Big up day to save my week

 Experimenting with Friday strategy, which can boom or bust. I routinely play with fire, but I need to moderate the types of explosions that can happen on Fridays. Risk control is #1. Trading as if it will only go in my favor is a recipe for disaster, even if, when it does go for me it's incredibly lucrative. 

Today I first tried next week expiration, which in this case is monthly options. Surprisingly there was no volume on the trades I was watching and what I took didn't ignite. So I adjusted course. Smaller positions with today's expiration. Scaling in so I don't eat a big loss. 

Going small isn't new to me, but scaling IN is not my usual. This might be something interesting to experiment with on other days as well, so I can build some really big positions when it's working.

Closing the week +6%. 

Trade of the day was RBLX. I had it both ways. One of my fatal flaws to work on is when something I'm watching for a long starts to fail, I take it short. NO! Just wait for the long to set up again.

Smart or lucky?

Smart or lucky today? Does it matter? I think trading is analogous to backgammon. There is strategy of game play, but there is also luck of dice. (Vs chess which is all strategy)

Today I missed the open due to picking up kid at school with a stomachache. "The trader life" sometimes looks like this! It's much less glamorous, but is also an advantage of the freedom and flexibility trading provides.

By the time I got back, I needed to find non-opening plays. And this has been one of the things I've been thinking about lately... how to trade midday market. I reviewed my volume movers screen, which is just a price/volume screener, sorted by run rate. I'm not sure how to hone it for midday results. For starters, maybe split it by price range so at least I'll get more ideas (vs max 50 results).

And then I looked for setups. AMC breaking down was "easy money" but I left a lot on the table. TLRY also paid quickly. Both of these for pl and also stop in the 20% range. 

I stopped PATH (crap overnighter) for a pretty big loss. My day would have been best ever if not for that. As it is, +7% (coulda shoulda +12%)

Then reset to look around again. Had my eye on roku, ddog and spwr. All similar setups: rounding off bottoms. I watched the action for a while and scaled into DDOG. Got a terrible fill on first batch, but that's why I started small anyway. Scaled in another partial, and then it really ran. Spreads were wide (another reason I started small/scaled in), so I had to take limits, but I did great.

Things to keep working on:

midday trading strategies

max day loss discipline

don't reverse long setups, just wait for new long

Took a loser home

Had a sizable down day, and took a loser home. Both problems relate to a spready option that I made cardinal sins on: in too big, on something too spready. Gonna take a pretty big reversal on this guy to recover. 

Meanwhile. CLOCKWORK. 

As tempting as it is to try to pile in and recover quickly, remember!... dig out with a spoon. Get back on track. Don't be driven by emotion/greed. 

Clockwork works. Stick with clockwork. Day in and day out. I will get my piece, and be at peace. Why do I keep messing around, thinking I'm "too smart"? That's how I eat it.

Tuesday morning

 This morning the market is pushing near highs. Most of the gaps up are stocks curling off interim lows, and some meme stocks. It's not the really strong stocks on my gaps up. And the opposite, gaps down are generally strong ones and the crypto/adjacent.

The plan will be to sit tight. Enter small. Tight stop is the right stop. Pay myself first.

$21 million loss (Schwab "glitch")

End of day, +6%, but the morning started with a heart attack.

Monday morning. Raring to go. A few good picks. First pick triggers, AI, I buy puts. Place my conditional orders. Look at second trade. Triggers. Can't get the trade in... I don't have funds?

I show my account balance and I'm in utter shock. I'm down $22million!!

OMG! What happened? Did I buy some ton more than I thought? Did I get the worlds worst fill? Did I get exercised? What's going on? None of these ideas get anywhere close to explaining -$22million. My account is many orders of magnitude smaller than that.

I closed AI for a 6% loss, to close my exposure. I had no idea what was going on !

Turns out Schwab had a "glitch" (to say the very least!) after a system update that mis-calculated options commissions. Long story short, at around 11:30 it was resolved, but I lost the whole morning. Finally sat down to trade after 12. 

Managed to catch nice trades on SNOW (tradenet pick), CCIV and AMC (premkt screener). I'm aware I don't have a good screener for mid-day trading. In general I don't really want to do midday trading, and/but so far all I really have to go on is volume screener. All trades were under 25%, only 2 tiny losses (-5%, -2%, -1%). Tight stop is the right stop. Zigs, no zags.

This is what I can do today in the way of annotating

Another lost week

 Chopped around this week for net -1.5% w.o.w. This is small numbers for me, but still disappointing. Not even for a negative week, but for the missed opportunity of progress. 

Market feels difficult again... Also I might be trading like a jerk sometimes. Definitely there was a day where I thought... if the moves aren't coming, I'll take bigger size and smaller p/l targets. And, of course I ate it that day.

Current trading mental challenge is accepting these days that trades don't develop and just sitting out. Ugh!

Wednesday

  Phew. Yesterday's post. Wednesday was a market inside day. I got hacked for a small loss, as expected. Caught AMC, but didn't maximize the run (100%+ price run).

Back to normal schedule

 K+A wedding was amazing. And now we're done with planning, celebrating, and I'm back to work. I am looking forward to giving my trading my primary focus again. I have a lot to accomplish this year!!

Today's trading was rough. There were setups, and I scraped out a little bit, but it wasn't one of those fabulous days. Still, 1.5% is no shabby day. Pile a few of those up and there's nothing to complain about.

May stats. I had an exceedingly good first 2 weeks of May, and gave about half of it back the second 2 weeks of May. Net gain, but really disappointing finish.

ytd gain %	102.89%
ytd w/l days	66.00%
ytd avg daily %	0.86%
month gain	17.72%
month w/l days	68.75%
month avg daily %	1.16%

Goals, expectations, pacing

 I have been very caught up in goals, expectations and pacing toward higher and higher p&l. 

That is arrogance. I should not be pressing so hard for numbers. I should be taking the best trades, the best way, and not getting emotional over "high score" all the time. 

Stay cool. Take my trades. Get my money. Peace.

Disappointingly small gains bc crap

 Market pullback day today. Not a lot of compelling setups. My best pick, and my best gainer was UAL out of the open. After that, I should have walked away, but instead I hacked it down and up on crappy picks, to land up 2% on day. That is a "disappointing green day" for me (greed!!). 

-->Rather than being disappointed that I didn't make "enough", I should be disappointed that I didn't trade well. However, I did learn a good lesson:

LESSON: That feeling that trades aren't giving 20%... that I need to take off pltgt at 10% first. That is the feeling of chasing. If I buy too high, I need to sell too soon to make sure to lock it. If I have a better entry, less chasing, the same exit is better profit. This seems obvious, but the lesson is the smack in the face that I've been chasing too much and trying to redeem it with smaller p/l targets...and moreso, losses.

LESSON #2 (repeatedly learned 🔨): Stop hacking at crappy picks.

UAL gap above some sort of consolidation. I waited for pb and got the move. Good one. The rest were crap. QS was a good setup yesterday. Lost on it yesterday too bc spread and crappy action.

so far, NO good

Up is down and down is up. I think that means profit taking, and not enough momentum for strong followthroughs.

 Lost a lot fast this morning. 

Currently, the trade that could redeem me is still open, QS puts. I've grown 8 gray hairs just waiting out this sideways movement. Bracket orders set. To be continued...

QS also ate me up, to conclude a big down day. 

Too aggressive on a up is down and down is up kind of day. Got chopped.

Tomorrow, half account and half size positions.

Sizing and burns

A topic I think a lot about, how do I maximize the highest probabality trades?

Looking at this p/l, my losers all contained within -20% (and also rational pivots, not just a pl number). But my sizing resulted in a max losing day today. 

How do I use this information to improve my trading? Look in the usual places... greed and revenge! The big lots sold are full positions stopping out. However today nothing went immediately against me. So full positions stopping should signal one or both things:
1. I'm not taking reasonable enough targets off before it goes against me. (true today, I tried to push again)
2.  I'm trading too big that a few of these burn badly.

Tomorrow I'm out for big kid's college graduation! Next week is wedding week, so I hope to trade MT, but WRF I'm doing bigger things!! Baruch Hashem for these wonderful simchas.

A losing day

 Down 2% today. While that is within my tolerance of an "acceptable" loss, it is still a disappointment. I couldn't get traction today. I was down/up/down. 

Was a gap down / trade up day today, but the trade wasn't easy. I was pushing for 20% pl tgt. Not sure that was the undoing, but might pull back on that tomorrow.

TTWO was definitely the one that got away today (net loss), and was on the wrong side of COIN in the early minutes.

Should have been a 10 minute trading day

 Baruch Hashem!!

I made +5% in 9 minutes this morning. Amazing!

Then like an idiot I didn't stop. Wrestled (including back into red ! ) until 2pm, and came out +7%... but not without wasting half my day and a good deal of psychological capital.

Glad to be done. New ATHs!
+19% week over week.

big volatility, big gains

There were some good moves today. I got big gainers and big losers, but best of all, +3% day. I'm getting closer to my account ath from 4/7. That's 5(?) lost weeks when I was losing instead of building. Waste!

No time to annotate today.

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.