Weekly Review: 03-08-2015

Intraday Trading PnL: -$90.

Swing Trading PnL: -$977.

ASX Stocks: +AU$8009, or +US$6261.

I have mentioned before that the ASX opportunities are one-off events and unfortunately aren't part of the daily grind, so obviously not happy with the result of being negative when excluding that. However, it does illustrate the importance of keeping an eye out for exceptional opportunities elsewhere.

I'm not too worried about the swing trading loss because I feel that swing trading is my strength, plus the magnitude of the swing trading loss is relatively small compared to the size of potential gains when my swing trading goes well.

There are probably a few things which sum up the week reasonably well:

1. A lack of active management of positions led to some unnecessary losses on some of my better trade ideas. Think BABA, LEAF, NSPH.
2. There were excessive losses on individual trades/stocks (>$300), which kept the PnL for the week down enormously. CRMD (-897), NVGN (-838). Bring only those back to say -400 and there you have an extra $935 for the week of intraday trading. As indicated on the individual reviews for those days. NVGN was a trade that shouldn't have even occurred, while CRMD the loss just got a little carried away.

Reflecting on my goals set from last week. I did a good job for the most part of focusing on getting good patient entries, and keeping level of over-trading under control. Again, these still need constant work, so will continue to be secondary goals.

What needs to be the focus for the coming week is: 

1. Controlling risk, in particular not letting any losses on any individual stock exceed $300 (for the most part I am happy to exclude swing trading from this rule because of gaps etc). 
2. Actively manage positions to lock in gains instead of swinging for the fences and going for the home run. Remember to not be greedy, and if I like the position for a "home run" type of trade I can get a starter and add, then once managed risk hold less than 1/4 for the home run. Take off a little at 1.5R and a little more at 2R to get down to half, then look for re-entries on that lot. Then another 1/4 around 2.5-5R, then whatever I like for the remaining, but try not to be greedy!