Trading Review: 07-30-2015

Intraday Trading: +$228. First day trading really really small looking only to make $200 and then withdraw it. For the first day can't really complain too much; after all I met the goal and traded pretty solidly all over.
However, there were a bunch of things that need to pay attention to because they really let me down. The trades I did on the open were SHAK, FB, SGYP, RJET, and FB. Firstly, notice the accuracy of those trades. However, secondly and more importantly every single one of these trades were minimised. Each one had the potential to make me the $200 required for the day without any increased risk - all enormous movers and I was pretty onto it with direction.

Positives for the day:
(1) Incredible reads and trading on the open.
(2) Really solid low risk trades. Started in with 50 shares most of the time and worked around the position.

Negatives:
(1) Obviously something wasn't quite working after the open. Managed to keep losses small despite stepping in front of big up move in NFLX. I thin less price action trading after the open and more buying support shorting resistance type trading.
(2) Was a bit goal orientated on ITEK and covered at target for the day. It was a solid trade, but just a little focused on the $200.

Goals for tomorrow:
(1) Keep up the impressive, small position low risk, no worries missing a trade attitude. Really good stuff!

Back Account: +$62. Really disappointing. RJET was a high conviction short and should have been held until the end of the day but got impatient. Missed 20c on 600 shares. No biggie; except why would I cover a high conviction trade early, doesn't really make sense.
Also entry wasn't quite good enough.

Playbook Review: $MNOV 07-27-2015

Title: Gap and Crap, Float Rotation.

Strategy Description: A couple of key things here. This involves shorting on the first day so you need to be very careful about when and how much size you use to short. It is absolutely fine to get quite big size on the short, but only after it is below vwap post 10:30am.

Ideal Situations:
(1) Big Gap and trashy company.
(2) News Sub-Par.
(3) History of gap failures on the daily.
(4) Bigger float than other float rotation plays.

Execution:
(1) If feel confident about the play start into any morning parabolic but never get too much size here (say 1/4). I didn't start into this one because it was doing enormous volume and that scared me.
(2) There is a chance that it can retest somewhere near the high. Especially pre 11am; so should be prepared for that. Should load up very large if that occurs naturally.
(3) Once clearly below vwap should be trying to get short size on pops with a stop basically around vwapish with an aim to cover half to pay self on the way down; and hold the rest until end of day, or when it reaches some really far out target.

Trading Review: 07-27-2015

Intraday Trading: -$394. Too stubborn on FB and didn't stop out when I should have. Ended up stopping out at relative lows (effectively because I had to). Had I stopped myself earlier I could have of course re-entered; or at least lost less!
Now the FB options were actually accidentally; but basically I realised I hadn't really planned the position very well and was oversized, instead of closing immediately I tried to ride them out. Dumb! Cut trades that not meant to be in immediately.

Swing Trades: -$768.

Back Account: +$97. This was really disappointing. Effectively was trying to anticipate, and with full size on ITEK and could be called a boredom trade. Such a shame to give back after such a solid well executed winner on MNOV (playbook review posted).

Playbook Review: $ITEK 07-27-2015

Title: Small Cap Pop Through Resistance Met with Seller

Note: This isn't really a playbook play; but more a note about how these small caps with volume behave. I have a tendency to overreact to new highs on stocks so it's good to get this behaviour down on paper and watch aggressively for it.
On this stock it may not be part of a playbook play; however it can easily be used to get a really nice entry on a bloated small cap stock.

Strategy Description: There are a lot of games on these float rotation stocks, and this is probably the biggest one where a big seller will use a pop to new highs to offload a lot of inventory. Basically just a false break except that it's extremely common on these type of stocks.

The stock should have run a bit into the resistance (i.e. not coiling below it) and then as it makes a new high there should be a big pop in volume and see a big offer get filled and a snap back. If you're looking for a short this is the ideal spot to get short with low risk.

Trading/Weekly Review: 07-24-2015

Intraday Trading: - $2664. Made the same mistake that have made all week. Let bias get in the way of picking my prices and starting in small. Ended up getting stopped at relative peak.
Got quite long biased and was max size right below resistance. How silly is that!!
This also sums up my week...

Swing Trades: +$240.

Back Account: -$2664.

Playbook Review: $ITEK 07-23-2015

Title: Significant Gap Up, Low Float Rotation Day 1

Strategy Description: Particular interesting statistics/facts of this low float:
- Recent IPO.
- Trades extremely thin (like a low float) but mixed float numbers out there. One has 30m, another has 4m.
- Very easy to borrow all day!
- In addition to the mornings new it had significant upgrades throughout the day; aka continuous positive news flow (in the form of upgrades) contributing to a great trend. At the time I didn't really consider this significant, but it is also significant.

There's a couple of important nuances to a significant gap up compared to a small gap up type of thing. A significant gap up is relatively unlikely to be a gap and go; instead a consolidation is required to ensure that profit takers etc aren't going to drive it down. Thus shorting any opening pops (against say the premarket high) is actually a very viable strategy. If the gap is still holding post 10am and volume hasn't really dropped over and it is above vwap (and holds above) then we have business!

One particular possible early tell, and a time to begin accumulating a position on dips is a "reclaim" this is when it drops the low/support but immediately reclaims and doesn't go back below. This is not a good place to put stop-loss if have already started in! This is also why you need to start in small because you need to have a wide enough stop-loss to allow for this.

From here, provided it holds trend you want to add on dips. When it makes a new high is the high probability entry; however, remember that you don't even have to go full size here (if missed earlier entries and don't want to enter all at once). We expect a float rotation stock to close somewhere near the highs. Therefore; there is no harm in adding to the position on the way up and getting full size quite a wee way above the breakout.

Position management:
- It is essential to hold about 1/3 of the position literally as long as possible! (i.e basically plan to hold until the end of the day). The stock going parabolic is not a reason to sell here (unlike normal trading).
- The remaining 2/3s of position should be scaled out very evenly. There is a lot of games played on the extremely low time-frames on these stocks. By scaling out even (e.g. 100 shares every 20c) you ensure that it's difficult to be gamed, and you ensure that you have always sold some into strength, putting you in position of reloading on a dip and/or consolidation.

Notes:
- It's day 1. Don't even bother shorting! Once the float rotation upward momentum is confirmed (i.e. I'm not talking about the morning) there is no point shorting until tomorrow. I made that mistake with this one. I actually nailed the highest volume bar on the m2... But that wasn't a good enough parabolic, in fact it barely pulled back from there.
- As the price action starts to speed up and the range gets bigger there is an enormous edge in providing liquidity (say compared to the morning when the price action was a lot tighter).
- It's day 1. Buying washouts (aka new relative lows) has an edge as everyone is trying to cover their shorts. Use these spots to get excellent (small) entries/re-entries.

Daily:

Chart for the Morning:

Chart for the Day:

Trading Review: 07-23-2015

Intraday Trading: -$937. Really ****ing pissed off about today. Was all over the place and after completely under capitalised on the opportunity. To top it off, the mistakes I made were the ones that I said I was going to work on yesterday.... That is, I needed to work on sizing in slowly and with favourable entries and wide stop-losses and then add as it moves in favour. I nailed the first two trades of the day this way; that is, short ITEK and short ITEK, but after some craziness I slipped. The most frustrating thing is that given the opportunity that was available it easily cost me >2k... Was oversized in ITEK and stopped near lows twice, CANF was obviously a chase and oversized, CMG I was late to the trade thesis (risk too wide and hard to control), and finally AMZN in after hours I was stopped roughly where I should have been entering and it moved as expected afterwards. Common theme is as usual patience and of course somewhat control, probably a result of trading decent size and getting fomo somewhat on ITEK.
Hopefully will be some more float rotators coming up and can overall maintain a bit of composure on them!

Positives:
(1) Incredible read on ITEK. Identified very early on that it had potential as massive float rotator + had exactly the right read shorting it in the morning despite this bias. I had every move literally nailed (except a short parabolic that I cut around $12 - and even then I narrowly missed fills on covers).
(2) Traded SNDK very well.  First I recognised the strength and opted to short at the second resistance rather than first. Then I had some pretty decent size on the short, and recognised the strength and trimmed to half quickly. Loss could have been a lot worse on this. Also narrowly missed covers as was trying to cover more of short. Perfect example of picking spots for entries (unlike what I did on ITEK); in that I was dead wrong on bias, but with the solid entry and managed to lock in some profit.

Negatives:
(1) Sizing in too quick against the trend.
(2) Poor patience for entries.

Swing Trades: +$399. A few new swing trades today. Am continuing with the theme of expressing ideas via options, the new position here being some out of the money puts after it failed to hold a new all time high.
FIT - For me it's still a high conviction long so long as it holds above $45, but I do express concern because a good short seller is bearish biased on it... But I just can't see it.
WBAI - Volatility contraction, a move down will be expansion and typical trend signal. I need to get a fill very quickly back to full size on these put options. Yes it will just follow Chinese stocks but it is one of the nastiest Chinese stocks. Officially a downtrend on daily now so I will get a big bigger than previous position.

Back Account: +$3074.

Trading Review: 07-22-15

Intraday Trading: -$1291. Overall gave away too much profit for the day. However, it should be noted that I experienced about $400 slippage on getting stopped on my oil trade. I was unaware there was numbers coming out. This isn't usually a mistake I make, so happy enough about it.

XOMA should have been a really big trade with adds etc but didn't take it because lost too much money on XOMA premarket, and had oil trade on (so margin was in commodities account). Similar with LOCK.

Positives: Not a huge amount of positives for the day except that I pulled off the usual market gap down day trades pretty well!

Negatives:
(1) Didn't get the right mix between starting small with wide stop-loss and then getting adds and trailing.
(2) Had a misunderstanding of forces behind DUST. Could have been a really big trade on the short side, plus had I realised sooner I could have joined the trend quicker. Could have been quite a decent trade.
(3) Took a decent loss on XOMA on a $1 play because was trying to hard to hold for flush of $1...

For tomorrow, really focus on getting the right entry and balance between starting into a position, stop-loss and then adds.

Swing Trades: -$1080.

Back Account: -$402. This is just normal intraday trades. Wasn't any shorts here I didn't have access to on main account.

Playbook Review: $ANAC 07-21-2015

Title: Exhaustion Gap Up

Strategy Description: Stock is in a strong uptrend, ideally quite parabolic. Come in the morning and it's gapping up; can be fluff news or even substantial news (remember it has been parabolic on daily), or no news and just a simple pattern. In this case the company picked up an upgrade from Goldman and was gapping up nearly 1ATR (little bit ridiculous!).

Now the problem is you really have to step in front of the price action and just short the shit out of it. The strategy for entry is to use size to your advantage and be offering on the way up scaling. Then as the top confirms add size against the peak. In this case can see it did have an opening spike; so you want to be offering so that you are at max size about 1ATR from the opening print (this means on a small spike you will be about 1/4-1/2 size).

This can easily turn into the day it has a large pull so you want to hold a little bit and trail stop-loss for that. However; you should be covering most into a gap fill/ on the way down, because after all the stock is within a strong uptrend and if it does downtrend all day will likely be offered an opportunity to reshort.

Daily:

Intraday:

Trading Review: 07-21-2015

Intraday Trading: +$537. Have a pretty bad cold at the moment so only traded half the day. Probably do the same again tomorrow. Much better day today, it is pretty visible in the accuracy of trades.
Positives:
(1) Much better with entry selection. This was particularly helpful with IBM where waiting for significant pop on the open stopped me from being stopped out (although I was nearly stopped).
(2) For the most part used size to my advantage. Added to winners etc.
(3) Bit more selective about my trades as well. A lot more patience.

Negatives:
(1) Unsure if this was a mistake or not but could have had much better entries on DUST and LXK by buying a couple of cents from the low (instead of anticipating?) i.e. potentially still work to do on entry selection. I think the key point here is that both DUST and LXK were both very weak and I jumped on board long a little quickly; where because they were weak I needed to be more patient for entry.
(2) Gave back too much on DUST (was up $400 locked in) but got a full position size where it should have been starter.
(3) Had a very small position on ANAC and got greedy on my cover, where I should have been looking to cover early because it was a small position. This caused me to cover where I should have been re-shorting and miss out on locking in an additional ~150.


Swing Trades: +$575.One very obvious mistake here. I should have managed some AXPW and looked to rebuy it lower when I was up decently on it.
Really solid swing trading again today though. The idea to increase long exposure to FIT is excellent (and clearly already working).
Narrowly avoided adding to MCPIQ further before it spiked in the morning. Will look to offload into a push and reload lower again. Trade working exactly as expected so I should be looking to increase my exposure.

Playbook Review: $FIT 07-20-2015

Title: Buying annoying flush on strong stock.

Strategy Description: This play is really handy when typical support fails and not sure where to begin buying again. In this case I was long and stopped on new low; so adopting this strategy would have worked excellently.
Bigger picture bias for the stock should be quite strong (because you have to step in front of an annoyingly inconsistent downmove).
Use the ATR and next level of support to develop a range that you intend to stop yourself out of. E.G. Approximately 2x ATR and a support level around that zone. Scale into a long based on that zone.
When the stock finally bounces it should be quite an aggressive bounce when you consider that it is overextended and flushed to the downside. So you should be aggressively buying dips and adding to position once the low can be used as the new stop-loss.
This is the kind of trade that can easily retrace the entire down move because it is such a strong stock.
As always sell pops and recycle the position somewhat.
Should be adding to the position until it has regained vwap and from there scaling out.

Trading Review: 07-20-2015

Am back with renewed energy and motivation towards trading. Frustration has been building so it was good to take some time to refocus.

Intraday Trading: -$629. Today was pretty much indicative of the problems I have been having that lead to the lack of focus/motivation. Additionally there were some moves that I was spot on with VLTC which faded $3 a share (30%) and I didn't have any shares to short. I would have loved to short this with size.
I have a couple of thoughts about how to pick up the quality of my trading which I won't elaborate on here. But the general jist is to increase my probability of success with trades (small and scale in, take profit immediately), then on a small portion of trades (say 10-20%) focus on riding the underlying wave and adding to winners to generate bigger winners. I will then break this down into daily goals to focus on each day and build solid habits.
For tomorrow the goal is to be profitable on an intraday basis and therefore high probability of success. This will be achieved by focusing and excellent entries and taking profits immediately. I WILL NOT PUSH ANY POSITIONS FOR A BIGGER MOVE.

Today's mistakes:
(1) Losses on individual stocks was too large.
(2) Too reactive to small price moves.
(3) Got size on too quickly and was pushing size a little when it wasn't working "perfectly".
(4) Not selective enough with setups.

Today's positives:
(1) Stopped myself out excellently. Had some size on despite losses on individual stocks being larger than I want, I did control the size of losses well. (i.e. could have been a lot worse).

Swing Trades: -$26. Am up A LOT on my swing trades for this month. From what I can tell (as an early observation) this is a result of two things: (1) Plenty of opportunities, (2) Using options to take swing ideas and therefore being able to take more swing ideas because it is tying up less buying power. Will look to continue this going forward.

Monthly Review: June 2015

Intraday Trading: +$2232.

Swing Trades: -$1562.

Back Account: -$5823.

FX PnL: +$735.

The month can basically be broken down into two parts. The first part of the month I was still trading actively on back account with size and gave away quite a bit of money. The second half of the month I was back on my main account trading like normal.
I'm really happy overall with the way I traded on my main account this month. For the most part kept things disciplined and taking really solid high probability setups. However, this did begin to slip a little so will pull size back to minimise emotion and look to get back on the horse a little bit.
Am disappointed with my swing trading PnL, it isn't currently my main focus so it should be that large and it should almost certainly be positive, so will have to watch that this month and only take the best swing setups.

Trading Review: 07-02-2015

Intraday Trading: -$1014.

Swing Trades: +$287.

Another poor day of trading all over the place. I'm actually doing this review a couple of days later so little annoying to not specifically recall any examples. However I do remember how solid the EBAY trade was!
In general, not selective enough, too much size, size too early, leading to too many emotions I think probably sums it up nicely.

Trading Review: 07-01-2015

Intraday Trading: +$437. Really really poor day. Had a solid morning nailing the ACE short with decent size (was up $700) then lost it on a wide stop and too much size on FIT, then revenge traded (had 5k shares in WPCS).
Oddly enough I actually had reasonable patience today, but missed two big trades (ADXS and ALDR) which sent me on tilt I think...
Have started using Tradervue journal (screenshot attached) to work through each individual trade. Will see how it pans out after a month or two.

Swing Trades: -$57.