Market prep pays off

Today's goal: Focus on really good trades. Not sloppy stuff. Get in, get out, walk away.

I moved 75% of my cash out. I'm trading baby size this morning. I want to turn the ship quickly back on course and keep working on strong recovery from the June massacre.

****

I did great today!! +10% on employed capital. Ba-BAM. Felt great. Remember this feeling of trading well! On days I hack around, it doesn't click like this. If it's not clicking, I need to step away... even just for a little while.

PLUG was trade of the day. JMIA for breakeven. And I followed Meir into MRNA puts which I instantly regretted (sloppy!!). As soon as I was breakeven I took off half and squeezed stop. He held it and raked it in, but I was glad to close the exposure after that first utter heart attack. Too choppy, too spready, to scary!

After this satisfying open, I decided to paper trade against fomo. What a good decision. I would have lost more and risked tilting. Must avoid tilting!

Arrogance bites

Got bitten by arrogance today. Known scenario. Win streak, big gains... think I'm invincible (arrogance!) so I go bigger. And lose. Because it's not clockwork. 

Hacked around in AAPL and COIN for close to max day loss. I wish I didn't let it go that far, but that's what max day loss is there for.

Only win was second try at COIN. 

Talking with my trading buddy about losing days:

On days when I'm up, I find it very easy to look at my picks and say, OK, what I thought would happen has played out or expired. So I'm done. 

Why do I find it more difficult to see my picks aren't working, that I've lost money trying, and to draw the conclusion: These picks were a bust, they didn't behave as I hoped. So I'm done. Maybe I need another mantra of clockwork trading to remind myself to notice and walk away from a busted day. 

Tomorrow, don't stray from success. Just stay the course of clockwork. That's why I made the mission control sign! To remember the keys to consistently profitable trading...

Small size

Tight stop is the right stop

Pay yourself first

About profit goals

Account is up 26% week over week! Ba-BAM!

At the beginning of the week, I set a very ambitious p/l goal. By Tuesday afternoon I scrapped it bc I was not on pace and I saw that pressing for it was not doing me any good. And yet... I came out this week very close to that goal. I'm thrilled!! 

I'm on a 7-day win streak. My stats recently are amazing, but I have not yet recovered from the June account massacre. What a waste! I must keep check on overconfidence. 

Let this be a LESSON! 

I am not smarter than the market. 

I won't get it back in one trade. 

Don't rely on disproportionate gains to "save" me. 

STOP when losses are small.

I need to trade like clockwork. Clockwork works! 

When I'm out of my mind or even when the market climate is just not conducive to my style, if I'm losing and not gaining, I must go smaller to regroup. 

Today was a "up is down and down is up" day, but I saw it coming!! Gaps up were into resistance, so I shorted. Gap down was not behaving right, so I passed. 

But the real money today was MRNA puts. The trade was craaazzyyy (very choppy trade and outrageous option spread) but I managed to get a piece and not get burned. After that, only thing to do is walk away and chill!

No charts. Have to go cook. Shabbat shalom!

Gaps up failing (as of ~10:30)...

Gift horse

Up 2% day and I'm frustrated. I over traded for naught (naught! it's +2%, what lack of gratitude). 

Saving merit of my behavior, I kept it all small and rational. Just bummed to not have made more.

Biggest gainers on DDOG calls in the opening session, AMD puts a few times. NVDA calls for a sizable loss. 

No charts today.

I'm going out to play in the nice weather with my gift horse 😉

Spread, heart attack, gain. Peace!

Great day. Big spreads everywhere (not fun to trade big spreads). Took proper stops.

Looking at trade review, It was "up is down/down is up" in that ATVI didn't play out for a long and CVS didn't play out for a short. Good for me, I kept to my stops, didn't hack around. I took my losses and turned my attention elsewhere.

ATVI was on long list, but when it failed, I looked to short. Not my best setup. I missed the optimal entry, tried for the next push. Managed to get my partial at bottom tick and stopped the rest. Great example of:

-what partials are good for

-tight stop is the right stop

CVS, just the opposite. Was on my short list, but was not weak. Gotta take those stops. This was a pretty big loser bc spread, but I think I traded ok. Mama said there'd be trades like this... :)

NVAX beau-teee-fullll! First trade I took advantage of the opening move. Started small and took my targets and stops. Then a great pennant developed and I traded for the breakout. Spreads were $2-3 on $13-20 option. I would rather get some targets than leave it all to stops. I missed the top, but I got the zig. Peace!!

MRNA crazy redemption

I was sure I was going to end down today. NVDA whacked me again. AAPL flushed me out. Ate a big loss on BILI. And then came MRNA, which went practically straight up... Exactly what I needed for redemption. 

Against better wisdom, I loaded the boat. I skimmed off bit by bit, until finally I closed up on the day. 

I know this is not healthy for my trading... to pile in and have it work. Most of the time, piling in will wipe me out. A trade like this is a negative lesson--I profited (mightily!) from very bad behavior. 

I don't know how trading can exhaust me some days. Maybe it's all the focus and emotions.

I'm glad I have a new standing desk so I can fidget my way through it.

I've ditched pressing for a big trading number this week. I'm not on pace for it at this point, and I've changed my mind about trading that aggressively. I got lucky on MRNA today, but I shouldn't be counting on luck.

Can't show just my winners, so here's BILI, in which I added to a loser and I held way way way too long. Why mess up my pl like that? "Bad trade that works" (like MRNA today) create the habit of getting too cute, when usually it turns out "bad trade that slaps me" like it should.

turned big gains into small

I traded bigger size today. I want to press for a big green week. As a result, my same techniques had me at a very nice gain at one point. And my same techniques, amplified by size, got me out for just small gains. Going big cuts both ways like that! Still, green is green. I'll take it. 

Vacation week, mostly

We had a beautiful week with extended family. I didn't bring my computer, because I didn't want to be tempted to trade (and ruin my vacation). And then like a jerk, I did a trade on my phone. So I came home Thursday red on the week...of course...this is exactly why phone trading is forbidden!

Today, how to trade a Friday? Fridays burn, as I well know. But it's my only day to make up the loss. Requires shrewd careful trading. First batch of trades was net loss. Next batch was better.

I was watching NVDA for a "2-down" after it failed the breakout yesterday. No go on the first and second try. Third trade completely fubar, but managed to get a really big chunk off for +84% thanks to an accidental add at the top and later a rinse for unknown reason.

I passed on AMZN bc cost and spread. No real regrets there. It had a huge gap down, but then a pretty small range day. 

PINS was also a good looking short setup, I lost on the first one. Tried again later for green, but didn't cover the loss.

MRNA, pure beauty. Caught such a surge, didn't want to give it any room.

Green week, surprisingly

How I managed to pull a green week, I do not know! Ok, I know. I had to do some really sharp trading after I train wrecked on Wednesday. 

I learned an interesting lesson though. I had been toodling along with my 11 day win streak until I got so over-confident that I increased my size Wednesday. Have I not learned this before? This is the actual opposite of clockwork trading. 

When I'm in too big, I trade scared and lose money. Fact.

So I got back to humble clockwork trading and ... with the help of idk what's going on with this crazy strong market, and of course the help of shemayim ... I made a comeback for a green week. 

Why do I ever stray from clockwork trading?

Never stray from clockwork trading!

No time for all the charts today, but I do want to highlight one in particular. I sometimes get clunked like this... CCIV traded to my pltgt. Someone's put filled there, but not mine, and then hard reversal. I held bc ego! and went out for a loss. Why couldn't I just lower my target by 1% and go ahead and get filled. For the matter of a few dollars to "my target" (arrogance), I took a hard loss instead of what might have been net breakeven or better.

Next week, off. (maybe Friday)

a blur

Today's trading day seems like a blur. The indexes did an expanding range. Chop and reversals. 

Tremendous trades on TSLA and NVDA to make my day. Big loser on MRNA took a chunk out (might need to blacklist this one for a while, until daily setup). TXN was a promising setup that didn't play out in "my" way. COIN was a decent setup on the intraday chart, but didn't sustain for gains.

Too cute. Got slapped

Max day loss. Ugh. I tried to get too cute and dumped a bunch of losses on TSLA today. Not even my setup! I should never have been in it in the first place.  NOT AT ALL. Instead I hacked around, got hacked up. Guessed. Piled in. Tilted. Losing day, all the fatal flaws. Am I a newborn baby trader that has never learned a lesson before? 

Impulse control! Must protect psychological capital, and of course to protect my account capital.

REMEMBER
I trade opening momentum, gaps out of bases on volume.
My system is a solidly profitable system. Clockwork:
Small size
Tight stop is the right stop
Pay myself first

That's it! That's what I do best. If there are no setups I shouldn't trade. 

Here's what I usually get burned on:
Trying to pick tops and bottoms. I am not a reversal trader.
Experimenting with other gurus. I have a good system. If I want to experiment, it must be incredibly small size.

Today I had a few good picks. They didn't play out as smoothly as I would have liked. Introspecting on that, the RIOT and JKS trades should have slowed me down. They "worked" but not in my usual way. That's a clue that it's not my kind of day. 

Instead of stabbing around... just wait!

After past 2 days drop and reverse, I should expect some chop. Some consolidation. Let the market chill and decide. 

looking good.

 PTON both ways for basically flat. NVAX calls great. NFLX puts eh. Most of all, another green day B"H!

And now, later in the day, I did it right. NVAX and NFLX would have totally creamed me on reversals.

Lesson, and never forget: get my piece and peace.

Tough green day

Big gap down open this Monday morning. SPY and QQQ held some levels here, as of lunchtime. 

All my trades today went kind of ugly against me before they went for me, so I shifted gears to 20, 10 and even 5% gains... get green and get out.

Midday, ZM looked like a good short, 5 min tl breakdown. But that pos is really wide spread. When it didn't break day lows, I "cut gains" and got out. 

No fomo today. Glad for what I got, and glad to keep my head on straight.

what's next?

 SPY hanging on to 50mas, but QQQ hovering in midair. Actually, support at 30ma, which I don't usually follow, but would show "strength" to bounce at the 30 vs 50... if these things hold and bounce here.

Near burn and miraculous save

MRNA!!!

I had a small, rational opening trade on SQ for +26% on the front 2/3 and flat on the back.

Then MRNA. I got calls. Then it dropped out and I also took puts. Then I'm in that f* Friday situation that sometimes put myself in where I can get burned on the decay and lose in both directions. 

But I got saved by a literal miracle. MRNA launnnched and even though my puts lost really hard, my calls gained bazillion.

So, +6% on the day, and B"H up 26% on the week. 

No charts today. Shabbat shalom.

Thinking "eh"

 Win streak in tact. 8 green days in a row.

Started in the hole. Jumped into NFLX calls too enthusiastically. Also took a big loss on NIO puts, which I deserved for chasing, literally opening puts at the bottom (I'm making rookie moves, really?!).

JKS and TSM huge winners. 

But, then indexes were choppy and not really helpful. 

What worked? I'm not really sure! Waiting helped me find good entries, and not waiting got me burned. Always worth waiting. Say to myself "eh" instead of "go go go". 

Stayed too long in the market and now too mentally spent to do charts.

terribly frustrating day, but green B"H

 Premarket, the vibe was maybe one of those "up is down and down is up" days. Interesting that I had a feeling it would be a frustrating day. Even in the moment, I couldn't express why (zero setups? inside indexes?). But I'm glad at least the my instinct about it is becoming more distinct.

You'd think... (ugh)... that I'd scale down, take it easy. But I was kind of in tilt from my first trade: AAL, went to my target but didn't fill me, then stopped for a loss (later it went beyond my target upside and then dropped the bottom out hard). 

Meanwhile PLUG (first try) jerked me out. 

AAPL was hard work (this is a red flag), but I was in love(🚩) and I added, twice(🚩), then stopped, then traded all around it like a maniac, until finally for the trade that got me back green. This ticker could have absolutely wrecked me today and I was sooo lucky.

And then PLUG set up again and actually made my day.

But I traded until about 11:30 which is not ever my intent. Need to get on the bike, pronto.

No charts today.

Overtrading, but up on day

 I traded out of bounds today, and it was not worth it. I even risked tilting. NOT GOOD.

At 9:42, I closed my last gapper trade and had a feeling my setups were expired. But then I kept looking... and took another trade. A loser. 10:05 I should have been done. This is a tilt trigger! Classic: thinking I'm done, then trying for "just one more" and it's a loser.... sets me on a course to make it back, but I'm not in a good space then. When the gut says quit, then quit.

After that, I took 3 more trades, and only got back to where I was at 9:42. What a waste of time and psychological capital. 

Took 2 trades that had wide spreads and instantly regretted it. Exited both tiny green, but these are not good for my mentality. I went smaller as a compromise, but I still just don't like sweating it.

Paper trade against fomo, BA short 230.55 at 11:12 (after already net losses on BA). Will check when I get back.

Have to go. Charts maybe later. 

5 day win streak

 +10% on traded capital today. This is still my reduced account, and I've been moving gains into the reserve account. The reserve is building nicely!! I may keep this scheme forever. Controlling my trading capital and knowing I have reserve capital helps with sanity. I've known this about myself for a long time.

What I need to be on alert for is tilt triggers. Today was the first day in a few days that I've had a red trade at all not even a partial. So today was the first time I started to feel the feelings. I kept my head straight. These were not "total losers", though. Meaning it didn't go against me right away. Those are even worse. 

What is working? Is it the market, actually? Is it the greatly reduced size I'm trading? I do want to press harder (faster, bigger gains), but I also can't lose my head. Maybe it's that I'm only trading just the opening setups. Maybe it's that I'm more worried about FOBU (fear of blowing up) than FOMO. I'm trying hard to protect capital.

UPST beautiful hit and run! 

VALE I was looking for something similar to UPST, volume open that would run up strongly. When I saw it turn back up, I grabbed. But then I realized the potential move was tiny so I got out for small loss.

Will come back to post the rest later...

PTON ... did Yogi call it out? I think Yogi draws my attention to nms and I wind up trading them to my detriment. This one was ok, but NVDA was not...

SNAP Not sticking around to see how far it goes against me. Just take the small loss.

MRNA Beautiful intraday bull flag. Was hard to hold, and didn't want to give back, so I yanked a bit early.

Always $study

 Watching trading videos is my best way to always be learning. I've recently been loving traderTV.live. Their live trading open/close shows are great (even to watch after the fact!). I've also become aware of strategy videos they make. 

Today's gem was about money management, something I've also discovered about myself and my own trading: it helps boost confidence in the highly aggressive trading to know I have other money socked away as a backstop. 

I think this is why I trade better (more confidently, more profitably!) when I trade reduced account size. 

I have been parking the "dry powder" in a checking account, and I do sometimes move it into the trading account for a little extra oomph (not always for the good). Would I do better to invest that in something and not touch it so much?

I think eventually I will get my account up to a level where I find I just can't size up anymore bc liquidity. I suppose at that point I'll truly have excess money.  I'd have 3 chunks: #1) trading capital, #2)backup capital, #3)even more capital. 

Actually, maybe the #3 money will be the money we live on. Maybe that's how I'll know we're golden...when there exists a #3 and that is our cash flow money to live on.

How big do #1 and #2 have to be, before I can start allocating to #3? I don't know yet. I suppose it will be when I discover my trading sweet spot and know that I have sufficient cash above that. And/or maybe at some point I will decide to start "paying" myself instead of pressing for more and more growth.

Small is big, and luck prevails

No freakout friday! I traded small to keep my head straight. 

only one great setup = no aggressive trades. Gains are pretty lucky.

success builds psychological capital

awareness that my setups have expired. 9:48 done

+14% on the miniscule capital I traded. 

Gotta go! Shabbat shalom.

What a day!

Came in to a big gap down on the market. Yet, it was hard to find setups I liked. 

Today, 3rd day in a row that markets do a sharp V bottom. Screaming drop turns into a screaming run up. So I'm not letting a momentum drop go against me. 

So proud of this day! Hit and run. Done by 9:48

Stellar day despite opening losers

I jumped the gun again today. I chased SAVA at the open...And I went in too big...And I gave it too much room. And I lost a lot of money.

Thankfully, AMC and BA redeemed me big time!

Today is fed day, so that's a wrap. Except for ... $65 lotto on today SPY puts. T1 I covered my cost and now the rest is gravy.

split market

 The first 1 hour bar on the majors today, straight down. Except for QQQ defying gravity.

No great setups today, but I didn't let that stop me (ugh!). +4% day

AMC. Chased like a fool. Market hadn't shown its colors yet. Failed off daily 20sma (I notice this a lot!). See passed trade(gray) commentary below.

BNTX. Not what I hoped for, and not how I should have played it.

FUTU. Under the heading of, you can't go broke taking profits (though, I could argue...). FUTU looked like it would just drop forever. When it stalled around 140, round number, June support area, I tightened the leash a lot. Smart (/lucky) bc it did one more tiny drop and then ran $4 in 3 minutes. Gorgeous trade and I didn't overstay.

Valuable lesson in examining the trades I did NOT take. After I was "done" for the day, AMC short looked so juicy. But I don't want to tilt. I screen grabbed for reference. It would not have worked. Let's give some credit for passing when I should pass. This would have been a tilt triggering trade, so all the better I passed. Go ahead and pass! I had a great day. Take it and run (or... go spin Peloton in my case!)