Trading Review: 05-30-2017

Gross PnL: -$115.

Net PnL: -$186. $19 in borrows.

Was such a good day to begin with. Not much was happening and I was so incredibly patient waiting for trades.
Equally impressive was how I was okay with missing the short on PTGX near the high because the range was so much.
All stops were taken and clearly no big losses. Got unlucky with some stops, but standby the trades.

Essentially the day was determined by the fact that I entered short PTGX near the lows, this really ruined the day! Causing a $120 stop, then re-entry. Where I probably would have just made money overall; entering around where I was stopped. The cause of the frustration was that I got a partial fill of 12 shares where I had tried to enter.. And so despite an incredibly patient/disciplined beginning of the day; a moments lack of patience ruined the day.
Funny thing is that I even knew I had to get the add off quickly, so I put an order to cover slightly lower and just missed.

Weekly Review: 05-28-2017

Net PnL: +130.

Not going to post yearly pnl chart cause it makes me feel a tad sick lol...

But 4/5 positive days this week, and a real step forward. Each weekly review for the past wee while has said this... So nice to finally have results that back this up.

Big step forward this week was placing the stop-losses at entry. Something I've tried so many times before without any impact, but it seems at the moment it's exactly what I needed.

Trading Review: 05-26-2017

Gross PnL: +$142.

Net PnL: +$110. $11 in borrows.

Hadn't intended to trade today, but found I had the time and was in the right psych to trade.

Really solid day, not a huge amount worked, and SPI gave me a lot more trouble than anticipated. But got done what I needed to get done.

SNAP probably the best trade. The idea didn't actually work, but executed with perfection. You can see from the chart I waited for the new low to add; then sold the pop because it gave more trouble than anticipated.. Then eventually ditched it into vwap because 10:30 was rolling around.

Trading Review: 05-25-2017

Gross PnL: -$293.

Net PnL: -$315. $7 in borrow fees.

Tough day, definitely some mistakes and was perhaps a bit too antsy to get the trade on.

Took my stops, and was patient and avoided a stock that had significant range because I couldn't get risk under control. So solid day really.

Mistakes (bear in mind these are all small mistakes):
(1) Let myself draw-down too much too early. A sub-goal is to never hit max drawdown in the first hour, because then you can place afternoon trades with different mindset.
(2) I traded what I saw on GLYC, but I know the personality of the stock; and needed to incorporate that. Arguably it traded as it's personality suggests it should.
(3) Entered full size straight away.
(4) Kinda had the wrong mindset where I added to the winner long on GLYC - want to be prepared for that "fuck you" move, which is what it gave LOL.

Trading Review: 05-24-2017

Gross PnL: +$182.

Net PnL: +$134. $7 in borrows.

Bit of a piss poor review, not really allowing enough time to do it; and doing it too late.

However, what another incredible day! All stops were in place at entry and watched plenty of trades go without me, but caught a couple that mattered. This patience/lack of fomo was particular good for GLYC because it did some weird moves, so I nailed the proper entry instead of trying to trend it.

Was up quite a bit more, but drewdown a bit on INO (cause it got an upgrade) and GLYC cause narrowly missed a cover so decided to call it a day.

Trading Review: 05-23-2017

Gross PnL: +$233.

Net PnL: +$180. $14 in borrows.

Had all stops in place at entry, which was great. Think it slowed me down a bit as well which was nice.

Absolutely incredible day, traded soo well! Really good patience for entry, and happy/comfortable to miss a couple of trades. Also obviously maximised a couple which is really nice to see. Important to note that they were maximised by taking profit and re-establishing position.

Was up nearly $500 at one point, but then took 3 losses in a row (which I think was just unlucky); so called it a day.

Other thing worth noting is that I wanted to short TTWO higher, on that first massive move lower, but couldn't work out where to place stop-loss. Need-less to say I was pretty disappointed when I missed that big move; but as can be seen I absolutely nailed the retest. Point is, I didn't even miss out on any money by being patient; I still got my position on!

Trading Review: 05-22-2017

Gross PnL: +$75.

Net PnL: +$21. Was $16 in borrows. This seems odd to me, cause I didn't churn up much commission; but w/e.

Great day. Can't fault it. Stops were in place, each trade was well planned.

Platform was lagging, and wanted to lock in the feeling of a solid day so ended it early.

Trading Review: 05-19-2017

Net PnL: -$300.

Today felt like more of the same. GLYC never really gave clean short signals where I was trading it, there was a few minor tactical opportunities but they would have required patience. That being said, I did correctly anticipate them... So more of the same shit today.

Also discovered a massive lag when placing stop order... So going to have to place them before entry, which actually may work to my favour planning the trade more etc as well.

One good trade, one good trade, one good trade... Really need to focus on this mantra...

Trading Review: 05-16-2017

Gross PnL: -$1571.

Net PnL: ~ -$1630. Didn't take note of exact figure, but go with this, probably a slight exaggeration.

Sitting there looking at SINA with a thought process like this:
(1) Probably want to be prepared for a new high, so I'll wait to short at the high or high. Next minute I short at poor price.
(2) Okay here comes the new high - it makes a nice wee wick into new high and pulls in. With good entry I would have been covering at least half into washes here.
(3) Okay now it shouldn't make a new high, but it's tightly consolidating at the high so I probably ditch the trade for a sizeable loss.
(4) Makes the new high - at this stage I think it's confirming the uptrend and could easily go to 102... Naturally that's what it does.

So why didn't I stop, why did I enter early?
(1) Proximity to PDT encouraged me to be stubborn because don't want to topup account.
(2) Enter early I think is performance anxiety.
(3) Lack of hard stop entered into marketplace.

WB was much the same.

Going forward I think clear solution is to have stops in place upon entry. Initially I wasn't doing this because it used to be the case that the buying power the stop tied up got in the way... But I'm not doing any size at the moment, so that won't be the case.
Side note: The massive lag upon doing stop order that I've been experiencing means it needs to be in place before entry order.

Side note about today. Absolutely nailed SNAP. Exactly how I want to be trading. Even had good patience for reshort.

Trading Review: 05-15-2017

Gross PnL: -$197.

Net PnL: -$246. $5 in borrows.

As expected DRYS gapped down, so bit of a shame there; but no worries really; not huge magnitude.

Worth putting this in bold: My pre-10:30am vwap trades were simply headaches on real stocks. IONS, TRVG, and to some extent TTD.
Compare these to TGT where I focused on getting the good re-entry which was near the low of day.

Did a really good job of taking stops today though. Look at TRVG, IONS, and DRYS. Even TTD continued on to the low of day.

IONS would have been a small loser if I had traded it correctly. Long at 43.40ish, then add at 42.80ish. Flip out half at even cause it gave trouble at 43.10-.2. Worth noting that 43.40 is a pretty high price still - so very realistic if I wasn't being patient.

After seeing a bunch of stocks choppy today vs past few days where they have generally rallied pretty hard. Was a good reminder why I mean revert trade, despite there actually being some decent trends today.

Weekly Review: 05-13-2017

Net PnL: +$28.

PnL for year still on that really nasty grind lower. But with the adjustment back to "normal" style is the previous profit nodes really worth considering? We shall see anyway. It's starting to get to quick a figure, and the consistency of the move down suggest I'm throwing my money away.
So far since adjustment am down a little bit, including what could be considered an adjustment period.

Have also had two trades where the range was bigger than expected and really caused me grief; as the price action was sort of as expected (excluding range)... Despite drawing me down massively (2x max drawdown). I believe I responded okay to this; hanging on for a second and then setting stop above high... But this is one of these instances where:
(1) Having a good initial entry would reduce risk significantly.
(2) Having a hard stop would protect a little better.

These stocks were W and WRLD.

So this week I will get hard stops in on all trades upon entry; and see how that goes. It's the struggle I remember from when I initial traded with scaling. A lack of ability to adjust stops quickly and efficiently was a real drag. But with only two entries, maybe it's a little easier?
Anyway, remember not place stops too tight, and to try and be realistic about how far stocks can go.

Trading Review: 05-12-2017

Gross PnL: +$191. Note accidental DRYS o/n long which is counted.

Net PnL: +$157.

I had planned to skip this trading day and Uber, but Uber was quiet so I decided to trade. This time I left plenty of time for preparation. Either full day trading, or not at all. Definitely felt like I was in right mindset which was good.

Really happy with how I traded overall. Was a huge amount of opportunity but did a good job of identifying the opportunity there was. A big miss was that I had left an order in to short TCCO into resistance, but was long going into the resistance so missed a nice flip. Easy extra $50-$100.

TGT - I was long full size, and JWN was melting down so I ditched my long for a loss. I'm pretty comfortable with this risk aversion (can always get back in, which I did) but I feel that if I wanted to ditch it, the correct decision would have been to ditch half of it.
The trade idea ended up working out, but because I was skitchish on it I think I probably underperformed.

VRX - Initial entry wasn't good enough. Apart from that a good trade, and ditching it because it gave me grief on a washout.

NUGT - Initial entry not good enough. Think I would have caught a nice move if entry was a few cents better. All this being said, I had planned to short NUGT on a push higher, so I didn't really get the prices I wanted anyway; never enough to sink teeth into.

DRYS - Didn't get full chart for some reason, but pretty standard only a starter position on the short but caught a nice move. Then when it popped I got full size. Really happy with execution, despite getting squeezed out in the end.