Intraday Trading: -$3210. Obviously a complete ****-up today. Not a good start to the month. Again, as per all other ****-ups it was completely psychological. In terms of how the day proceeded it was kind of weird because the first one happened in the morning (CRMD) and I recovered (relatively) nicely (more details in the CRMD writeup). Then the second ****-up happened in the afternoon after a patch of really good (but slightly deteriorating trading). The ironic thing is that I recently remarked that if you're trading badly then futures will well and truly exaggerate that - this clearly hits home because if I had a big strikeout like this on a stock it would probably be around $1000 loss (kinda like CRMD).
Taking the day off tomorrow to recuperate, have plenty to do in terms of working on my plays and edge in fx. Will check in for GBSN though, as that will be an A++ short in back account.
I have reviewed each stock/trade in approximate chronological order to identify my psychological state at each point.
I feel like the late day sloppy trading wouldn't have happened if I had taken just a 20-30 minute nap midday, but I really struggle to wake up from small naps during the US trading day (presumably because it's like 5am local lol), so that's some good food for thought.
Main lesson: Because I'm struggling with discipline at the moment when trading futures I need to enter the stoploss at/before entry. Similar goes for stocks, but it's not quite as important.
MYL: Got a little long premarket against the secondary price, had been planning on buying more on a flush, but the way it was holding it was clear that I wasn't going to be interesting in a flush. Stoploss was a bit wide because it was the same stoploss I had for when I was trying to buy on the flush, but that's just the way it is.
The low of $57.40 was just below yesterdays low of $57.50 so I didn't consider rebuying, but decided that it was bordering on over trading/trading without conviction so I opted not to. Obviously it worked, but very very happy to miss trades for the sake of wanting higher conviction!
CRMD: It's kinda almost funny because I was thinking before that open that I was at risk of trading this emotionally because of the squeeze I took part in on the wrong side yesterday. So anyway, naturally that's exactly what happened...
The plan on CRMD coming into the open was to short a parabolic to around $11, or reactive trades (mostly on the short side, but was open to long if holding above vwap, green, and gearing up - no need to be aggressively biased as it's in squeeze mode). So naturally when it opened red I chased it lower.. with 1000 shares... Stoploss was on a hold above $10, so was stopped at the high of $10.20. Not a good start to the day!! Thus far, based on my plan there should have been no trade. It is interesting to note that if you were looking to buy an opening wash for weak open r/g then buying at $9.50 (the prior all time high) is exactly where you would enter.
Next then was an opportunity once the $10 break was confirmed as a false break - this was a reactive trade opportunity, looking for $9.50 (and then possibly lower), and I did take it, but I didn't really take it objectively. This setup if taken properly would be short $9.9x, stop on hold/reclaim over $10, take (at least) half off at $9.50, but I entered and didn't take any off, wanted breakeven which was at $9.20, naturally it held $9.50 and grinded for the rest of the day. Again, I guess I kinda knew that I should have been taking it off. Stopped myself above $10. Around 1pm was when it really changed from a short to potential long, and as a result I missed the long (but it wasn't an amazing long, so I'm not 100% sure I would have taken it, point is I was just too biased).
ESPR: The first trade I made on this really was an excellent excellent trade. Unfortunately I only got it with 50 shares because messing around with too much size CRMD messed up my buying power (and you can't trade ESPR on margin). So for the sake of consistency I had to take the 50 shares off at my first target, rather than staggering exits (which would have resulted in a home run with the 150 shares that I wanted).
It gapped up on an upgrade, and with the $100 secondary price overhead it represented good RR to short.
Tried again midday, this time deliberately only 50 shares but clearly didn't work. Probably related to IBB reclaiming vwap around 11.
OVAS: This is pretty extended to the downside on the daily, so just looking to buy into support. Quite spready, so a little tough to trade, huge edge in providing liquidity.
First buy was a flush of $33.75, managed to get 1/4 off into a pop, then stopped, and bought at next support but never got size (only got 1/4 of the original position) because it didn't flush. Sold entire position perfectly (didn't get hung up and try and hold just because I didn't get full size).
What is incredible about this is that even though I only got 1/4 size on the one that worked I still only lost $20.
The other thing that's incredible is that the stock went down the entire day extremely consistently... Yet I managed to nearly make money getting long. This really drives home the point of picking entries and providing liquidity on overextensions (like the opposite of what I did on oil).
ES: Wasn't a good trade. Identified this and cut it. The idea was fine (there is an edge in buying this market when it's down 1%), but my entry, and therefore stoploss wasn't good enough.
GDDY: Tried the opening print, just small because it's something I want to work on. Would like to add a detailed playbook play on this, but don't have enough experience with the play. Stopped more or less at the low, but noticed it was holding so I re-established, tight stop. Managed to rinse and repeat first target, and then sold the other half into the high.
Took another trade midday against the opening print and vwap, but ended up cutting it on a time stop (had conviction time stop was right idea because of lack of volume).
At this stage I was absolutely on fire psychologically (about 11am), completely recovered from the CRMD loss, but at 11am I was still being stubborn on the next CRMD trade that I held throughout the day.
DYAX: Good conviction trade. I could have definitely established the trade higher (the false break of $26 would have been perfect!!! But noticed the hold below $25.20 and got into position there. I basically started too large though - immediately 500 shares - I think this was a result of fomo from that fact that I should have been in about $0.50 or more higher.
This trade would have only been slightly profitable if I hadn't managed aggressively so pretty happy with that. Managed to rinse and repeat some of the shares.
It came out with an upgrade mid afternoon so I just covered more or less immediately. Great trading!
NDRM: $14.20 was a decent breakout spot on the daily. Chased a little bit, then when it confirmed hold (by big volume and retest) I got full size 500 shares, risk on over/under $14.20.
Sold 3/5s into resulting rally. Hindsight I should have sold all. Every big day, except for the enormous up day was a maximum of $1 so it was getting pretty overextended at $15. Tried back just a little at $14.50 but didn't work and got rid of it when $14.50 didn't hold.
LL: So I was just looking rollover my call options to a duration further out when the enormous midday pop happened. I rolled at 0.45 and they traded up to $1.90 at the peak of the pop... So that was kinda depressing! Now the news came out to be not specifically related to LL so I managed to get back in a call spread, but that definitely affected the way I traded it on an intraday basis.
So I started in long above vwap, just small but was looking for it to start to consolidate over/under vwap. Added some more when it started holding, but at this point I started to get less concerned about entries, which was basically the first sign that I was losing objectivity. Could really get back over vwap so I set a stoploss below 31.50 which turned out to be the exact bottom lol... So as it started gearing up I got long at vwap (which was a relative chase) and then got my final add when it was tightly consolidating below vwap (which was a lot better than original poor entries, risk so much tighter and better defined there). So my average ending up being vwap, whereas in reality it should have been much lower - this is particularly important to note because having traded LL a lot in the prior few days I know it has a tendency to drop out and fail annoyingly.
So I narrowly missed my order to sell half, and got stopped below $32... If I had the better average my sales for half would have been a lot earlier, and I would have been adding once the fake below $32 was confirmed, and it would have been a really really profitable trade.
As usual better really solid patient entries reduces risk, and can change a trade entirely!!!!
CL: Finally that brings to the oil trade. I have recorded this as a -$3000 trade because that's what it will be if I get stopped on the position (explanation on why I haven't completely just closed position below). The thing is that I could feel myself fatiguing so I was beginning to close off everything and call it a day and I decided this would be the last trade. Oil has presented some amazing opportunities to risk 10c-20c to make 50c-$1, but the key is really honing in and identifying those low risk spots to reflect your bias. As mentioned earlier, because of the volatility and leverage available, if you're trading poorly it really over exaggerates that.
I began to like oil long for late day strong momentum into the close, it was overextended but it was extremely consistent within the channel. So I established long at $50.17, not the bottom of the channel at 50.01... So purely just by getting back entry there's around $280 blown. Now naturally because that's where I should have entered (rather than where I now have to cut losses) I didn't exit.
So plan became exiting when below 50.00 held, which it did, but I was slow on the exit and exited at 49.80.
At this point it became a character change, so I was shorter term biased to the downside (doesn't mean you just willy nilly short idiot!!), so I also got short at 49.80, naturally it rallied back to over $50, and I got fomo think oh now it's going to squeeze into close, so flipped it into long at 50.10. Naturally it didn't squeeze and I was stubborn with cutting it. I set a stoploss and went to bed. So it turned out the stoploss was a day order, not a GTC order (gives you an idea of how fatigued I was), so I wasn't stopped.
So anyway getting up about 6 hours later I hadn't been stopped where I should have been, but the price stopped exactly where it should for the multi-day bullish case. So risking 10c stop now in, and holding for swing. This is a little misguided and not how you should be trading, but point being, spots for 10c risk are good RR opportunities on oil.
Back Account: +$715.
GBSN: Shorted as it became really really overextended. Funny cause I was comtemplating whether to establish at current price, or scale with final order $5.39 and that was the exact high...
Took off half at $5.00ish, then the rest at vwap. There will be serious opportunity on this tomorrow, risk based off highs.
Swing Trades: +$55.
AXN: Starting to get annoyed with lack of movement, but sooo toast on daily!!
GENE: Freaking annoyed about this, no shorts at IB or back account.
LL: Rolled options to a call spread for bigger duration.
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