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!)

Thurs and Friday red

Yesterday down 3%. 

Today, caught a stellar runaway long on TSLA right at the open, then gave it all back by trading like a jerk on NVDA for aggrivation. 

Been doing too much trading like a jerk. Weekend study is in order. Sticking with my reduced account size. Maybe even paper trade for a week.

no-ft days

 I posted on reddit r/daytrading about up/down no-followthrough days. User u/Kaku_Tyson pointed me to read up on Wyckoff. Thank you.

At first glance it's basic stuff - accumulation, markup, distribution, markdown.  https://school.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=market_analysis:the_wyckoff_method 

There are some nuances there that I'm going to focus on a little more. Maybe it does/n't help with this issue, but it's interesting and relevant continuing ed anyway.

BOOM! +14% 9:45

 BOOM!! 14% gain on my reduced account size. Done at 9:45am

Huge temptation to jump back in on something else. But I would need to bring in more cash from the reserve account and I'm not going to get in that mess. That is a TILT TRIGGER and I'm not interested in tilting today! 

I got my piece. Peace! 

I want zigs, not zags. After the 1 min play off my setup expires, I'm done! Pack it up. Go have a great day.

MU gap up after huge strong run with a lot of air pockets (desperation buying?). Bumping into 100ma and price resistance. Looking for short, w small size. First move didn't quite make it. Willing to let it spike above day high, but then I didn't want to give away the next green flash so shaved off smaller partials and kept my $.

BYND been watching this for breakout. Perfect example of why you need stops. Take my money! 

BBBY gap up against red bar, looking for mini fin break. Grabbed! into the trade, then took p&l target. Second half off on stall. Of note: Yes, I missed a huuuuge trade. But I followed my rules and got my piece. Just as easily, it could have dropped like BYND. Never regret taking my piece. Peace.

Trader life

 When people invoke "the trader life" it usually seems to refer to jetsetting and "lambos". In my case, the trader life means I can take days off. I hope to take Fridays off going forward. It will calm my life. I took off yesterday to take my kid to the dentist. 

The "mommy life" doesn't seem like luxury, but work life balance is a treasure. That motivates me. I am my own boss. I set my own schedule. It's even better than owning a business. I don't manage staff (just the kids 😉). I don't hold inventory. I don't rent office space. 

Today I made "only" 3% on my small account. Done at 10:04.

Bit of a frustrating day. I thought I had decent picks, but doing chart annotations, I don't love them so much (are they actually decent?). Well, they're the best the market gave today. Except MS, I tried giving too much room and gave back small gains. Stopping for zero is inside +/-1%, since I truncate not round my numbers. 

MS volume gap. Grabbed what I could on tight stop (the right stop!!)

OTLY volume gap up. 1 min data doesn't show well, but it surged and reversed with no target. stop for flat.

PLBY didn't fill my pl tgt. ran back down. Did not reenter.

STEM was pick of the day, and I waited. I got the surge, but didn't quite make my pl tgt. Stop for b/e.

As these frustrating trades were happening, I passed on PATH, which only caught my eye bc it was on my watch from yesterday. Decided not to jump, but set paper trading parameters. Coulda shoulda. Is this actually nms? It's probably as close to my setup as the other junk I traded today. Did I have a long bias? The market it so stretched. Study market tonight.

Up is down and down is up

Days when up is down and down is up are my most frustrating days. For example, market is pushing new highs, but NONE of my picks played out.

Beautiful gap up plays, esp SPWR, didn't hold. Breakdown gap JKS traded strong up. 

WHYYY!??? Profit taking, is the only explanation that comes to mind. How can I tell?

Down day, it goes without saying. Carrying smidges of the longs into the close because I want to be involved to keep my eyes on it.

One idea, I heard a trader say, "The gap up [on the market] ate up all the momentum." Interesting theory. So all there's left to do is for people to take profits? 

In other words, people who pre-positioned for this move are closing, but there is no one new to keep it going. And/or shakeout, novice gap, ...