2% down day. Hurt on spreads and no-fills.

Frustrating day. Small position size helped me not destruct, but I got chopped on Z and DDOG that cost me. I think I did trade like clockwork, and today was small loser. Peace.

Update: after midday, the market positively croaked. I missed the action today.

Waste of money. -6% for no good reason in NFLX both ways.

No great setups this morning. I should have walked away. Instead I put my eye on NFLX and burned 7% messing around in there. Puts didn't fill. Calls over puts, then the puts stopped, calls didn't fill. Nothing worked out great and MOST OF ALL I WAS IN TOO BIG. Puts again but I didn't take profits bc I wished to save my day. Textbook mistakes. Expensive mistakes.

Later, I went for tomorrow puts in SPY. I traded scared bc I was already down. First exit was ok, but I should have held on for my target and beyond, which it reached an hour later. UGH

NFLX

SPY

BABA, the one that got away. +7% day

Great clockwork trading day. BABA was the one that got away. I tried 2 entries, got a smidge for myself, but missed the big move. No regrets. That's clockwork trading. Pay myself first; tight stop is the right stop. Same sentiment about missing my p/l fill on ROKU. I did it right, I didn't get paid, but I didn't take an outsized loss and I didn't fracture my psychology. Peace.

ZM accidental puts might have actually paid, but mostly I was lucky not to get hurt by an accident. 

CAH spread was wide and I'm glad I took my piece on the surge/stall vs risk it. 

BA
Gap below green doji. 9:29 and 9:30 bars caught my eye.

BABA
Continuation of Friday strength.

ROKU
Relative weakness. Pennant failing when SPY weak. Looking back, QQQ was not weak all day, except premkt.

CAH
Gap up above resistance. Premkt watchlist, but when Meir called it out, I gave it a look and jumped in.

CAT
Gap against green bar, back into weak days. Short failure to move up.

ZM
Accidental puts, which while I might have turned out to make money, I did the right thing to yank it. And, B"H I got puts and got out, bc calls would have hurt me worse.

Clockwork Friday +7%. Comfortably intense

Sometime during the session, I thought to myself, "This day is going to be annoying to journal." Maybe that means I overtraded? I did take A LOT of trades. Multiple trades on 7 stocks. I think I'll always wish for a better result, but I must not regret slippage on market orders. Slippage is going to be part of clockwork trading because market orders, especially stop market, is how I avoid the poison of big losses. And trading today's expiration on options... can't stick around for anything!

Maybe this is lazy, but I want to get something posted for starters so...

Didn't trade clockwork today. -13%. PTON wtf and BABA undiciplined

Wiped out my whole week of gains, and payed heavily in psychological capital.
Very emotional trading day today. Positions too big. Emotional trade management. Clockwork nowhere to be found after BABA #1.

First trade BABA didn't go for me. Stop -3%. No problem. Move on.

Next trade PTON jerked me right away, and I was IN TOO BIG. Instead of yanking my pos (arrogance), I bought puts so I could try to hold the calls (wtf?!). Now I'm holding big size in puts and huge size in calls, and it was hard to manage. It moved so fast, and I was struggling to manage both sides. In the end, I was +16% on too-big put position (about 2x what I should have had) and -58% on a wtf-big call position (3x what I should).
Do I need to say, this devastated my day.

So I tried to make it back in BABA. I took a new put position, which I managed poorly aside from it being sized ok. For starters, I let this go way too far against me. I can't even remember if I had a hard stop in (!). Then I got lucky. But instead of taking approx +50% at resistance, I tried to hold for a breakdown (multiday level, 2 days before earnings = stupid) in order to save my day. I shaved off a few smidges, but held the bulk against my ego and of course it didn't save my day, and I didn't even do too well because I didn't trade it like clockwork. Result +10%

Today was a total fail.
LET ME LEARN MY LESSON: 
Clockwork works! Trade like clockwork!
Small size. 
Tight stop is the right stop. 
Pay myself first.


BABA

PTON

Clockwork trading kept me sane and then saved the day. +4% day

First trade in ENPH was a quick winner, but second trade ATVI was a quick loser. ATVI dropped through my stop level before I could get the order in. Then I was scrambling and took a painful/oversized loss. I had decided last night that 5% would be my max loss day, and this put me up against my max loss. I allowed one more small trade, and from there I managed to save my day, mostly with EA. Proving the lesson: small wins and losses cancel out, big wins are the money, don't have big losses.

Kept my head and traded like clockwork, despite the impulse that "the next trade needs to save my day". Really, ticking small gains is what makes (saves) one's day. Tight stops are the right stops. Pay myself first.


ENPH
Gap above red bar, looking for 123 breakout

ATVI
Gap to all time highs. long move above premkt high.

EA
Gap down against new high breakout. Same space as ATVI, I didn't look into news, but watching for inverse?/correlation.

HZNP
Gap to all time high. Got chopped in high base, then took my $.

Clockwork trading paid +3% today

I did good clockwork trading today.
-smaller positions
-pay myself first
-tight stop is the right stop

Very sane trading. Taking targets and tight stops helps minimize emotions. Market was choppy, narrow range today and I'm glad I managed to squeeze something out of it.

SBUX
Gap up / island reversal. Into daily ma's. Passed when I should have jumped, but got another chance later for a few bucks.

FB
Meir called out. Strength play.

BABA
Gap against red bar

AAPL
Gap/strength.