New account high! +19% week. B"H

I see I didn't journal here yesterday. I had a really big down day yesterday, making all my stupid habitual mistakes including taking home a really big loser in BABA. Thank Gd I got redeemed today.

Today, B"H I got my piece out. I left a ton on the table, but when I got out clean I was very emotional. Took one more obvious trade in NVAX. Wanted NKE, but missed it and then decided not to mess around with my day.

Just for chuckles, the BABA puts I sold at 2.3 are currently trading at around 5.5. No regrets taking MY trade. Especially after screwing it up yesterday, this was gift horse.

-2% too big and a little scared

If I ever thought to trade without hard stops, see NVDA. I trade with hard stops to protect me from exactly this. If sometimes my stop gets run out I can always get back in, but if the market dumps I can not take this ride against me.

The market dumped today. I basically missed it because I was short BA and it didn't dump! WTF BA? Until after I closed it, and then it ran down much later to alllll my downside targets. Clockwork will do that sometimes. Was frustrating to watch everything else melt down except the thing I was in.

I was also short MRNA, which isn't necessarily correlated, but also didn't give up support.

Also, I tried somewhat bigger positions today. I thought I traded clockwork, but maybe I put my stops a smidge too close from being a smidge too scared. 

+10% day. Satisfying. Clockwork.

I'm finishing today still with dry powder, but I'm not even itchy fingers about it. Isn't that funny? On a day I'm down or small and frustrated, I can't wait to keep diving in. But on a day when everything works like clockwork, I'm ok not using all my money?

I was excited to get my piece of FB, but PENN was the stealth winner of the day churning nonstop up.

ETSY gave big %, but I had only a small position. Wouldn't have done it differently, it was icing.

Little bit in SPR. Stock made another nice move after I got out, but the spread was wide and despite volume, the trade felt thin so I took it all on p/l target.

Does it look scalpy to go in and out of FB and PENN like I did? No regrets about that either. I need to lock in profits, even if I take another swing. Can't just sit and hold and hope, but I can take another stab at it.

It's taken me all month to regain the losses I allowed in the first week of the month.
That's insane!

+2% day. I quit shorts early bc not correlating w SPY bull

Frustrating day, but I did come out green and I did trade like clockwork. Mama said there'd be days like this. My job is to keep trading clockwork, protecting my capital and I will take MY piece. PEACE!

Market action was REALLY strange today.  The stuff I was watching and trading went into peaks around 9:50-10:00, but SPY kept running and running. Made me have a lot of doubts about my shorts so I used tight stops and, esp on BA, got run out and missed the money. On the other hand, ZM (PTON, BYND, others I was watching) did take initial strong moves, but did not continue with SPY. It was like SPY was in a world of its own today (obv pushed by sectors I wasn't watching).

SPY for reference

BA This seemed to be a short play on daily, but Meir called it out long and I know this can go strongly both ways. Got my piece on the way up, but as it dropped (as expected), SPY still pushed up so I tightened stops and missed the move.

RCL Beauty short setup on daily but didn't get my move. Glad I stopped and didn't try to ride it out. Just like on BA, when this rolled, SPY didn't and I ate it on tight stops.

ZM In this case, the opposite. Sick strong open, then couldn't continue with SPY.

Of course I traded today. +8% but ugh.

Was a great start. By 10:20 I was +7%. Just like clockwork. Traded next week options and small positions. Felt great. Had extra cash, but a feeling like I had gotten my piece.

But then, like an ass, while I'm logging it, I see something else moving. Jump in. Too big. Today's expiration. And lost. So, then I start stabbing around again, getting too cute, etc. UGH! What's wrong with me?! Eventually, B"H, the market shocked/dumped in my favor and redeemed me. But that was stressful.

Stick with peace. Take my piece. Peace.

+8% day. 

-0.28% week over week. I could have taken the week off and saved myself a lot of stress and toxic psychology.

Here's to a new week next week.

-1%. Spinning wheels. Can't I be rich and thin?

Phew this week has been hard for me! Spinning wheels. Overtrading. Today I recovered from max-loss to -1%, but it's not enough.

The market does look hard/choppy, but I have another niggling feeling. I started a diet this week. I'm not eating too-low calories, but I am not eating my old usual foods on the old usual schedule. I have a background theory that every time I start a diet my trading suffers.

Can't I be rich and thin?!

Anyway, I can't trade tomorrow. I just can't. This week has frustrated and drained me. Fridays can be treacherous. I can't take the chance. Down 7% week over week. That's quite enough!

Trade of the day was BA puts 11:05 to recover my losses. And then I still screwed around and lost my green day.

Notes to myself as a beginner

What I wish I could have said to myself as a novice trader...

Amateur day trading is like amateur surgery.
You would never put your well-being in the hands of an amateur untrained surgeon. Would you give your money to an amateur untrained trader to trade for you?
Guess what, you're that untrained trader.

You need an education. You need practice to absorb the education.
(And you're still going to lose money at first.)

Never trade with money you can't afford to lose, and there is a very real chance you could (will?) lose ALL of it.
I say this not just because you really could lose it all (ALL!), but also because if you are scared to lose money you will not trade well. You are going to lose money at first. Everyone pays tuition to the market, so minimize it by getting an education and wading in slowly. 

If you need to get rich quick, this is not your gig.

Draw from all educational resources: books, YouTube, classes, mentors... Flood yourself with information and ideas. Start to pick out what resonates with you, and pursue more of that. Before buying a course, get an introductory education and try to figure out what style suits you. Trading penny stocks is different from big caps is different from trading options.

An education should include:

Intro to technical analysis. Learning how to read charts
How to read a candlestick chart, including price and volume
Support/resistance
Trends, trendlines, moving averages
Multi-timeframe analysis
Screening
Setups

Intro to trade management. Distinct from technical analysis
Opening an account. Brokers, fees, cash vs margin
Familiarity with your trading platform and tools like screeners
Picking what to trade
Techniques for entering (how/when to place orders)
Techniques for managing the trade (stops, targets, adding/trimming)

Intro to psychology
Developing a style
Understanding your tolerances, greed and fear
Defiining and obeying max loss tolerances
Developing self-discipline
Figuring out what you're good/bad at


Looking back, I realize how much of an education I have acquired at this point. To facilitate learning, especially in the midst of active trading, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to debrief, introspect, analyze, and journal every day. Develop a manageable journaling technique that helps you reveal your weaknesses and hone your skills.

I would tell my novice self to go slower. 

Grow agonizingly slowly, vs through painful losses. Losses are part of trading. Newbie losses can devastate you before you can make it. Trading is not a get rich quickly scheme. It may be a get rich slowly scheme, but not if you go broke quickly.
Protect capital. Use stops. Live to trade another day.

-3% day. Ate a stops run and ate a rug pull.

Frustrating day. Opened with great BYND trade. MRNA jerked me. RCL jerked me. NVS was hard to trade so I took small gainer. And then I barfed the rest of my day on AAPL. Lessons: don't trade nms (do I need to ignore this every day?).

In the process of capturing the charts and reflecting, I think it has hurt me recently that I haven't done the work of journaling with the annotated charts. I should make a bigger effort to keep journaling with charts, even if it's a bit of a nuisance... especially when I lose it's like reflecting on pain. But that's how to keep growing and improving.

AAPL

What went wrong here, let me count the ways... 

Jumped into calls too late. Didn't stop "tight stop is the right stop". Didn't stop my whole position, I tried to let it ride.

Then the puts. I started the position at arguably the right time (but why short aapl when everyone watching for ath?). Didn't take the new low flush/reversal stop. Then I added. I was only saved by some news drop. Got some off then stubbornly held the rest.

Totally F*ed trade. 

BYND

This was the beauty of the day. Daily setup beautiful. Bought ndh and it ran in a split second. Yanked the first half on first stall. Yanked the rest on the next stall. This is the kind of trading I want to do all the time.

MRNA

I got jerked out of this. Didn't reenter. Based on the daily setup, I shouldn't have been in it at all.

NVS

This was a great daily setup, but the option traded slowly and with a 5c spread on a 50c option. I had to take target and tight stop. Glad for what I got.

RCL

Daily setup was good. I took first entry late, which made me go smaller and then want to add. I didn't take a target(!?) and then got my stop run out.

Wild ride for net zero?

Another day that come noon I'm nursing one last position that I regret.
This, on a day where again, no real great setups (just LLY breakout). I literally should have taken the day off.

After several trades this morning I was mildly up. I was already done and logging it when I saw the market about to flush. I got too cute and tried to grab one more. The market flushed(yay) and reversed(boo) before I could even close puts. I'm a bag holder and now red on the trade. If it stops I'll have my day gains mostly wiped out. Setting a bracket. Ugh.

Lets review the principles of clockwork trading, shall we?
small size
tight stop is the right stop
pay myself first

UPDATE:
Pure chop the rest of the day. I overtraded in general, and didn't stop while I was ahead. Finished the day +0.75%. Let's call it flat.
Another frustrating day.

So how will I act tomorrow? Of course it depends on the conditions and setups. If nothing looks good, how about a day off?

LLY long was the setup of the day. BA was a lucky shot, well played. The rest was f*ing hack.

Red day, wasted the day away. -3%

A red day that turned out "only" -3% (had been worse), but also cost me my day. I don't like the melted brain feeling when I waste my day on the market.

Opening bias was down, but the market traded basically up most of the day. Opening shorts didn't work. MRNA made its move much later in the day without me.

There was only one setup I really liked today, DOCU. That was my only green clockwork trade. NKLA was a great setup, but a heart attack to trade. Sometimes $1.5 spread on $5 option. 900+ vol on my option, but not liquid at all. I came out net green on NKLA but was not worth the stress on my whole day.

The last pieces of NKLA I held until the close. After 3:00 something made it move. The spreads were so wide on this I never should have been in it. I fell in love with the 60 minute pennant (midday post)

Looks like a red day, tbd

12pm and I'm still sitting at the screen with my last open position, NKLA, a loser.
If my stuff isn't working in the open, I should just walk away.
In fact, today in particular, there was only DOCU setup that I really liked... and that was the only green trade.

This seems like an obvious lesson.
While I'm not at my max loss, my stuff isn't working. It's not my day. Not in an unlucky kind of way. Just, this market action is not great for my system.

Of course as it happens, the last thing I'm in has pretty wide spreads and it will be a huge bummer to stop. But I've learned through many big losses that I need to take those stops anyway, even eating "big" losses, because it saves me from huge losses.

NKLA is currently at the point of a massive pennant. I've got my orders in and I'm going to have to walk away. Will check on it later.

$STUDY

Reviewing my p/l spreadsheet, it is obvious what kills me is outsized down days.

REPEAT: It is obvious what kills me is outsized down days.

They weigh me down. Set me back. I'm really good at picks and trade management. Better than ever in my career. So on a day when it's not working, I need to stop with a ding and not a dent.

I can make a good living at this if I stop shooting myself in the foot. Two steps forward one step back will not get me there.

Walk away from small down days and live to trade tomorrow.

+10% day and beautiful +60% week-over-week, but...

But last week I had a very damaging loss day, in addition to 3 other losing days. So I spent this entire week climbing back out of the hole and still $300 shy. It's not worth trading beyond max loss.
It's not just the money, it's the psychological damage.

Was definitely a hard day for picks today, inside day of a massive down bar. Not much setting up. So, what do I do, especially on a Friday? Go slow. Go small. Take my piece.
Shabbat shalom.

What if my opening trade/s are losers? +5% day

I recently became aware that maybe that maybe opening loser/s could be a trigger for a sloppy day. There is no excuse for a sloppy day.

Today I opened with 2 losers. I remained conscious of that. I was frustrated, but those were clockwork trades and I lost. Bummer, but ok.

I stayed aware of my max day loss amount and braced myself to stop trading if I must. Outsized loses are enemy #1 and must be avoided.

Analyzed market. Analyzed other things on my watchlist. Found another clockwork setup. Had a nice gainer and that put me back on track.

I need to keep in mind: trades that are "hard work" and trades that aren't working show me to go slow, go small, and even stop. Not fight it.

Clockwork for 9%

Another clockwork day. Dear self, do this every day. Trade like clockwork every day. Take my piece of the market every day. Peace.

UPDATE: TSLA lotto call was so far out of the money, for this week expiration, that even as the stock went up $25, my call lost 50% so I cut it.
Total end of day gains 9.5%