AAL: AAL gapped down and had an opening pop higher. This was only on my secondary watchlist, so I only noticed it when it returned to the opening print. There are two longer term significant levels at $46.20 and $46.05, so I am a little disappointed with how I traded this.
I longed into the opening print, with a stop below $46.20, risking roughly 10c. I managed to flip half the position at $46.59 representing roughly 2.5R, so that's excellent management, and was then stopped below $46.20 for a net minuscule profit.
The point being that I needed to keep AAL on watch. Below $46.20 doesn't mean that the longer term support has been breached, only a hold below $46 could indicate that. Had I kept it on watch I would have had at least 2 good trades from the $46 level, which would have yielded some decent returns.
ADES: ADES represents a prime example of the behaviour I am trying to correct by starting this blog. I began shorting, and chased the weakness midday looking for a crack. This ruined my average, and meant I couldn't trade around a core for the rest of the day. The probability of it cracking midday is relatively low compared to later on in the day.
So one thing I did well, was identifying that it wasn't bouncing off the $16.25 level, and convincingly staying green. The bigger picture thought process involved here was that it has completed a "soft" gap fill, on the fifth day, with dying volume.
However, how it should have been traded was getting an initial feeler into that morning spike. As the recognition comes that it's not bouncing off and staying green should have been looking for the prices that I could get short at, avoiding the FOMO feeling as it tests the line in the sand. If push came to shove and it did crack, could always chase a smaller size... After identifying the price to get short at it would have been easy to get the 1000 shares short at $16.48 average, which is roughly 15c better than my average, saving me $150, AND improving the risk-reward of the trade significantly.
FXCM: I have been looking for a swing short on this at good prices for a while, but for now I feel that it is holding too well. Today's red day may have changed that, so will be stalking for a short as it rolls over.
When the news came out of the big sale, it plummeted, and I got FOMO and entered short. Make-shift plan was to have a stop above the hod, and swing it for the $2s/$1.60s. After mulling it over for a little I decided to take the loss and revisit. The RR at my entry just wasn't good enough.
GENE: Chased it for the r/g move. I don't think too much of this trade, basically a poor trade with no edge. If I really thought it had a chance at r/g I should have been loading up on the morning wash. Or if I was short biased I should short near the r/g spot, hoping it to fail in this zone, so that I could get good RR.
Point being is that either bigger picture idea would have actually yielded a profit if executed with patience and at the appropriate prices.
Later on in the day GENE was holding nicely and being perking up. Again, I chased long, rather than waiting for the prices I wanted. It was midday and therefore unlikely to result in a real move.
MDBX: This is a prime example of how nailing 1 trade a day with superior RR can make your day. Clearly it made my day, despite my shitty trading.
Ironically IB had price caps on orders, so I was only able to get 100 shares on, and got my full size (1200ish) about 40c higher. Additionally, my full size would have been larger if I had the purchases lower because I would have the better average.
MDBX was extremely beat down the past three days, on extremely high volume. This morning premarket they announced some sort of crappy hype news which caused a gap up. Naturally this creates the perfect scenario for a decent rally, it obviously went further than I expected.
Overall I am extremely happy with how I traded it, selling safely into strength, and recognising the parabolic on high volume and managing to virtually top tick it with 1/4 of my position. I actually would have shorted it here but no shares available.
MNKD: Shorted the morning rally, and covered when it held. Very basic trade. Definitely should have revisited for a long given the bigger picture.
YELP: This is the biggest disappointment of the day, and by far the best example of the behaviour/impatience with entries that I am trying to correct.
YELP reported earnings the previous day, and closed that trading day at its low. Stocks in play that close in the bottom or top 25% of their ranges have a statistically significant probability of repeating that the next day. With no strong support in near sight it's pretty obvious I just need to initiate a short trade2hold and manage accordingly. In reality this was probably my top trading idea coming in before premarket. As you can see from the intraday chart, it worked out literally to perfection, and instead of being -$200 I should have been about +$400-$800.
So what happened? I missed the initial short on the failed move to green, and was then forced to watch it come off $1.50 without any decent entry spots. There were a few lower time frame consolidation/flag spots, but that's not really my style of trading. I then watched it rally through vwap, and then fail to hold vwap. I tried a 10c risk long into the low, which I'm indifferent about, really a no edge trade, but it's low risk so not of huge concern. As it made a new low I then chased the short full size, with reasonably wide stoploss (to vwap). I then didn't revisit it for the entire day.
In hindsight, how it should have been traded: If uncomfortable with the short against r/g just take it with starter size. As watching the stock, watch it go through vwap, think "that's unusual it should close at lows", then look for a failure of vwap to short with a stop about that relative peak. Manage the position, but keep roughly 1/3 with the aim of holding until the end of the day. Then on the second failed test of vwap get back to full size, and manage accordingly. Later on in the day as it holds below the lows, reload back to full size, and hold full size for the move to the close at the lows.
This should have been a real ATM machine for me today, given my trading plan, but was poorly executed.
Note: The short horizontal lines represent where vwap was at that point in time.
Swing Trades: +$477 for the day.
VPOR: To update. I have bagheld this for a little bit, when I missed lightening up into strength a week or so ago. In hindsight, I should have cut it with the announcement of the increase in outstanding shares, instead of waiting for lower prices to get the full size of my position.
There is no sign of the MM BMAK for now, so today I added to full position size at 0.0010. The close green is the first green close for quite a while, and I would expect it to be at 0.0020 very shortly, where I will offload at least half the position.
I will sell the entire position when BMAK returns to diluting.
MDBX: I have taken some overnight as it is the first day of strength on a beat chart for quite a while. The fluff news into close of someone selling 300k shares is of no surprise, so allowed a good RR for an overnight position.
ADES: First red day on a hyped up piece of shit. Today was the fifth day since the rally began, and price action is indicating it is tiring. I had expected it to crack intraday and only swing half this size though, so I am a little surprised that it held up. This should be noted in case it tries to stage a rally.
For tomorrow I would anticipate a little bit of a failed morning spike, while holding above $16.60 would be an indication to revisit hypothesis.
Foreign Exchange: +$221 for the day.
These foreign exchange trades will require refining an explanation for my methodology at some point. A blog post will be dedicated to that at some point in the future.
EURCHF: This was a stupid trade. My alert went off and I didn't follow my process. Stopped out at -10 pips. It was all a little bit of a confuddle because I was looking at the nice horizontal consolidation earlier, thinking what a great RR opportunity that represented and ended up taking the opposite direction to my signal. I went long, signal was short. Ironically it came off 100 pips from the signal... I may not have captured that, but it's just funny.
EURUSD: This was probably one of the hardest patterns I've traded of these in quite a while. Had to try it 3 times to get it working. This demonstrates how important risk-reward is in trading. I ended up roughly +2R, despite a slight slipup in execution, and two failed trades.
Arrows detail the rough entry zone and the sales. Accidentally sold the remaining 1/4 of position when I was trying to place a OCO order to focus on the US open. Decided it wasn't worth re-entering given the setup etc, however if I hadn't slopped it I would have had another 1R.
Overall, there were a number of trades I missed today, but the most important thing is the stocks that I did trade I didn't quite trade correctly. I missed a lot of money with YELP, and there were a few other examples that cost a little bit of money, which would have added up significantly to be a really good day.
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