Technical analysis as self fulfilling prophecy

 If enough people are watching it and using it, an indicator can be a magnet.

How about SPY today, traded as low as the 50 sma, and closed at the 50ema, by literally a few cents.

B"H gains on a tough day

 Had to ride a lot of volatility for my gains today. The action was "agony" (lol, let's keep some perspective on life here). Made worse that I was trading NVAX with spreads that were out-f'ing-rageous, So I did it to myself.

Market "should" have fallen apart today. Lots of bearish trades, but the volatility was roller coaster. Maybe also bc I picked difficult options. 

volatility $VIX

How does $VIX affect my system? Does it help amplify moves? Does it increase spreads (which is harder for me)? What should I learn about VIX?

Recovering (almost) from a huge loss

Today was one of those days where I think... If I would have only taken the opposite of these trades. 

Market opened with big followthrough gap down, and was broadly bought. I hope today's lows will be a strong pivot for uptrend moves to come.

My balance got as bad as -$3000, and I closed at -$200. Saved to a great extent by COIN long, once the uptrend finally got going.

A draining day, but thankfully not a damaging day.

Tuesday isn't going to be easy (premkt post)

Big down open coming today. SPY -1.3%, QQQ -2%. Continuation down, in a climate of weakness. Well, momo weakness.

Today's gaps down are huge / extended. Lot of pain out there. For me, this is exactly why I'm a daytrader. I wake up this morning, market is getting wrecked, and I'm ok. Yes my long term account is getting hit, but that account has a long term horizon and I'm not sweating stuff like this.

In my trading account, I come in with a clear head this morning. I'm not in pain. I just have to find my best plays and play them my best. 

Word of the day will be patience. I think I should avoid the 9:31 plays and wait for a few bars to reveal themselves, unless I just do it super small. I'm also a little worried that the brokerages/markets will be overwhelmed and I will expect to see the fill problems we saw in January.

Only things on the gap up screener are the leveraged inverse etfs.

Disappointed in +4% day?!

After I stopped out (with more than reasonable gains), 2 of my plays surged. I stopped on tightened stops...Too tight? Not if it would have gone against me! Yet I'm frustrated that I was "right" but missed on more money. 

This is a time when I have to remind myself that I got my piece, and I need to be at peace. I traded my system and got my money. If I start deviating from my system, I'm more likely to lose big than gain big over the long term. 

Let's go to the charts...

Countertrend trading

Zero tickers today for my best setups. Did I take the day off? I know myself. I traded. But also because I know myself, I took half position size and used less of my capital.

Today's setups were weak stocks gapping up into resistance. Lots of those, and I tried to trade them, particularly SQ. Here's some thoughts: opening ~30 min of basing (in which I got chopped or very hard to hold). Breakout (up into further resistance) did not sustain. Trying to short a top reversal also didn't work. 

Somehow (lol, I know how) I managed to make 1% this morning and I'm going to call it done. Caps a stellar +26% week.

Not going to annotate today. Most interesting trades were NVDA for the bounce off ma's, above one daily downtrend line, into resistance level in high 590s and perhaps to get stuck below a different downtrend line. I lost on an early short, but later the 1 min showed a clear resistance level so I went for the long break above. Net negative on NVDA.

SQ gap up on earnings above big red candle, but into daily ma tangle. I traded this both ways, lost both ways, until it finally moved at 10am and that's basically how I made my entire day.

Was not easy money today. Glad for my piece. Peace.

Friday morning

Number ONE: no today options

Jobs report this morning. Market ran up to juuuust below reistance. Gappers up screen are mostly oversold bounces and not gaps above bases. Gappers down also nms.

I have a few picks in mind for other kinds of plays, but... I think I should keep size small and expectations small. I've had a stellar week until now, +24% w.o.w. It would be a shame to blow it by stupid trading today.

What changed?

 Another day hitting amazing numbers. Did the market change? Did I figure it out? Let's not assume I'm so smart. I think the market changed. 

But, I am making an effort to do my best trading. No hacking into any old anything. Only MY best setups. Reasonable size. Easy targets. Then walk away. 

I can feel when my opening setups are expired. That's when I need to stop. Peace. There's plenty to do these days besides sit and sweat the market. So I think the reduced account and slightly bigger positions helps me leverage my specialty, then walk away.

Today's winning management included 10% pl target, 20% pl target, trailing stop. This has worked beautifully this week. Of course it all feels so genius when it's working. The hardest part is when it's not--to swallow my pride and walk away lightly injured and not massively injured. 

Seems like that's why the 10% tgt has been so helpful - maintaining psychological capital. Get that first partial off green, right away.

Today on the screeners I could see the shorts were the hot side. I did take one long in ASO, but the bear bias tells me to be skeptical of longs, and it was frustrating trade with bid/ask not logical and stop for loss.

*With so many paritals, annotating is getting to be annoying. I must stick with it! Annotating is trade review. Trade review improves my skills. 

Mazel?

But is it luck? I'm talking about SPWR, which almost killed me on the short, and then redeemed me on the long. I don't think the strategy was a matter of luck, but the strength of the reversal was more than I anticipated. 

I lost really big on the short. I stayed in it too long and added to the loser. Fatal sins. 

On the other hand, when it showed its intention, I moved out of the puts (too late, arguably) and into calls, which I loaded into strength. And then it launched!

Before that debacle/miracle... I had an excellent trade on UAA, and a little guy on UBER. 

I don't think I'm going to be albe to annotate today, so here's the plays.

SPWR short 9:31, held through the 9:00 hour. Stopped / reversed around ndh. Bracket on last few calls.

Took the 9:35 long to the top

Short 9:53 until 10:00 spike out on tight stop.

Hit and run

Another great day, but it's not because I'm so great.

I can only say that I'm sticking to the best picks. I'm taking aggressive size, but I'm exiting on conservative targets. I think most of all, the market is doing "my" thing. My setups are working. 

Today, it looks like this market will have some harsh selling. But at 9:52 I'm done. 

Again all partials in green. Again today I didn't even use all the capital I allocated to myself. Again today I left a lot on the table. But I am so at peace to have made goal $ in a short time. Limited my exposure. Peace! Go have my day.

Ba-BAM!

Hit and run today. 9:54 am. Up 6%, and I'm going to quit ahead this morning!

Every partial green today. Hit and run!! And I'm done for the day. Gorgeous!

Today I allocated my capital for 4 trades, took 3. 

First target 10% skim 1/5.

Second pltgt 20% skim 2/5. 

Always manually trailing my stop. 

Still have the sensation that 10% doesn't necessarily give me a green trade overall, but I need to be selling into the trade and booking where I can. 10% is a first target for now

The trade management quesiton these days is not the pl targets, but how much to take off. 

Charts later today if I come back to it. In general, the trade is "zigs, no zags"

Newness

 New week and new month. April was harsh. My trading was a real disaster, overconfidence, allowing outsized losses, not restraining at max daily loss. True arrogance and I got the slap in the face I deserved. 

April stats:

ytd gain	72.35%
ytd w/l days	65.48%
ytd avg daily %	0.81%
month gain	-28.64%
month w/l days	59.09%
month avg daily %	-1.26%

I greatly reduced my account. Recovery is going to take some time, but I do not want to see this hole get any deeper. It's so tempting to want to trade big for redemption, but rationally, I am off. The smart thing is to go slowly.

Oooofff

Big down day.

Down week

Down month.

Friday options, fire.

Next week I'll be trading with only 1/4 my account, or maybe paper trade. Need to chill out.

May is wedding month. Probably good to lighten up anyway, because of other stressors. Not to mention lousy trading climate.

Ugh!

Fighting the battle

I traded great today. Felt synced. Took $1/10 acct pos size today. Made an 8% day, and so far a +15% week. Best in a little while, but not enough to turn the month green.

Was the action good today, different than other days? No. I still had frustrations to get even 10% p/l targets. The problem with smaller targets, is even though I lock some gains, the remaining position can still go negative. But that's what the market is giving now. 

I'm trying to not only take targets, but skim partials along the way. It results in a lot of transactions, but it lets me take gains and still ride. I think this is a good way to manage bigger positions. I'm going to try to stick with this for a few days. In the case of total losses it may burn, but in the case where I get my move it will add up and allow me to maximize my capital.

One more trading day in April. As of today, I'm down 8% on the month. My first losing month in a really long time. Even so, my w/l days is 61% this month (vs 65-70% recent past months). What does this tell me? I think it tells me that statistically I'm still working a winning system, but I'm letting my losing days get too big. I feel like I got too big/bad both ways: 1000cuts by taking small positions and not stop additional trading at a certain point, and also getting whacked on big positions. Which is worse? I think 1000 cuts is worse psychologically. Even though small positions should help mitigate bad psychology, that's only true if I stop trading. If I grind all day, then no.

Just 2 tickers

Traded a little bigger today. The frustration with going toooo small is it doesn't add up before the plays fizzle out. Today I took the best looking setups, went a little bigger. Gave first TSLA puts too much room, but managed to recover.

PINS gap below trendline. This was spready and hard to sit with. Glad for what I got.

TSLA relative weakness. Initial short didn't work and took my biggest hit of the day on the 9:38 puts. Calls went fast. Then the short finally set up. 

Neither of these followed through/easily. Nothing seems to go nuts like when the market was so hot a few weeks ago. I'm glad for the strategy of taking smaller gains. Singles. Need to book green, especially if I'm heavy.

Wednesday morning

Fed day. And a lot going on personally. I hope to hit and run today. BEH will be a day with moves. I'm tempted to go a little bigger today in general. Only a few decent setups. Most of all, keep my head. Stay clockwork.

No Hail Marys

(Tuesday journal)

I did pretty well today. Had to keep catching myself and refrain from the impulse to take that "load the boat" trade. I'm temped to take the oversized trade both for revenge or for greed. Oversized trades are a bad idea in both cases. Clockwork - small size, tight stop, pay myself. 

Taking "only" 10-15% feels little disappointing and doesn't give as much cushion, but it's "not nothing" and it adds up ok. 

Get what the market gives. That's my piece. Peace.

Stick with journaling

A green day. Not to $ target, but I got my % target and I can't argue with that. There were a few picks, and I dabbled in a few others. Best gainers, MVIS breakout, NIO reversal. Got hacked in the cryptos RIOT, MARA for mostly losers. AAPL small dabble for +/- flat.

Interesting trade today was COIN. Huge clear resistance 305, but miners struggling and my previous days' COIN trades have busted so I was really skeptical about 305. I waited for a strong pullback and got calls. I went in pretty big ultimately, took some off for 8% ahead of 305. And then came the moment when you have to have trades entered. I had a tightened stop below 305 (even before the bo), and tstop if it went to 305.5. Logic: lots of people watching 305, but such a clear strong resistance, it seemed like maybe pop/drop. In the blink of an eye I saw a bunch of orders execute before I even saw the price move (another reason to enter orders). It popped to 306 and dropped to 301 in a split second. My orders got filled for +5% and +4%. Not the huge winner I hoped for, but peace.

I've been feeling lazy about journaling, but these disciplines will be what helps me grow my account back to April 7th highs and beyond. 

Trade of the day MVIS

Green day. Green week

Phew! I love how I traded today. Finally. A good solid and satisfying day. But I did some things differently that I feel really contributed to the satisfying +$.
What worked today?

Starters, there were a few solid setups for a change. That's the first big deal, right?

Next, I traded really small. And I gave a very tight leash bc I traded today's expiration. I've learned when I neeeeeeddd to use stops, I need to trade small enough to not care about the spread. And, even though I traded small, I resisted the urge to add to losers. I realize I have been doing this more lately. I start with small size, then it holds near my stop so I add (while red), but then I stop, eat the spread and it's a bigger loss. 

A fault today, how did I hack so much in RIOT and NIO? Like I couldn't pick a direction?

INTC - gap down on earnings. Only support nearby was 58, which was prior support and also the 100dma. I know that people like to load INTC when it's down, so don't expect a lot of followthrough. I also know that these very popular stocks trade with wierd options action. Whether it's a little laggy, or doesn't somehow exactly correlate... so use limit orders and try not to be scared to hang in there. Last partial is a little regrettable, but that's why I put in stops when I look away.

KMB - gap down on earnings. Bigger spreads. Really wary of this one. Got in with a decent entry, possibly a limit order. It moved well, but I only wanted to get out on limits, and I got a nice piece.

The rest of the morning I spend hacking in/out of RIOT and NIO. 

RIOT and MARA both gapped to their 100dma. But people love these blockchain names so I tought there was a chance RIOT would run up. When RIOT didn't dump, I hacked around both long and short in a base prior levels. But the continuation move above was undeniable and I jumped in long. Kept a tight leash and had a nice trade, at yesterday's close area, I tried another short and got burned. Then grabbed one last long, before deciding to call it quits on RIOT. Pretty big hack job for just 4% net gain

And NIO. In premkt, NIO was doing big volume and looked ripe, but hadn't moved above yet. I can't remember why I bothered trying the early puts, but the later puts paid. 

morning vs afternoon posts

By the end of the day, I have nothing to say. Trading is frustrating.

This morning, here I am. No really good setups. Plan is same as yesterday. Hang tight. Wait. See what I can scrape out of it. 10% targets maybe. Small positions. Just grab those smidges for green.

Can't trade whole day today (not that I ever want to ...) so I need to hit and run.

no setups

 No setups for me this morning. I'm going to sit here for the open and sweat my swing trades. 

NFLX down to bottom of range on earnings. Maybe that will shape into something, but that will have to be verrrry small trade.

S# not working!

 Nothing is working. 

Now I'm thinking it's these small range days, or at least small range mornings when I'm active. 

More loses today. Even if small, because I'm trading super small, it's so disappointing.

I'm comforted to hear my gurus also saying it's been hard lately, but they seem to be making at least a little money. 

I need to figure out how to be more consistently profitable during this climate.

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.