Weekly Review: 03-22-2015

Intraday Trading: +$171. Very little fluctuation in intraday daily pnl figures which I quite like. This lines up with my idea of consistency. Overall, obviously the net figure isn't to my liking. Thus purely reflects the two bad trades in the VXX and PRTA. Cutting these to say -450 each, rather than what they were (-900 and -520) would have resulted in an additional $520 pnl for the week, which would make it a reasonable week.
Main focus still must therefore be the discipline, keeping losses under control. However, I like the idea of focusing on higher probability, high conviction trades; like I tried on Friday. I think as a secondary goal this is something I should try for a week; purely just to see what effect it has on my consistency etc.

Swing Trading: +$668. Volatile week for the swing trading. This arises from the AXN short, that I was so close to cutting but then completely retraced by the week end. I am particularly happy with the fact that I set a very specific criteria for me to keep the loss, and it met those exact criteria, rather than emotionally getting out.
This weeks volatility in swing trading, and in the buying power it ties up bring up some interesting questions for my swing trading. (1) What percentage of my activity do I want to come from swing trading? (2) Do I want to actively trade swing positions (i.e. manage quickly and rinse and repeat, or just hold for the bigger move), this needs to be very clear. And I need to be disciplined following this approach. (3) How many different swing positions do I want on at the same time (swing positions are meant to be very very high probability/conviction trades.

1. I am better at swing trading. In the past a greater percentage of my profits have come from swing trades. I am extremely patient while waiting for swing trades to work out.
1. This suggests that perhaps I should focus on swing trading, and tie up a decent portion of my capital with swing trades. However, I disagree with this. I think day to day consistency (which comes from intraday trading) is more important at this stage of my career. Additionally it can be incredibly frustrating when trying to take on an intraday trade but not having enough BP, which creates emotional pressure. I can still have some big wins in swing trading with well selected trades (aka avoiding the front side of move, or cutting things when they aren't working like they should be, e.g. ADXS this week).
2. I think there is absolutely no doubt that I have to have some form of management. The ADXS trade reinforces this with the amount of times I could have managed the position prior to finally cutting it out. Likewise, the AXN trade also reinforces this idea, because I could have taken size off twice before the rally to $2.20.... Then I could have nailed the completely distinguished backside for decent profit.
1. To sum up. I think management of any time enormous size is on, or management of 1/3 of the position actively is completely necessary to lock in profit, and rinse and repeat.
3. This is an interesting one, and probably ties in quite nicely with the buying power argument. My thought process on this currently is that I shouldn't have more than 3 positions at once, in order to ensure that they are high conviction trades, and that I have room to add to them if they go against me etc.