True to form

Is this a psychological pattern in myself, or a market pattern? When I'm feeling really self-confident, like I can just pluck dollars out of the market at will, then I'm due for a losing day?

Today I kept the loss small, but I didn't manage to dig out of it. Probably overtraded. Possibly traded scared. And/or maybe, the action wasn't there. Today has been inside yesterday, which was inside Wednesday...going into a 3 day weekend (mkt closed Monday for President's Day). And that was really the feeling, breaks not following through.

My loss today of $600 seems tiny, in context of a huge day and huge ytd gains. But not very long ago a loss of $600 would have been a big deal. And not long before that, $600 loss would have been devastating. I've come a long way.

No trading Monday, and Tuesday T is getting wisdom teeth removed, so out again Tuesday. 

New round number account balance will have to wait for later next week.

More money makes more money

As I grow my account, I am experiencing the idea that money breeds more money, or that it takes money to make money. 

Though I have been offered more trading funds, I have declined in favor of organic account growth. Where $100 gain was once upon a time a huge triumph, now it might be just the spread on my trade. A 2% gain on my account is a lot more $$ than it used to be. I want to get used to increasing size as I go, so I don't freak out by the swings.

Will I hit liquidity problems... maybe eventually. I already have long ago discovered that it's a bad idea to trade thin options, whether it's 1 contract or several. Otoh, I can't imagine a time I might be taking 100 contracts... but maybe! I want to scale into that "problem" as I grow.

I acknowledge that the market has been SUPER hot lately. My premkt gap scan used to bring 2-5% moves on 3x volume (was juicy!). Now I'm routinely seeing 10-30% gaps on 20x volume at the top of my scan. Not always tradable by my rules, but volatility is here! Isn't it my job to capitalize on a hot market?!

I feel I've found a way to manage my impulse/discipline. That feels like how I really turned the corner. First of all, I have a cash account. I have enough leverage by trading options, I don't want to be able to get in over my head (see organic growth). I keep some proportion of my money in a linked checking account and only some of my money in the trading account. If I need more trading cash, I need to transfer the money. Even though the money transfers instantly, this act of logging in and doling out my money to myself in increments puts up enough of a hurdle that I have time to blink and rationalize before dumping/jumping in over and over again.

And of course, clockwork trading rules: small size, pay myself first, tight stop is the right stop. Fast in and out. Have freedom during the day and sleep well at night.

I used to say: I won't get rich quickly, but I might get rich slowly.

It's happening! My account is growing (though I'm far from "rich") and I feel like things are clicking. 

I keep wondering, how will my skills serve me when the market cools off? I'll need to stick to clockwork. And I'll need to stop trading when my edge isn't there. 

Today's trades: I went slow into the open. Even though there was a lot of action. I started with just 1 BTBT call, waited for it to fill and appear. Then another. I traded exceedingly small until I was convinced that trades would fill smoothly. 

TOO MAD to continue today

I'm having terrible order problems with Schwab today. No customer support. My money in my linked Schwab checking account is entirely not showing in the interface (not the first time!). 

I'm incredibly too mad and emotional to continue trading right now. And I'm simultaneously so pissed to be missing this beautiful volatile day.

UPDATE: I spoke with Schwab midday (after 40+ min on hold). He said they have a known issue with latency (to put it mildly) in options trades around the open. Well, YES! At least, some acknowledgement. He also said there is no known timeframe for resolution. 

So... I'm looking for a new broker? I'm really dreading that. New platform, new learning curve, different order types and other nuances. UGH! 

I used to really like Schwab until it has become so difficult to execute my bread and butter strategy there. Are other brokers actually going to be any better?

Churned all day for 1% on account

Frustrating day. Partly bc market, partly my own actions. I used all my buying power and made 1%. It's better than red, but feels exhausting. Churning.

I should come back with charts, especially on a day like today, but I'm not sure I will.

I talked to Schwab last night about problems filling orders in the first ~10 min of trading in the morning. The guy seemed completely surprised and didn't seem to even understand what I was describing, yesterday's example:

At 9:32 (I think even 30-45 seconds earlier before the notification even registered) I put in a market order with a profit bracket attached.

No position showed up in my account. I could not cancel the order (cancel returned an error)
At 9:34 the profit bracket triggered, but the position still wasn't open in my account. Now I suspect that the initial buy order didn't go through properly

At 9:35:15 I entered an additional order (omg?!), bc I thought the first one just disappeared! These shares showed up reasonably quickly.

At 9:35:29 The shares from the original 9:32 order showed up (I can tell bc the price).

Now I'm in DOUBLE the size I wanted. 

Thankfully I was nicely profitable and able to get out without further problems. 

This could have easily gone huge against me too. 

What the heck, Schwab?! This has been going on for weeks. It used to be a small problem, like shares not appearing for a few seconds, and I attributed it to general slippage. But a few minutes?!!! Not acceptable.

Huge day. Just 2 symbols

 Beautiful huge day today, despite order execution problems on the open.

SQ runaway blue sky breakout. My position was double what I intended, due to the order execution problems. Thankfully, I gained on the front third and the back third. That could have also really burned!!

MARA first try was a fakeout/loser. I got it on the second try. Second trade was quite small, but nice result and I didn't compromise my opening gains.

Friday losing day.

I lost on Friday. It looks like a small loss, but it was initially another BIG loss. Started by trying to meddle in TSLA on a Friday (same day exp), without any particular setup. I went short, then long, then short again... and then missed the big move up (which wasn't my kind of setup anyway).
I had a lucky setup in SNAP to recover what I did. 

That is not how I want to trade. That was emotional. And trying to be "too smart" while spinning my wheels in TSLA. That's not my best trading. I need to stick to clockwork. My kind of setups. Reasonable position size. Pay myself first.

I'm also having a "good dilemma" in that as my account grows, I can take a lot more trades and/or a lot more size. I have a lot of confidence right now which could also be dangerous. At the same time, I feel I am a more mature trader in that I am taking reasonable size. I am taking my stops. I need to stop trading "just any old anything" that's not my best setup. On the surface, I'm doing better than ever. But I know there are still bad habits that are restricting my best results.

When I used to stab at nms (not my setup) trades, it would often be devastating because I would go in too big and lose too much. I haven't eradicated the behavior, but I'm suffering less damage from it. And sometimes I win, which is a sort of destructive-reward in that it reinforces bad behavior.

If I want to develop other setups, I should do that consciously. Not just stab around.

Meanwhile, my best setups are the utter classics: 

Gap and go (one day maybe the license plate: GAPNGO)

Breakout from midday consolidation. 

For the week: 

account +11%. 

3 green, 2 red days.

Opening losses, recovered

Account up 3% today, but that's after being down 4% earlier. Glad to have recovered, but I did too much hot dogging in the open. Positions way too big. That's arrogance! And then, I'm too big, too scared (cowardice? or rationality?). 

What if I could have avoided those losses, or had smaller ones, and then made the gains I made today? I would be up huge!

In addition, other cowardly trading. Not riding out reasonable volatility. 

So, BH for gorgeous gains today, but coulda' shoulda' - I need to stay cool and not hot dog it so much.

Recovering from minus

Some sloppy trading today. Increases my awareness of how I can avoid those -30% trades (hint: waiting). Managed to get barely back green. High awareness of market less hot today. 

That's part of the difference, perhaps. When the market is really hot, I can get away with sloppy entries. When the market is tougher, I need more careful entries. How to tell the difference?

A thought: Watch for this phenomenon, FUTU, the tight range, spike below (stops run), then finally the move everyone waited for. This is definitely one of the times not to have a hard stop, below a tight range. I was in this position too big and got out before the spike, but that would have been a heart attack. Even when it moved, the option didn't go to target (yet, though I'm out). // Later, 5 min chart, the whole thing flipped. So on the other hand...stops!!

Trades today:

Playing with data

Still playing with my trading data to see if I can notice any patterns, make any improvements. Tonight's experiments with 2021 to date data:

The histogram shows more clearly that I have high number of trades in the approximately +20% zone. In the scattergram, the points are overlapping such that it's impossible to tell the quantity. 

However, knowing that there is a density around +20%, what both graphs bring to light is I have a lot of losing trades! And the losers are bigger than I think, even if I am overall profitable. 

It seems like my losers are in bigger trades, more $2000 trades have losers than winners. Part of that, I think, is that I tend to scale out of winners, which is shown by smaller$ but bigger% trades. 

YTD, I am 72% winning days, average daily gain 1.23%. 

On first glance, it seems like I should make it a focus to reduce the size (if not the quantity) of my losers. How to do this? I like my stop technique, so I think I need better entries. Hm.. to ponder.

Big wins for MY 50th BIRTHDAY!

Today is my 50th birthday, and what an amazing trading day! Clockwork trading ftw. I have a lot of confidence in my trading right now. I'm able to size up, but still be conservative. I feel synced with the market. 

With that said, I haven't had a losing day for over a week. I don't want to be tested, but I need to keep in mind that I should be aware of this "I'm in sync" feeling on a down day in order to realize I'm not in sync... AND STOP. 

Hard earned up day. New round number!

BH! Today I crossed a new milestone number in my account. But today was not an easy day. I made mistakes, took sloppy setups, was lucky to get what I did. 

MSFT, the trade that could have really saved me, I accidentally took March calls instead of this week calls, so I used a ton of capital and made so much less. 

New week. Nervous again

This is a good market for a daytrader. Pockets of volatility for gains, and a lot of market uncertainty which makes me glad to be in and out (back to safety). The other thing that's really scary, is the connectivity problems at the brokerages. Will I be able to get into a trade when I want, and WAY scarier: will I be able to get out when I want. 

Win percentage for Jan based on DAILY RESULT: 69% green days

Skin of the teeth

I opened today with a big loss. From oversized trading. And then I recovered for a +1% account day.

On one hand, I learned that if I keep my cool and keep using clockwork, I can recover. I still have to take that first target. I still have to skim along the way. One single trade will not magically save my day, but smart incremental trading can give me a comeback.

I also learned that maybe I can start trading a little bigger. ...or maybe I should stay in my comfort zone.

I was 5 for 5 green days this week. Extraordinary gains this week. BH.

Maybe charts later, but it's winter Friday so, I have to rush off.

Trying a new p/l technique

I think I'm pretty successful at getting my 20% p/l target most of the time.
"I think"?
Ya, no good data on this.
But it does seem like, on the trades that go well enough to get 20%, there is often even more there. 

As long as I'm also manually trailing a stop for worst case, I'm trying also to set a t-stop on the tgt order. Instead of a limit order I'm trying:
If the bid goes to [+20%] sell on 0.05-.10 t-stop. So, maybe I'll start getting more than 20% on my first target? 

I'm also considering, instead of 1/2 off at pl tgt, do 1/4 - 1/3 at 20% pl, then another notch at 30-50%, and then let it run on a manually trailed stop.

Today I mostly finessed it and I did pretty well on my gut. I actually LOVE how I traded today. Felt effortless. B"H!

Afternoon profits

I was right to be scared today. It was nuts again! Connection problems, trade execution problems, market volatility!!

I tried TSLA in the morning. Got a late entry, and then I had problems with the closing order. I was worried that a contingent order wouldn't work right, so I tried a bracket order. The stop triggered and the order disappeared, but the put didn't close. WTF?! So then I tried to enter a regular order, but the system wouldn't take orders (this is one of the connectivity problems I've been seeing). Finally, I managed to get a market order in to just close it. Regretted that at first bc it dipped back down, but OMG was I glad after 10:20 when it ran up! No reason to try to trade that or anything else bc fear of the brokerage problems.

Meanwhile, GME was on a totally siiiiick run up, then all the way down. I was captivated by the drama all around it, and had some crazy puts in the swing account that I managed to get out of with my life in tact for a pretty solid gain. (not shown here bc other account).

Later in the afternoon it seemed like it all calmed down and I tried a few tentative trades. Made back what I lost on TSLA and then FB paid the rent, baby! Strange feeling to trade the pm session but "zeh mah yesh" right now. B"H I got what I got today. 

scared!!

I'm literally scared to trade today. Not just because of crazy nutso market volatility, but also because of what the brokerages are doing to try to slow it, and most of all because of the outages!

Wednesday - 6 days to recover

(didn't finish writing and posting unfinished...)
Today, 6 trading days later, I finally recovered from the huge loss I made last Monday. While it is encouraging to know I can recover, I don't want to be having losers that big. It is too destructive to lose all that ground. 

Again today, 3rd day in a row, Schwab (and other brokers, I'm told) couldn't handle the open. I alternately couldn't log in, couldn't place trades, couldn't transfer money. In today's case, I was simply sidelined for the opening ~30 minutes. Monday, I was able to enter an opening trade but not close it (happened to be extremely profitable, but also could have sliced the other way). Yesterday the problems were later in the morning when I was finishing up. Outrageous!

Market/Internet can't handle the open?

Another horrible day. Everything on downdetector. The market can't handle the open??

9:42 am:

10:08 update

I was able to get in a few minutes ago, and apparently so was everyone else. This is the pattern I've seen when that happens, strong buying!:

The downs and the ups

I opened with 2 big losses this morning, on PLUG and the front part of DKNG. Then OSTK came along and saved the day massively.

Some market connectivity problems this morning, but mostly as I was finishing my trades, not on the open. Apparently affected Google, Zoom, etc. What's going on with this world? Do I need to be bracing for something? Hold more cash? Go withdraw actual cash in case electronic transactions stop working?

Annotating charts, a few hours later, my trading looks sloppy. I feel like part of it is slippage on my orders Time slippage? like I ordered at 9:31 but it's reported at 9:32? maybe I got a worse price fill, too? Can I correct that with limit orders? I feel like I'll just miss the boat. Because ultimately, I'm not trading with sensitivity to the penny. I just want in. I just want to get the meat of a move, and I feel like I can mostly do that with market orders. Am I leaving some on the table? Probably. Am I getting my piece? Yes.