Intraday Trades: +$1257 for the day. Great day, was really focused on getting the right entries, anticipating the zones that I was interested etc. Again, aside from the end of the day was more or less on cue 100% of the day. This will be elaborated on in the individual names. BOX and ADES were swing trades but there were some intraday trades on them so I split the PnL allocation down the line 50/50.
JNJ: This trade was remarkably similar to the AAPL flash crash in nature. Although obviously a different trade because AAPL was really getting crushed, whereas this JNJ was just an unusual strong move down on no news. The point is that they are both super super safe companies that were moving down strong and so there's an enormous probability that they will bounce (at least temporarily).
The actual bottom was difficult to grab, however once in place was easily identifiable by the big volume bar on the 2 minute.
I got quite large on my options (20 contract), which was probably a little large given their spread. Also I only took off 4 into the upmove, was offering out staggeredly. Given the spread I should have been more aggressive on selling into strength. That being said, it had established over vwap, so it is somewhat not that bad. I guess this just reflects my tendency not to sell enough into initial moves (something I have to work on).
I contemplated taking 4 options as a swing trade but opted against it, because despite the overdone intraday chart, the daily isn't that favourable. It closed the week at 99.50, so perhaps I should have gone for the fences...
GENE: I've been looking for the long for quite a few days, but was uncomfortable taking it overnight given it's tendency to gap down. In the past GENE has punished those who buy into strength and sell into weakness. I guess the lesson here is that after the enormous volume and bigger picture breakout yesterday there was a change in character in GENE (which maybe still doesn't mean holding overnight), however it does mean paying breakouts (after consolidations) is more favourable. Especially given the volume.
So today was great. Nailed the long and managed to hold moderate size for most of the move. Yesterday I was holding 2000 shares in anticipation of a move like this, and today I trimmed that a little to 1200, and managed to hold 600 from the low 5s to $6.50s.
I nailed the sell at the relative top at $6.50s which was great, was a pure tape read sale. However, the is one thing to notice that's really important, after the blowoff top at $6.50s the level to watch for retracement was $6.10s, now notice on the second test of this it washed below but was bid back up immediately (wicked below). This is a sign of strength, and I should have been weary and started thinking long. Again, it is the change of character that may make it more acceptable to pay breakouts for a momentum trade.
Overall good trading, very happy. Was really focused on selling into strength and looking for the reload, I actually failed to get the reload for most of it, but made it a lot less stressful.
EXPE: EXPE was gapping up on the an acquisition so was looking to take advantage of the gap fill area from the earnings recently. And also the general pattern of acquirors to fade off after initial spike. Was doing enormous volume premarket and nailed the top shorting the parabolic. I realised I was a little large when I was up roughly $400 on the trade and it was only halfway to my target. Did a great job premarket of getting out and netted a reasonable profit from this. Ideally I guess I should have taken off a little more when I was +400 instead of looking for the move back to $85ish.
Now on the open I was looking to short into the premarket high, which actually worked but it went through and stopped me out before coming back and retracing a couple of $$. This remind me a little bit of FSLR the other day in that stops on the open need to be wider when fading, and they need to take into account the ATR.
Missed a very nice hod rejection on this (notice that it's midday, and had a volume spike, and was straight down from the rejection, gave no sweat to people fading it). However, also notice that the fakeout is proportional to the ATR of the stock.
CYBR: CYBR reported earnings after the close. Basically I was just looking to play the momentum on it, and was eventually stopped out on an aggressive trailing stop. Again I would have benefited by selling more into the initial spike and not trailing the stop so aggressively.
Also this trade was a little impatient and I also would have benefited from entering on retracements and near my stoploss.
Swing Trades: +$54 for the day.
PSTR: Finally got some borrows on this. Unfortunately a bit of a chase, but I will add all the way up to news highs to a max position size of 2000 shares. Volume disappearing so it looks toast.
BOX: As mentioned there was also some intraday trades on this. Shorted right on the open aginst the $21 level and covered into the $20.20 level. Then added back against the $20.20 level which I was stopped out on. I decided to stop the entire position because it really shouldn't have reclaimed that level.
ADES: I mentioned in my review yesterday that it was concerning that this hadn't had an OTC style panic. So coming in this morning there was some crummy PR which caused a parabolic on the open. I added into this parabolic improving my average, but ultimately it was holding so I stopped myself out. Was up a little bit on the short parabolic on the open.
Then on the hold into the close I got long as it was grinding up looking for a squeeze. I paid the offer, which was stupid and took a decent loss on this.
AAPL: This ended up going so much further than expected. Is obviously disappointing I sold so much the prior day, but at least I kept 1/5. I had intended to hold that 1/5 until the end of the week so I held it until I literally couldn't resist the thought of selling it, and managed to get the top tick for the week. Interestingly this is a tendency for my trades2hold.
SPI Trading: -$7531 for the day. This is actually for the Friday this is actually for the Friday the 15th but it is easier to review it in this day because it follows on from the US trading session.
This is a prime example of a trend day on an index. And I got absolutely slaughtered by it. One thing I've been struggling with on the SPI (and actually for similar setups on stocks, but not as much). Is that the SPI has many many failed breakouts, and so fading new highs is a profitable setup on average. However, at what point do you say oh this is a successful breakout and cut your losses. A hard and fast rule could be if it breaks out 6 ticks, max should be around 4 if it's going to fail.
The 5798 (5800) represented significant all time resistance and so I was looking to fade into the level. So I shorted on what looked like it was going to be a trendline break when it was hard up against the opening trend.
Now it didn't break and I should have stopped into the new highs. Instead I added, and added and held through an enormous break of about 12 ticks. At this point my position size was 7 contracts (far too large, I usually trade a max of 3), and my average was around 5790. So it actually got back to breakeven... But I didn't cover stupidly. I was happy with my directional position but not with my price, and so I should have covered.
Now I should have noticed it was starting to hold higher and establishing a trend after holding. I eventually stopped myself out and took the loss. Naturally I should have just stopped trading there, but I tried to join the trend, but was paying the offers, and was stopped at max pain. Very poor trading, and perfect examples of how important cutting losses is, and how entry should be near your stoploss, rather than just paying offers/taking bids.
FX Trades: The NZD position is just an asset allocation for my account (I live in NZ, but trade the US stock market, so is irrelevant).
The EURUSD position is aimed to be a longer term position. Basically I will cover my risk at around 2-5R, and then aim to hold the rest of the position for about 6 months to a year. So I won't revisit this trade in my reviews.
Basically just taking advantage of the tendency for fx to move a maximum of around 1500 pips. The enormous negative sentiment around the euro, and the flush bottom and hold higher. So here is the daily chart.
No comments:
Post a Comment