycle to get the great trade. 

SPY failed short... lucky for small loser. Was this a good trade. I think yes in that I waited for a bounce, but today it didn't work.