New Addition to Review

Am going to begin including a cumulative chart of my pnl to my reviews.

Reason for this is because every time my pnl goes "parabolic" I tend to lose focus/blow/lose consistency/whatever.

I think monitoring it as a gauge for my trading confidence will be helpful. This is in-line with this: http://www.investorsunderground.com/img/UDOPUCKWHI.png

Trading Review: 12-05-2016

Gross PnL: -$167.

Net PnL: -$211.

Were stops set before every entry? Yes.
Did I break max size? No.
Did I keep to my daily routine? Yes.

Before get into review. Frustratingly there was an unexpected fee in my account so need to wait at least a week before I can fund account and get to trading again.

Sooo pretty weird day. Definitely over-traded but not to the extent it would appear (based on number of tickers). If I was to sum up the day I would say it was experimentation with focusing on tight stops and not necessarily a direct focus on trade ideas. I actually avoided a "gimme" trade that I would usually take (short OPTT) because I felt that it was going to be hard to enter a stop-loss. I need to work on this, so I will be doing a playbook trade on it. Usually that's probably one of the only trades I would have made on the day, and it would have been a quiet day.

Having extremely good risk-reward on trades nearly salvaged the day. However, taking profits when I had them would have definitely salvaged the day (assuming avoided shitty DUST trade). The size of losses is somewhat misleading as it includes multiple trades. For example my first REN trade I was risking $20 and I locked in exactly $100.

Absolute WORST trade(s) of the day was DUST. It completely goes against my methodology to try and fade that kind of move. There was 3 losing trades for around $30 each. NDRM on the long side was also somewhat avoidable.

Lessons:
(1) Take profits quickly. This is a big component of consistency.
(2) Stick to methodology. If I am going to buy the breakout to a new high it had better be cleanest fucking ascending triangle you've ever seen. More on this below:

Why stick to methodology?
So many examples today of when the methodology would have come in handy. I will go through thoughts above the pictures of the charts.
Today I thought that the market would have an uptrend day. So what I was trying to do; was position myself in the strongest stocks to catch an all-day trend. This is pretty good thought process. The problem is that the trend has to be pretty fucking clean, and the news catch some people off guard (e.g. create a consistent buyer) for buying new highs to work. Note that to some extent taking profits quickly on breakouts can negate this "fakeout" effect.

DUST: 3 Dumbest Trades of the Day

 EXEL: Two attempts at a long trade here. Was looking for roughly an ATR move up; and potentially an all day trend. Am okay with the trade idea but believe the first long attempt was a mistake. And that to not take some profits into the high was probably a mistake as well.

 FB: This is prime example of sticking to methodology. What a super clean bounce off vwap.

MCD: Super happy with the way I traded this. Yes it eventually got over vwap, but I was patient for the prices/risk-reward I wanted.
I ditched it when I wasn't happy with the price action.

 NDRM: Yeah just not super happy with this in general. Was up massively and hadn't consolidated; so not need to visit on the long side. Extremely lucky not to get stopped on the short as well.

 NFLX: Another perfect sign of how I should have followed methodology. Pretty textbook structurally below that morning range. Then a retest and rejection from the range (which I got stopped on where I should have been entering); then not taking profits quickly led to me being stopped on second attempt; where a re-entry would have been ideal.

 NKE: Semi lucky with this one; but entry closer to vwap than say FB so more consistent with methodology than FB.

 OPTT: This is the one I would have usually traded and been done for the day. Although on the quicker side of thing. The play would have been to short into the premarket high, allowing enough space for a stuff. So short 3.99, stop 4.20 would have been a nice trade.

 REN: Great trade catching it near the lows. Am disappointed I didn't flip it short against the highs; which I nearly did but narrowly missed entry. Am somewhat disappointed with my long after the filing news; which I initiated without any sort of sign of strength.

 SINA: Although one of my more positive trades for the day. I don't think it was a very good trade. I actually wanted it long from near the lows but didn't catch it.

 UA: Yeah it never gave the upmove I wanted. But you can see I got stopped at a good entry point. Should have only been one losing trade not two.