Main Account: +$330. Pretty solid day in the end, cannot complain. Didn't quite top up account enough so only had a max drawdown of around $60-$100 (it seemed to fluctuate quite a bit as the day went on, which makes sense as a result of the large NZD balances I'm currently holding).
Today I hid my PnL completely and although I looked at it every now and again I did feel like it helped a little bit. Not only did it make me less emotionally related to the actual PnL but it also made me more alert and keeping track of it. Overall I feel like this is a good thing; BUT I think it is possible that one day I will have a position on, and then look at my PnL to realise that I am way out of the money on a position. Time will tell... To counter this I just need to place stop-losses hard stop-losses when I have too many positions on and be more mindful on what I'm currently in.
Started the day pretty focused and made some solid trades. Didn't really have a solid read on anything but managed to avoid getting beaten up (despite tiny max drawdown), so happy with that. One thing I particularly liked that I did early on was I read the tape really really well on PTCT and noticed it was holding pretty well, and thus closed my position quick smart rather than letting it ride.
As I started to lock in some profit, risk management somewhat slipped my mind and I drew-down a bit. There were a couple of reasons for this:
(1) Added and tightened stop-loss where I should have been taking profit (VMW). Remember that (especially midday) you don't want to have stop-losses too tight and so if I ever feel like I want to lock in profit but be greedy and hold full position size I just need to remember that it is possible during midday to get whipping out pretty easily and I am probably better off taking some profit and leaving stop-loss wide. As it happened in this case I would have been stopped out anyway.
(2) Want to avoid chasing somewhat midday. Trend trading midday can be a pretty "textbook" type setup but just need to be careful that not blindly shorting new lows and buying new highs. This was evident somewhat on CEMP, ZFGN, PTCT, PWR. Need to remember that most of the time should be shorting into resistance and buying into support within a trend, rather than shorting new lows and buying new highs (that is unless it is a really clean momentum breakout trade like NUGT and somewhat ZFGN was but that is a whole different setup). If I ever do put on a "momentum lot" it should only be about 1/3 size and should be taken off pretty quick (as a way of locking in profit and being able to not have to cover the other 2/3s).
(3) Was trading a bit too much size on things that weren't really working too well (and stop-loss a bit wide). Did a good job of avoiding this on the open, but then slipped as it moved away from the open. While I did think I had somewhat of a better read, there was no reason to be in the size that I was. Obviously I am talking about PTCT and CEMP. But in particular with PTCT I had actually cottoned onto the fact that is was a crowded short and so I didn't really wanna be shorting weakness with a bad average. Shorts that are crowded are more difficult; and while I was aware that it was crowded I didn't really alter my behaviour accordingly.
Was exhausted by about 2pm and decided to call it a day. I had wanted to pursue NUGT and ZFGN short for longer (basically until the close), and they would have yielded at least $150 each more, so pretty happy overall.
One thing I did really well was shorting WYNN. WYNN was over-extended to the upside, and I picked my prices really well and scalped it on the short side. That was really good patience and overall really happy with the trade. I also didn't try and push the trade too hard. I recognised that it was only a scalp against the predominant trend (as a large cap with fresh news I didn't expect it to reverse), compared to a low float piece of crap that may easily have marked the top. Also the time of day wasn't really suitable for a complete reversal.
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