Trading Review: 06-30-2015

Intraday Trading: +$666. Some really solid trading for the day. However, there were a couple of slipups which are outlined below.
First the positives:
- Today I really felt like I had an edge in my setups in terms of probability of success and risk-reward. Unlike the past couple of days.
- Had very few setups coming into the open that I liked but managed to nail some good trades by setting alerts etc.
- Was completely wrong in direction on FIT but made money shorting it. Excellent execution!

Now the slipups/negatives:
- Oversized (accidentally but didn't correct the moment I realised it) on JUNO and was a chase as well.
- After locking in approximately $1k on JUNO I tried a long setup with similar size, with the rationale being that I had already locked in profit on the stock. This is wrong given that I hadn't intended for it to be that way. Bad trading breeds bad trading...
- Didn't really capture the full move on XIV. Similar to yesterday I covered some immediately (as is always my plan) but then failed to hold a little for the real (expected) move. It went more or less straight down another $2 after I covered my last short in the morning. Similar when I got long after the double bottom I sold entire position into first pop and it moved another $1.50!

Swing Trades: +$51.

Trading Review: 06-29-2015

Intraday Trading: -$772. Really really annoyed about today for a couple of reasons. But first the positive was that I was quite patient overall. There was only really one slipup on DSKX where I didn't wait for the confirmation (which accounted for about $100 of the DSKX loss).
So today was one of those market down days so looked for stocks that gapped down that deserved a bounce. I had a bounce of ideas for this premarket and every single one worked. However, on the open I was mucking around with EURJPY so I only traded two setups with small size. Very annoying/disappointing. Should have crushed the open and made over $500. So this is one negative for today.
The other one seems to be a continuation of last weeks theme. Aside from the open I didn't have a whole lot of my trade ideas work. Now obviously a couple of trading sessions isn't enough to make a judgement on. But I may need to do some work on generating better trade ideas after the open.
And the other mistake was giving away too much on some individual stocks. Clearly had quite a bit of risk exposure on MCRB.

Swing Trades: +$907. Finally got the VIX move that I've been positioning for. Unfortunately was a little over hedged so only made a little bit. At the end of the week if all the options are exercised I will lock in $372 for the implementation of the strategy which obviously isn't enough (as I mentioned in another review it is more of an investment strategy but I am finishing off this campaign).

Weekly Review: 06-28-2015

Intraday Trading: +$1682.

Swing Trades: -$182.

Back Account: +$47.

Really really happy with the week. 4 positive days, decently positive overall and solid risk control for the most part all throughout the week. The negative day was a day where I had the complete wrong bias on a stock (while I could have been a little less biased and changed directional bias) that isn't a problem I usually have so I'm not too worried about it.

Recently I have been really focused on improving my level of patience and waiting for the prices (style of daily reviews reflects this) I want and that was much much better this week. It takes longer than a week to develop a habit so focus will continue to be on this.
However, later in the week it became obvious that I was focusing a little too much on patience and not focusing enough on methodology. There were times (CBLI comes to mind) where I simply wasn't prepared and had planned/visualised each scenario and so I was unprepared for how to trade the stock. So I mustn't slip up in this area.

Trading Review: 06-26-2015

Intraday Trading: +$744. Was a bit of a frustrating day overall. Very few of my ideas work and was lucky to come away positive from some solid momentum scalping into the close on MCRB.
The only thing is that I really don't want to get into the habit of looking for that style of trade because most of the time it isn't a good idea.
Was also up quite decently on CBLI but was trying to keep my size on so added back aggressively on dips. Was probably too focus on trying to capture the real move with size.
Biggest loser for the day was NKE where I had 3 trade ideas, one narrowly missed management (which would have made that individual trade breakeven), one narrowly missed entry which would have yielded about 3R, and one was stopped at low before it worked. So certainly not the end of the world.

Swing Trades: +$218.

Trading Review: 06-25-2015

Intraday Trading: +$914. Some really solid trading today. However completely mistraded CBLI and got back into the home run mentality.
Had some minor methodology slips and got too much size on breakouts and then didn't stop below the level (instead stopping where I originally would have). If I had been patient for the prices I wanted on CBLI I would have been up well over 1000 on the stock. However, like I say it wasn't so much of a patience issue as a methodology/lack of preparation issue.

Swing Trades: $341.

Trading Review: 06-24-2015

Intraday Trading: +$620. Really solid day overall and only one slip up on the impatience. That slipup was on NFLX where I chased the short into the g/r zone instead of getting it on a low risk pop, risk was also too wide... The cost of this was about slightly over $200, and a real shame because I had traded NFLX really well in the morning.
Was stopped on FIT at the low before a reasonable rally, but that's just the cost of doing business. Happy enough with methodology on it.
Was slightly oversized on DNRG but sold all the size into the first pop (which is nothing compared to how big of a move I caught eventually and I still sold way way too early).

Swing Trades: +$451. I chased the short call on UVXY a little bit because I wanted to get some short call exposure (instead of none). The big chase justified by the fact that after this week average will be sub $35, and so if exercised on that call it will simply be a breakeven exercise. Offering higher for the other one.

Trading Review: 06-23-2015

Intraday Trading: +$191. Included the overnight HRTX position in this.
Day was overall a bit better than prior days and regained some of my patience that I've been looking for. However, being impatient still cost me quite a bit today; I got size on too early on GDOT which caused me to get stopped out (costing $200) when the trade idea worked. The other time was on POZN which was just a poor trade (costing $103) and arguably I ruined my AMBA gains by being impatient (but I'm not including that, but was approximately $75).
So clearly still plenty to work one! Much better today though, improving on today again and I would be pretty happy with where I was at.

Swing Trades: -$618.

Trading Review: 06-22-2015

Intraday Trading: -$787. Note that the FIT trade is -116 not -236, I established it premarket and the PnL monitor rolled forward kinda weirdly.

Positives for the day:
- To be honest I don't really see any huge positives for the day. Certainly not the end of the world loss which is good.

Negatives/Things to work on:
- Sized in far too early on my plays (specifically the AMBA bounce play).
- Too biased on looking for bounce on AMBA rather than joining the downtrend (for which it offered plenty of opportunity throughout the day). In this sense it is remarkably similar to how I traded VLTC on the day it crashed. I think part of this over bias came from the fact that some of the people I listen to each day were trying to bounce it, so need to monitor this.
- Forgot to put a stop-loss in on FIT.
- Didn't execute very well on CYBR; was stopped where I should have been full size and getting some size off into pops (which would have worked before being stopped on remainder, which would have then been reloaded into next support level which held and gave a $3 bounce).

To sum up: I think I'm a little too jumpy after recent losses compared to the excellent trading I did earlier last week. This has created a little bit of impatience and fomo.

Swing Trades: -$574. Bit annoying but I obviously loaded up my short puts for UVXY a little early. Hindsight could have spaced them out better (one at $35 and one at $33 for example) but I think it's okay as an exercise on those two puts will give me an opportunity to increase long exposure with the VIX in the 12 range and give ability to fiddle round with my range of written calls a little early. First time on this "UVXY campaign" that I have been full size so it will be interesting.
End of this week (with exercise on the puts) my average will around $34.22 (or $34.66 excluding written puts that weren't exercised) (assuming covering the calls at 0.26-0.36) so I will be able to aggressively write some calls to get away from full size (and lock in some profit) and aim for better risk-reward on the other lots.
At this stage I would consider the whole campaign a little bit of a waste of time and more of an investment idea as part of a bigger portfolio, rather than part of a swing trading strategy (protect from 10% drawdown in market), but I will see it through until the end.

Back Account: +$47. Was curious to see how the FREE trade was done in commission given the number of shares and the tendency of Suretrader to overcharge on ECNs etc, so interesting to note. It seems I am on the $5 for 10,000 shares commission plan which is good to know, should I trade penny stocks again on the account.

Weekly Review 06-21-2015

Intraday Trading: +$11. Am actually really happy to come out positive on this. My gut feel was that it would be negative.

Swing Trades: +$599. Same as for intraday trading quite happy with this.

Back Account: -$734.

So there were some positives this week. I was coming off a losing streak coming into this week and I feel like I put in some really good work to get out of that mindset and focus more on the everyday grind. Something I did which helped a lot with this was starting in really small, adding on flush (as you get better risk-reward) and then setting limits to get out immediately and with a relatively small target. Exaggerating how small the target was helped with the grind mindset and gave some really good opportunities to rinse and repeat an idea.
Setting scale in orders etc seems to help with the patience as well!

Negatives:
- I slipped up a couple of times on the size idea, and it cost me big (basically one or two trades cost entire weeks profit).
- Interesting that this week the issues seemed to arise with size (which then made it difficult to control risk).

Trading Review: 06-15-2015

Main Account (Intraday): +$634. Pretty solid day overall but as the day wore on lost a little bit of selectivity and lost my psychological edge so I gave a little back via AET.
Market gapped down quite a bit so was a standard day of looking to pick up strong stocks on gap downs. Missed a tonne of trades again but as usual I am okay with this as it's not something I want to work on at this stage.
Much better accuracy today overall. Especially when you consider that AET and AMBA was undisciplined trading, and I was unlucky to be unprofitable on BLUE.

YOKU: I was a bit unlucky with this, I only got 50 shares, when I wanted about about 200-400! Trade idea was really solid, to be fair I probably should have been more aggressive in chasing it... But I was a bit slow to realise that I should have had higher conviction in the trade idea.
The trade idea was that YOKU was in a strong uptrend but had double toped and formed a 2 week range, today gapped below range floor and trade idea was to short the rejection from that range. Now the key here is that there was news to spark it... BABA launching a netflix type service (YOKU is "the netflix of china") so that's what turns it into a really high conviction trade.

POZN: Same idea as the pickup strong stocks on gap down except that I didn't have high conviction in it until it started forming the appropriate setup. So I bought around midday and sold into resulting spike.

OCN: Love the daily setup on this for a breakout over $11-$11.50, so I tried buying the dip. Tried it twice and didn't work. Interestingly I was stopped at the low both times so perhaps I could have gone a bit easier with my scaling in, and tried scaling in lower. While the trade still wouldn't have worked I wouldn't have lost as much money.
Either way for now it has been rejected from $11.

HRTX: Had exactly the right idea on this stock. Picked it up into support on the gap down and sold most into pop keeping 1/4 for a bigger move. The bigger move came but I tried to add on a breakout and was stopped on my trailed stoploss. A shame because it could have been quite a bit trade on net.

HQCL: This gapped down on it doing a reverse split which is just madness so I was looking for a squeeze. Had one undisciplined chase on it and then a good trade in the afternoon.

HIMX: Shorted as it found resistance at r/g. Tight stop, covered quickly as it wasn't working.

FOLD: Had a successful secondary so was looking to pick it up into support. Didn't really pop how I liked so ended up selling the rest (after initial risk cover).

BLUE: This was a classic buy the rumour sell the news setup that I completely donked out on. Could have caught at least a $10 move!
Began looking for the bounce using 178 and 175 as a guide. Still wasn't too sure if it was going to bounce... But had the right idea! Didn't take it off 175 unfortunately.

AXPW: Obviously trade of the day. Absolutely massive move!

Main Account (Swing): +$568.

Trading Review: 06-11-2015

Main Account Intraday: +$763. Really solid day. There were two slipups, one of which was impulsive and one was me not being quick enough to react to the tape (NUGN). But overall really solid figures and a good day trading.
Focus is on taking profits really quickly and really active management to promote consistency and avoid home run mentality.

PTBI: Only got execution on 200 out of the 500 shares I wanted short but good trade. Covered too early, but after management I only had 100 shares so it didn't seem worth the mental capital to hold.

NUGN: A shame I was bought in on my short two days ago, but that's just the way it is. In terms of a pump dumping this wasn't the cleanest thing in the world, you can see the multiple waves down, instead of just one straight massive wave down.
Plan was to look for the bounce in the 2s. Anything over 2 I considered it hadn't dumped enough to warrant a good bounce. So I nailed it and ended up with a 2.95 average and managed quickly as plan. But then I tried to size back in for a bigger bounce (the 50% retracement you normally see) and I basically put too much size on and was too slow (biased perhaps) while reading the tape to get an exit before it cracked and so I couldn't get an execution to cut my losses.
Ended up nailing the bounce from 2.60 but of course I was already in so couldn't do anything about it. Sold all into pop and recouped losses.

ANTH: This was the other mistake. Had a plan for it on the open which was to accumulate anywhere I could from 7.40-7.60 but the gap up ruined that idea.
So I chased it a bit when it was holding above yesterdays high ($7.60) chased at 7.70. Reality is that I should have been long from 7.60s and adding lower, risk on 7.50. Was just trying to get too cute.
Of course the idea worked out in the end.

FX Summary: 06-07-2015

EUR/USD: It seems reasonable to me to continue with bullish bias and the rest low around 1.08 could be considered a "higher low" and a slight speed up of the trend. However, the late day peak could be considered a "lower high". So basically it's middle of the range without exhibiting a clear bias. So long as it remains over 1.1000/1.1050 I favour buying dips... But there is no clear setup for me here YET.

EUR/JPY: Looking for a pullback to the breakout area from last week and then a hold. It is also coincidentally the 200MA. I usually wouldn't assign any significance to it, but as a confluence it is more important.
At this stage this move is a little large to chase without a solid consolidation here, however it could easily go to 150.00.

USD/JPY: Still the same as last week. Holding long, but think it is over-extended.

AUD/USD: Given the decent bounce from these levels last week I think it is still worth trying to fade this into 0.7550ish for a move potentially back to 80ish.

AUD/CAD: Possibly a nice alternative to AUDUSD setup and a nice hedge for short USDCAD. 94c is a serious level and a relatively range bounce pair so fading into 94c seems like a solid RR trade. It may not be a big moving pair over a large time frame... But its' average daily range is nearly 100 pips so it doesn't move quite big on an intraday basis.

USD/CAD: Still struggling to move higher and holding below the range so favour shorting heavily into 1.2550

CAD/JPY: Bit of a different one. But that 100.00 breakout looks nice so favour buying a dip towards 100.00 with a stoploss below. There doesn't appear to be a huge pickup in volatility though (except for during the breakout) so would prefer not to chase and get really solid good RR entry.

GBP/AUD: Short into 2.0050 again. Planing and simple. A consolidation here would put breakout in picture but so far I think it's too over-extended for that. If it pulls back to say 1.97 and then comes up on 2.0000 that would be a more reasonable breakout situation.

NZD/CHF: With the kiwi so weak recently it has opened up a trade based of the support from the CHF chaos earlier this year. Scale in based off 64c would be the plan.

Weekly Review: 06-07-2015

Back Account: -$4794.

Main Account (Swing): -$1216.

Main Account (Intraday): -$95.

Total: -$6105.

Didn't have a profitable day this week which is obviously disappointing... But it's not that bigger deal to be honest. Dropped sizes right back to very low and won't step up sizes again until I show consistency.

A couple of observations about this week:
(1) Solid job minimising magnitude of losses. On the back account the losses (Mon-Fri) went -2927, -1285, -244, -149, -189.
(2) Due to the losses I experienced a lack of confidence to jump in front of moves because I wanted to wait for "confirmation". This meant that I was chasing strength and weakness. Want to nip this habit in the butt quickly.
(3) I felt extremely fatigued this week for some reason. Quite often I would be up in the morning and then lapse discipline and/or make a poor trade later because I was tired. Have taken some steps in my personal life to help out with this. But should also consider napping halfway through the day.

FX Weekly Review: 06-07-2015

So the idea with this post is to go through the analysis posted last week on ideas generated and see how I performed and executed the plans throughout the week.

Brokerage: US$60.
+AU$2439.
-CAD387.
-YEN48,700.
-US$53.

EURUSD: Did exactly as expected! However I really struggled to execute on the plan because of the sudden movement of the break above 1.10. I didn't take the trade for this reason and for the reason that there was no obvious place to place the stop-loss. For the future, I think it may be worthwhile having a stop order in the system with smaller size and a 30 pip stop-loss (random, not assigned to level).
The same goes for EURJPY. The size of the moves would have each resulted in some really solid trades, even with reduced size.

GBP/JPY: I narrowly missed the short which came off a little bit. By no means a huge trade but I would have easily covered risk and then some if met. Tried the breakout over 190.00 but was narrowly stopped on a news wick. Really annoying breakout to try and get... But if you look at the daily that makes sense because of how overextended it already is.

USD/CAD: This worked out but it was difficult, hence the loss on the currency pair. 1.2550-1.2560 was the big level to watch but I used the hold lower around 1.2510-1.2520 to get short. This part of the trade was great! I then shorted the pop back to 1.2510 which worked out the first time but didn't work out the second time.
I think the lesson here is something that can go in the anti-playbook. The level created by the hold lower/higher within a trend is a minor level and the fact that it's being retested after a decent move lower is a bad sign and indicates a probability of testing the major level again.

GBP/AUD: Easily the trade of the week, including stock trades! Used 2.0000 as the spot to get short and applied size on the trade. It went immediately in my favour and I covered risk, and with about 65 pips in the money I held through news with sent it lower. Was holding a bit for around 193 or something so was stopped on that, but overall great.
The anti-playbook from USD.CAD appears here as well. On the day when GBP/AUD rallied about 300 pips I was stopped out roughly at the high, which is exactly where I should have been adding because 2.0050 was the major level not 2.0000. Good lesson reoccurring.

Trading Review: 06-03-2015

Main Account (Swing): -$551. Managed to get some shares on the pump and dump NUGN. It's a bit early but has been incredibly hard to get borrows so I think it's worth it getting in early. Based on how many times it has gone green to red and then been saved I expect there are quite a few shorts and it has room to squeeze up to $4.50+. I am prepared to add another 3000 shares (if I can get borrows) if it manages to get to just under $5. If that happens it will put quite a bit of pressure on... But given that it's a pump obviously a high probability.

Back Account: -$244. Much better day in terms of discipline and controlling risk but I still let it get a bit away from me. I was also still lacking the conviction to jump in front of moves. If I am concerned about jumping in front of moves just need to use smaller size.
Today I attempted to tweet all my trades/ideas... But it was a bit much at least on the open. However, after the open I think it worked quite well, so I will continue to do that.
Woke up like an absolute log and felt like a log throughout the entire morning so went to bed after 11am EST.

Trading Review: 06-02-2015

Main Account (Intraday): +$205.

Main Account (Swing): +$186.

Back Account: -$1285.

Another disappointing day. The setups were there in general but didn't really get them in a solid fashion. Again too much chasing (reacting too much to really short term price action), overtrading (by which I mean a lack of conviction) and a lack of confidence in putting positions on (waiting for "confirmation" but just ending up chasing).
I was a lot better with controlled losses etc though.
Was thinking about it, based on the too much chasing and the lack of confidence putting positions on... I think a possible solution to getting the confidence back is to only short at resistance and long at support. Instead of trying to look for confirmation and getting tricky about it.
Back account is now quite low which suits me fine because it will ensure I keep size down.

EKSO: Really one of the only solid trades for the day. Took it with the main account because back account didn't have access to otcs. Just a typical fraud report combined with OTC bounce play. Nailed the bottom, was faked out of last 1/3 of position before the move but that's okay. Possibly could have considered rebuying.

Trading Review: 06-01-2015

Back Account: -$2927. Another really poor day. Far too much lack of patience, fomo, controlling of risk, and lack of conviction in trades. Additionally have been hesitating to get into a trade waiting for "confirmation" and of course miss the trade.
Not quite the start I wanted to the month.
For tomorrow goals are:
(1) Control risk. Do not lose more than $200 on a single trade. Even if I really like a trade, provide liquidity and start into the trade smaller.
(2) Take profit quickly to ensure profits are locked in. Want to maximise probability of having a positive day.

FX Summary: 06-01-2015

EUR/USD: Daily FX SSI is -1.83. The recent down move has probably been the most concerning for my bias that the EURUSD has bottomed for the medium term. A retest of the 1.05 area, while would present a good short term opportunity for buying support would probably invalidate the possibility of a medium term bottom.
1.10-1.11 is a very significant level back over would present a continuation of the uptrend and give a buying opportunity with a stop-loss below.
Buying/Shorting a breakout from Mondays range and closing position on Friday has an edge at the moment, so I am happy to join this long should that setup occur, particularly if it involves the 1.10 level.

EUR/JPY: DailyFX SSI is -1.82. This is an obvious choice for long if I continue to ride the USD/JPY trend long, and am still long biased on EUR/USD. The move off the lows with little retracement (roughly a 35% retracement, versus the EURUSD pulling back about 60%) is indicative of strength and EUR/JPY is a very trendy pair. Unfortunately the consolidation isn't tight enough to provide a low risk entry buying the breakout without getting a little more detailed. So will use a similar strategy buying breakout of Monday's range, OR
buying a dip towards 133.50.

USD/JPY: Am still long 1/10th of a position on this. While I think it is getting over-extended I will hold the 1/10th until it is stopped out below 122, or for at least another week.
I would like to re-buy. But to rebuy I would need to see 122 hold on a retest or further consolidation here.

GBP.JPY: 190 is a serious level here and has run a long way into the level so due for a pull-back, perhaps sub 188 but plenty of room to 182-185. A pullback to say 188 and then grind up to 190 would setup VERY nicely for a breakout... But it needs more time to setup.
Looking at the weekly chart you can see the positive autocorrelation is very strong at the moment (on a weekly basis) so I don't really want to fight the trend and short against 190... But I think the RR favours a short into 190, stop either above 190 or above 190.50 for a move to 185-188 and holding period of roughly 3 weeks.
A nice hedge for any long EURJPY or USDJPY long.

AUD.USD: Trend is definitely down... But it hasn't set up for a continuation and when you look at the magnitude of the move it is probably due for a move up, even just to 79c. To me it's a better setup to the NZDUSD long.

USD/CAD: A basic breakdown from range and then re-enter range and get rejected from range type of setup. The SSI is -1.5 which I don't like, but I like the way it has failed to get back within the range so far, and I like how it was really strong despite oil not really being that strong. Just got executed on short at 1.2489, stoploss 1.2531.

GBP/AUD: Another short GBP long AUD setup. Looking to get a low risk short into 2.0000 a very significant level, catch a move back to 1.9750 or lower.