FAST OPTIONS TRADING. Fast in/out. Apply trading rules like CLOCKWORK. Have a day. Sleep at night. This is my personal trading journal*.
Late arrival today (a.m. chevruta). Market pushing resistance. What's moving is pulling back. Looking for weakness to short, waiting for good entries.
PENN stuck around yesterdays high, also 5dma. First short got grabbed. Second one paid.
NVAX didn't give as much as I hoped.
COST worked the second time.
Nothing really flushed like I wanted, but I scraped out a little gains and I'm happy with that. Especially happy with how I WAITED.
Maybe sometimes you just need that one big trade. I was depressingly red on the day (its own topic... why do I keep trading so deep?), but today the savior trade in ZM really paid!
Big loser in MRNA was totally avoidable. I have learned, if I don't stick to the proper stop, I will inevitably panic before it goes back in my direction. See: MRNA today. It stopped me out 65.83 (top tick 65.85) before going all the way back down.
Like yesterday. Small up, small down, then finally today it was AAPL that paid me. INO sucked me in for the breakout, then I got trapped. Regretted getting out....until I was so glad to be out! Trade management ftw.
Why was I even in WMT at all? Waste.
NKLA, others switched long, but I tried for the big short. I did ok, but didn't get the utter destruction I hoped for.
A good day, +7%, but I traded FB like an a$$, reversing my position and taking a big hit instead of waiting for my trade to set up again (which would have made nice money).
DKNG (donkey kong, lol!) was trade of the day.
I'm back to trading my full account size, so I hope I can keep my cool.
I was out during the open (Friday), so I got a late start in the market. I don't have a good method for finding picks at 10:00 vs before the open, so I used my "volume movers" screen to look for stocks on the move.
What I really did nicely today was sticking with next week's expiration. That gave me time to wait it out.
I tried to go long ORCL based on base breakout, but the tide (cravity!) was too strong for everything today. ORCL traded up to the exact intraday trendline, missed my pl target by 3 cents, and then I stopped for a loss.
OSTK was sooo juicy, but the option action was very difficult. Wide spreads, and the bid on the put didn't really move well, even though the ask went to my price several times. I ended up yanking all partials, trying to use downticks so I wouldn't hit the bid. Frustrating action there, even if it was a winner.
So, I have to be content that I got my piece today. Peace. Shabbat shalom.
Market dropped out past 3 days. Today gap up and looked to be a bounce day.
My usual setups aren't setting up bc the drop. I need to work on an oversold bounce play, something like: Strong stock, oversold but holding good levels, then gapping up above intraday levels.
I'm not sure NVDA exactly fit the bill on intraday levels. I think I was lured in by Meir. And then I got in over my head. First of all, the option was $12 range. And the spread was $1 or even $2. I know that is a recipe for disaster, bc I don't want to lose extra on the spread for a stop/market order.
LESSON. Consider that pre-empting for entries is not a good idea on this setup. Preempting might work for a breakout, but an oversold bounce should prove itself first.
I also got a tiny gainer on UBER which I played well on super small pos (at least I did that one right). And a full size loser on FB puts.
This was my hardest/best trade of the day. I got in at 9:50. Didn't take off on new highs, when it pulled back, I added at 10:30 and then I had to wait. Not just wait while green, but wait while it went above and below water. For 90 minutes! But then I got paid so nicely. I shaved off calls as it moved up, which felt meek after waiting all that time, but I did not want to miss capturing gains I waited for.
Psychologically: This didn't feel like a good trade. It was VERY taxing to wait it out.
Market is falling out hard yesterday and this morning.
I did one thing right: trading next week's expiration. It's less of a heart attack.
I did one thing wrong: BAC was a long pick, but as the market was melting, I shorted it. I rode up for a big minus before it came back close to b/e and I yanked it for about 11% loss. Would have been better to take the long signal, grab that money, and be done.
Then I got lucky with wide spreads in BYND to bring me back green for the day. And I am done! Not going to try to get too cute and mess this up, esp not going into long weekend.
Trying something new starting Sept 1. I am holding my account at this very low level. I think I trade well at this small account size, maybe less emotions. So all gains above this basic level I will skim each night into the "reserves" account. Basically, I'm going to pay myself every day. The account I want to see grow is the reserve account.
Maybe it seems counter-intuitive, that if I'm trading well I should increase size. But I think in this case the opposite. I trade well at this $level so MY best opportunity for profits is to keep producing here. Maybe in October I will evaluate the option to increase the base account size by some increment. This might be a good strategy for me... to stabilize at this account size versus growing so fast (a curse we all should have? that my account grows too fast!)
Today was a very satisfying trading day, though maybe that could have gone either way. I traded NVAX long and NVDA short. Each had huge spreads on the options. I went in on mkt orders and out on conservative limits. Maybe I left some on the table, but on the other hand, I made really nice gains today with very little psychological exposure.
Today was a wild day and I'm lucky to be green today. In the opening trade, I accidentally went calls on NVAX when I meant to go short (meant for ETSY calls, which would have also been a loser so maybe that's a wash), so I started with an unanticipated huge loss. Simultaneously was in NVAX puts which eventually paid but I didn't take enough off when I had the chance, so that trade didn't bail me out entirely.
Then as I was just back to breaking even again via NIO puts, the trading platform went out for a few minutes. 2/3 limit orders filled while I was blind. Logged in to take the last third off at support (and then it dropped another ton and I missed it). I can't complain about this trade which I got sooo lucky to hang on through some really bumpy bumps (was -$200 before getting out finally +$360)
On one hand I'm so glad to be green. On the other hand, I could have had a REALLY stellar day if I didn't have to climb out of the hole. Very roller coaster day.
Glad to just shut this down and walk away from it today.
