going into Tuesday

Nothing compelling this morning. I carried MARA puts overnight, which I'm rather regretting right now. That will be the only thing I pay much attention to in the opening minutes. After that, I need to wait for other setups.

Trade with a spoon, not a shovel

Since ath April 7, I've had a string of losses. I reverted to old bad habits to try to dig out of the hole, of course making it worse. 

Trading too big is the source of the problem, not the solution!

If I'm already in a bad state from losses, bigger positions and more emotions is not the solution.

I need to dig out of the hole with a spoon, not a shovel. This is clockwork. 

Small size. Keep emotions in check. Allow the system to work, with its statistical ups and downs.

Pay myself first. My system is proven to be profitable. Don't mess. Take those profits. Spoonful at a time. Single upon single.

Tight stop is the right stop. If my premise is wrong, cut. If it sets up again, and I've controlled my size, I'll have capital to try again.

So yesterday and today, nice green days. Climbing back to the top.

I realize, right before I tailspinned, I was becoming arrogant. Clear example: for the first time ever I showed people this trade journal. Arrogance is an enemy. I thought I was finally invincible, and the market reminded me I'm not.

I know that I can pluck money out of the market. I know my system is consistently profitable. But when I start showboating and trading outside the constraints, I get stung. Every time. 

OK. So how am I staying in bounds? I'm trading in baby steps. Insultingly small positions (there's that arrogance again). Taking miniture profits at targets. Sticking to stops. It's working. I made a solid 5% today. It took me all day. Small position after small position. 

The market still isn't easy. SPY has been above the 5dma for 14 days! And yet, trades are a struggle. Who is buying up here? But shorts are getting burned. 

And there is rotation. Definitely the bottom is falling out of former hot stocks. Very common pattern these days is 3-6 months ago a huge climactic run. Then a drop and a flat base, like the end of a ski run. Then new breakdown. Those shorts aren't easy. They gap down and don't always stay down.

For the sake of my trading account, I welcome a serious consolidataion. 

In my swing and LT accounts, I'm loving this climb. 

Premarket

Market slightly down this morning. Bunch of small range days lately have hurt. But keeps churning up. Hard to go long because who's buying into this run (someone, but...). Shorts don't work well bc the market is climbing.

So remember today: Don't expect followthrough. Hit and run. Zigs no zags.

Small size. Pay myself. Tight stops. 
WAIT.

BA Friday options burn for a red week

 OUCH! Very big loss day today. Gave up my week. This will be my third red week in 2021. A losing day hurts, but a losing week really disappoints.

Classic overconfidence blowout.

Next week I need to regroup by trading extremely small size. I can't afford to try to press right now.

Overtraded today's expiration on BA, looking for daily breakdown. Got greedy, got smeared. Caps a -10% week. 

I'm going to have to remove a lot of money from my account next week. Maybe even paper trade. 

Market is precarious right now. Super strong non-stop bull on diminishing volume. Feels exhausted/exhausting. Longs not working. Shorts not working.

Ba-BAM!

That's how you do it. I like how I traded today. Good picks. Good waiting. Good stops and targets. Good job wrapping the day when there are no more setups. Up more than 15% on the cash I traded, which was only half my account. Done by 10:07. This was a completely ideal Clockwork Trading day!!

New ath on account. Currently +152% on account ytd. 

I realize with Pesach, I didn't log March stats:

	March
ytd gain	141.52%
ytd w/l days	68.25%
ytd avg daily %	1.54%
month gain	31.52%
month w/l days	69.57%
month avg daily %	1.31%

Today's trades

Up, a bit

I hoped for a big thrilling day today. I got a medium, kind of frustrating day. Overtraded. Brought me back to Earth. 

Tomorrow!

2 weeks off, eager to return

Between visiting my parents for the first time since before Coronavirus, and Pesach I've been +/- off trading for 2 weeks. 

I'm incredibly eager to get back to my desk, and I'm revving to dive in big and have a huge day. I must moderate myself and take it carefully. Monday, possibly out of sync... just take it carefully tomorrow.

Go and come back, but surely go. LESSON on reverse-revenge trades. **Important to reread

• When trades aren't working, leave and come back
• Long setups are for calls. Short setups are for puts. Don't reverse it, but do potentially try again when it sets up again (see leave and come back) this change might help me the most.
• Big gains come from trading right. Big losses come from trading wrong.

8 days ago, I had a new account high. The next day I lost 10%. When I say lost... I know very well where it went. It went down the drain bc indiscretion. Cocky, overconfident trading. 

It took me basically 2 weeks to recover. Two +5% days, a -7%, some little ones, and today, finally, +8%. The funny thing about today's big day, I didn't feel it happening. I was trading pretty small size, took one big loss (Friday options can burn!), but the win after win added up...probably also bc Friday and my ultra volitile 1st otm option was going itm. Same thing that burns me on losses.

So... how to view this. I don't like a -5% day and especially not a -10% day. But it's too easy to say, "so just don't have one". I need to understand how I get there. Is it that I'm not stopping trading when I'm -2%? Maybe. There's a complication with that, and it involves trading small.

When I trade big, I can lose big. That's pretty obvious. Even if I sometimes win, my biggest losers are the too-big trades, but my biggest winners are not from oversized postions. My biggest winners are getting into good trades and letting profits run.

That's really important so I'll restate it: 
Big winners come from trading right. 
Big losers come from trading wrong. 

Even with my overall success, I am still susceptible to poor trading quality that is costing me money. Especially lately, I'm losing on "reversing" revenge trades. Ex: well if my trade isn't going up, then clearly it's going to get wrecked so I reverse it and loose again, then it does go up as expected in the first place. What I need to do is skip the impulse to reverse. 

IF the setup is for long, and the long doesn't work... WAIT for another long! Don't get cute with a short. Effective shorts come from different setups.

Back to the thought that I should stop trading when I'm -2%, so I should never even get to -5%. Well yes, but, here's how that happens:

If I'm down 2%, then probably I'm trading clockwork and things aren't playing out right. At that point, YES, I totally should just walk away. But, because I've been taking small size I still have a lot of cash left and I have a hard time stopping. I could even walk away and come back! Doesn't have to be a hard stop. I just need to assess that my plays aren't working today. 

Go and come back!... The market will still be there. It takes time for new setups to develop anyway. Go and come back. Or don't come back. But think about it, if my high-probability plays aren't working, then it's not my day. Banging my head and having losses create psychological toxicity that is counterproductive to profitable trading.

Can't get water from a stone. Only trade true good setups. Don't get cute.

Finishing the week +5%

Relieved!! to be finishing the week up 5%. On Wednesday I had a very destructive down day, but with CLOCKWORK trading, I have managed to climb back. I'm only about $175 below ath, but I'm going to stick here. The dumbest thing to do would be to blow it at this point just for the stats.

Speaking of stats, my current w/l days ytd is 65%. The past 4 weeks have been 2 down days, 3 up days per week. I would like to hit better and capitalize more. Who wouldn't? Keep honing my skills.

Not a lot of premkt picks. FDX one winner one loser. NKE a little bit. ETSY I managed to do ok, but once I got in the spread widened way too much and I had to take what I could. W also wide spread.

Trade of the day, TSLA:

Step back in the right direction

 Green for me today, but pain for markets. I took it relatively easy today to get back on track.

Got paid in the morning. Big gains on DNMR, TSLA, DG.
I poked around (too big to be small, nms, wtf?!) and lost big in AAPL.

I dabbled a bit midday for a little more, to get me back into green for the week, but still disapointingly off highs. I don't see how I'll hit weekly p/l target at this point, but mostly need to stay green, stay clockwork.

I got "married" yesterday

premkt

After sleeping on my yesterday losses, I realize I got married yesterday. I fell in love with PLUG and I got married to it. Well now we're divorced! PLUG really burned me. It's going to take a while to recover. ...

Realistically, it might take me 2/3/4 days to recover, but it sets me back and I don't like that. It was a lapse in discipline. It was... (favorite phrase from early The Crown...) "manifestly not!" clockwork trading. 

Today, account greatly reduced. Position size greatly reduced. I got humbled yesterday by losses. Today I will BE humble with

SMALL SIZE

TIGHT STOPS

PAY MYSELF

Biggest minus day ever

Pretty painful -10% day today. Not my worst percentage day (but among them), but definitely my worst $ loss. All for what?... can you guess...? 

Being too smart. Going in too big. Yanking stops. All the major sins. 

I deserved this loss. I needed to learn this lesson again. So I review:

Clockwork trading

small size

tight stop is the right stop

pay myself first

This is the kind of day I know to fear. It's destructive. It sets me back financially and psychologically.

Tomorrow I will trade only with a small fraction of my account.

Biggest $ day ever

Today, my biggest up dollar day ever. I should expect this as my account grows, but I've been stumbling lately. 

Pondered w/ A last night, what's up with my trading? For a while, I was taking positions approx 1/10 of my account size (meaning, I could take 10 trades/day). As my account grew, I was sticking with that $size. But that allows me to take more than 10 trades. I was prone to keep on trading and sometimes chip away at gains (esp bc later in the morning, is typically nms), just because I have more cash available.

So, I lowered my account ... a good strategy to constrain myself. Always. 

And then I traded bigger-ish positions. 

This made me nervous, so I took 1/3 off at easier targets.

Today it worked great!

Something else that worked great? Stopping! Not stop loss, but stop trading. Last trade closed at 10:23 and I knew I was done. 

Peace!

Nice green day, in/out... go have a day!

Flat. When to stop?

 Today I churned and came out tiny down. Was this a problem of in too big, or not quitting ahead?

When I'm not up "enough" I tend to keep diving back in. I think I should just stop or wait/digest after first round trades.

How to calm down my trading

Today what I needed was a day to calm down. The past several weeks everything clicked and I definitely got over-confident. I was trading too big. Going for extended targets. While being "too smart," I got chopped and burned.

Today I stuck with trading small. I removed a lot of cash from my account. I took small-ish positions. I stopped trading after the opening moves. Peace!

While doing charts, I see that my 2 losing trades today were both on TSLA, which was not my setup. 

LESSON 1: I am not smarter than the market. Don't trade nms. 🔨🔨

LESSON 2: Because I had small size, I was able to hold through volatility and get my targets.

premarket prep

In the vein of no follow through, almost everything I traded and watched for long yesterday, is in my volume gap DOWN list today. Lots of bearish flags. Choppy nature of the market. 

I moved money out of my account, I don't like how I'm trading the past few days. I need to slow myself down, get better in sync. 

Today's focus: best setups, small size, tight stop is the right stop, pay myself first (10-15% instead of usual 20%). And also to constrain for time: no new positions after 10:15 (I set an alarm!)

A mess

 Hacked today. Up 2% then down 2%. 

Markets not really synced. No easy money out there.

Moves didn't follow through today. What makes that happen? Market is extended, and so there is not a lot of oomph behind the buying? Definitely this market did a 4-5 day fomo push off the bottom. 

Ugh!

Also frustrating, but green (Wednesday)

Yesterday, I regained new highs, barely. Was a frustrating day, even though green, I had been much bigger green. Felt like not good follow throughs.

Premarket this morning, I don't love any long setups. Market is continuing run up off several day corrective pullback, but my gappers screens don't show anything too compelling. Will check IBD screener.

Frustrating day. Right trades, wrong times

 The most frustrating kind of day. I was in the right things with the right premise, but I got shaken out. 

I think that typically means I'm in too big. Too scared? Definitely I tried to press a bit today. 

If I'm honest, I didn't do good preparation today.

I got burned. I deserved it. I can't just roll up and then also press hard.

Stay small!

Another milestone! Tzedaka!

Another account balance new high milestone today. 

I spent a really long time struggling with trading and I'm daring to believe that I finally found my way to consistent profitably.

Not just daytrading, not just scalping options, but the rules of clockwork trading that have propelled me. 

I am on my way to the dream!

Suddenly it occurred to me, after all the demoralizing failed job searches, I should thank those people who seemed to be doing me no favors. They left me with no alternatives but to figure this out.

And thank G-d for leading me here. It is a pleasure to give more tzedaka than ever and share this success.

The long awaited day. Account double since Jan1

Since January 1, 2021 until today, 43 trading days, I have doubled my account.

I am so proud of myself.

I have had an exceedingly long journey to profitability, and I'm starting to let myself feel like "I've got it". 

Will there be losing days in the future? Of course. 

Will it throw me off my game? Not anymore

Will there be "off" days? Probably

...but I will continue to apply the mantras of Clockwork Trading:

Small size

Tight stop is the right stop

Pay myself first

Congratulations to me! Baruch Hashem

Onward and upward. Hazak!

New account high.

I am so grateful to have a new account high today. I was somewhat discouraged after Monday and Tuesday, both red. 

I shifted mentality and technique. My old inclination might have been to press harder to "make it back", but that's where the problem came from in the first place (see also last week Thursday). 

The solution to a mentality problem, or out-of-sync with the market is to take the pressure off. Trade SMALLER size, take EASIER targets. Start stringing together successes again. Get my head on straight again.

Looks kind of hack-y today. I didn't want to endure pullbacks. Shaved off partials when it stalls.

Big comeback +8% day

It worked. I traded smaller today, with less of my account, I took easier targets.

As frustrating as it is to make money slowly, it works. It controls risks. It minimizes emotions. It keeps me smarter. 

Taking 15% pl target vs 20% helped psychologically too, even though I took "small half" or even just 1/3 at easy target, it is sooo helpful for my psychology to get a piece off green. 

This is how you rake it in, you know yourself, you adapt. I'm a good trader, but I need to keep my head on straight. Can't get arrogant with huge hotdogger trades. Just stick with clockwork.

Maybe charts later. I should... 

In general, my biggest $ loser was accidental LYFT puts instead of calls. AAPL, RKT nms. AAPL was a win I didn't deserve and RKT was loser/s I totally deserved.

Ouch. Another red day

I do not like how I traded today. I got hyperfocused on PLTR, which did not move at all most of the day and I lost money. It was nms and I traded it poorly also yesterday. This one is in the doghouse for a while.

Only winner was TLRY. Also lost on XM, NIO and BIDU to round out a truly crappy day.

Tomorrow's strategy: Reduce my account size drastically. Reduce my position size drastically. Reduce my p/l target possibly.

Only trade the very best setups. OR OTHERWISE PAPERTRADE.

Losing too much on a nothing day

A real nothing day today. Market up too strong, but momo stuff not really reacting. 

I'm red for the day. And frustrated because I didn't get my endorphins today. 

I took some too-big positions on not my best setups. 

I know I can't sit on my hands, so I should just paper trade. 

And if I can't handle not getting the rush... a bag of m&ms should do it!

Closing February

I did well today. Well enough to bring my account barely green for the week and to new account highs by a smidge. I'm actually a little surprised at this. I was sort of braced for old patterns of death spiral, but I think I'm in such a much better place with my trading these days (ironically said one day after I took my account -12% and back again).

All done today by 10:10 and I left my Plum Trades account on autopilot. Then I had the rest of the day to spend on Purim and Shabbat prep. Felt like I had so much time on my hands. The trader lifestyle.

End of February stats: 

ytd gain	83.63%
ytd w/l days	67.50%
ytd avg daily %	1.67%
month gain	51.89%
month w/l days	70.00%
month avg daily %	2.29%

Up $125 does not tell the whole story

The whole story is I was -$5000 and back today. Heart attack on wheels, as I like to say. 

What happened? Is it because I have neglected to annotate charts lately? Will do it now. All of them. Ugh.

I think on days like today, I try to make something from nothing. There were no trades. My setups weren't really there (arguably only the TWTR calls). I tried pulling trades out of my sleeve. I need different techniques for that. Ex: today I found myself trying to use the Meir Barak technique not to sell on spikes, but to then put the stop beyond the spike. I think that just led me to bigger losses today.

Market is weakening, and there is more volatility. It's hard to find my setup - things breaking from a base - because everything is just so wrecked that nothing is basing. So I'm trading things that are nms, maybe that's part of why my usual techniques aren't working. 

This tells me I should be developing more sophisticated plays for more volatile markets: reversals? oversold? etc. Maybe look at SmithInTheBlack for ideas? 

Definitely, I should be trading SMALLER, which I didn't do today. And I should be stopping, which I also didn't do well today. Do I like shooting myself in the foot?

I'm remembering the feeling from last spring, where I was "right" but wrong timing or couldn't hold on. I need to figure out where to tweak my system, and meanwhile not lose money or get toxic.

For starters, the markets:

TWTR Breaking above consolidation, very strong. Calls didn't work. I gave too much room. Not sorry I tried puts, but that didn't really work either. Wipeout on the add.

TLRY, calls (on what setup?), followed by puts. WAAYYYYY too much size, about 3x my usual. wtf?!

TDOC, cute little trade that I didn't let ride bc spread. I sold my best price at $6.70. Later in the day it went to $19 (without me). I got my piece. Lucky, considering I wasn't supposed to be in something that spready at all.

PLUG went a long way to saving my day. But again here, I was in really scary big.

MT was basic looking for continuation. I like how I waited for the entry, but the daily setup wasn't great.

Last and least (lol! see what I did there?), I became possessed to jump into AMC puts (tiny position), and then immediately became chicken. Took my first immediate chance out green for $43, but it did eventually go to my original target and not to my stop.

Adapting to volatility

What's working so far today: SMALL size, like 1/4 my aggressive size. SMALL targets, 10% vs 20%. Hit and run.

It seems counterintuitive on a big-moving day to take only the smallest trades, but this is how I can take profits, pay myself, keep some gains. 

Lesson is that in higher volatility, I will make LESS money.

Also working today... for a change... StreetSmart Edge!

Small loss on a shocking day

I was prepared for a drop but today's volatility really surprised me. Big gap down. Fast flush. Then steady climb the rest of the day. Was difficult to get an entry. Felt a lot like trying to trade last March during the corona crash.

I did a pretty good job keeping positions small and stopping when I didn't see setups disappointed to have a frustrating and losing day though.

Big loss, new lesson

After a long spate of strong (exceedingly strong?) uptrend in the market, today the momo dropped out. I'm currently at a reasonably/big loss. 

I traded too big.

On a down day, don't trust break out/up. (Obviously?!)

Currently holding one last position that feels too big, esp too big for the spread. Walking away with a bracket on it.... it stopped.

LESSON. In the case of a losing day, the remedy is go smaller not go bigger. Do I need to learn this over and over? When I'm "off", go small.

Today, probabaly esp bc Monday, I had ok-sized losses, just too many and on position size too big. So %-wise, controlled but it just added up too too much red. Need to keep positions smaller on days when things aren't working.