hot market is back

Yesterday fed announcement fueled an important technical move.

Today premarket felt really hot, like the old days in 2021.

Lots of good looking gap up picks. All the gaps down were either inverse etfs or not meaningful.

Of my 7 premarket watch list I think I picked the 2 worst to trade. Everything else moved when these guys stuttered. Took a long time to get "eh" gains. The second daily high was sold strongly and I got stuck while these based out. Didn't help that I chased the first bit of GOOGL. 

nice green day

Nice green day today.  Market inside. Fed day this afternoon. Opening market action was chop shop!

BIDU gap above LT level. Looked so good, but option very spready. When it got stuck below 147.8 I yanked the rest. When it pop/dropped I was glad, though next level below did hold. and then it ran pretty straight to my ~152 target. On one hand, a little FOMO bc I could have really had a big winner (realistically, I wouldn't have really held to that top). Otoh, that cuts both ways. 

Maybe I should examine how/whether to trade spready options. Currently it's to trade small and use limit orders. Maybe some day if my account is MUCH bigger, and I could trade a micro size, then I could hold a last partial on a lotto basis and capture some of those. For now, I need to book gains like Clockwork!

AMD caught my eye as it was basing above vwap. Market action at the time was iffy. Gave one try and stopped it tight. Next try I had a little more confidence to give it room, but it was really hard work. Eventually I took 10% to relax a little. (Contrast strategically with BIDU when I took some off in hard work zone.) Another shave along the way and then set a bracket to close my eyes for a few minutes. Came back to tighten the stop. 

lucky with a bracket

Market is inside open/morning. Don't expect followthrough. And yet... I chased MU and failed on SPOT in the opening minutes.

Pick of the day was UPS for a level breakout. It was on my gap scanner but wasn't clearing the level ~184. Set an alert. Now buckle in for a saga. First entry was a starter. Waited for the level break. Volume/action looked good but it was pretty extended. After a pb, I added. Meanwhile SPY was chopping in a narrow range and moreso down while UPS pushed. UPS had a mind of its own, though and didn't trend with the market in sync today generally.

Picture: I'm in the hole from MU and SPOT. I'm full+ sized in UPS. I decide I want 20% pltgt on the add, not on the starter, but now the spread is 10%+ on the option so I need limit orders. I hate using stop/market when the spread is so big. Really I shouldn't trade this spready (how often do I say this?). Got the pltgt but only took off 1/4th of the position (bc, why? wanting to make back the opening losses). 

When it started rolling over off the top, I tried to get another limit order for the 40% and it didn't fill. So now I'm up a creek. Didn't want to sell "badly" when the stock isn't really falling apart. I kept giving it another level and another level until the trade went red again. Now I'm sweating it. It held a level just above the vwap for a little bit, then it held a level straddling the vwap. This for more than an hour and I'm wasting my day and psychological capital on this f'er.

I set a stop, 2 limits and walked away for over an hour. I think that's the only choice I had to manage the trade at that point. Got very lucky that finally moved back up. The limit on the option filled while I was out (another 1/4th). In the next several minutes it got very near my price target and failed so I yanked off another 1/4th and tightened my stop. 

Do I regret this trade? Even though in the end I did much better exiting midday than I would have at the point I "should have" stopped much earlier, it was NOT worth the stress. I should have taken that early stop, taken the ~flat day and closed my screens. I don't like sweating a trade all day. That's why I'm a scalper. I like to have my day!

big win, small losses

BABA big win off the open. AMD small loss. Market became very choppy and didn't want to compromise gains so subsequent trades were extremely small. Maybe what I should have done instead was wait for more clarity. Or just shut down and go enjoy my day. Clear in retrospect. In the moment, small size was the move.

SOFI I got sucked into some buzz and traded $6 stock. Meanwhile I passed on CVNA for being too cheap. Should have passed on both. Need to make sure I don't get sucked into buzz. Just stick with my best setups.

GDS was on my gap down screener. Didn't work in the morning bump/churn.

In general, I love how I kept my losers small today, and how I sized down after a big win to not give it back.