Half Year Or More Off: Things to Note

Taking at least half a year off stock trading. Am finding crypto-currency easy by comparison to stock trading; so thought process is that I should just pursue the easier avenue. If I was as good at crypto trading, as I am at stock trading I would be absolutely crushing it. So that's the goal.

To be honest it's probably well overdue - as have been noting that trend for a while now.

I enjoy stock trading, and have developed domain expertise in it - so I will likely return at some point in the future. For the last 9 months or so I have had my best trading yet. Net PnL definitely doesn't reflect how well I've been trading. But for now, while crypto is easy I should be pushing it there; and it has more friendly hours for a NZ resident.

Good idea to think about the conditions that I will return to stock trading:
(1) Crypto market dries up.
(2) Stock market crashes 2008 style. I should excel in an environment like that. This will also help allocate a longer term portfolio, which is something I want to do in a crash.
(3) Another possibility is that I return to stock trading as a "swing trader". Idea being that I made it in crypto and just looking for another avenue.

Finally wanted to note some things about my process that I will likely forget:
(1) warriortrading.com a great contrarian indicator for low floats. Have had some amazing shorts by shorting the blatant pumps there.
(2) For stocks in play, stocktwits trending list is great.
(3) stocktraders.net great free website with a chat-room full of quality and/or learning traders.

Finally I am well aware that the same psych problems likely end up showing up in crypto. So will continue to work on them of course.

Trading Review: 05-11-2018

Gross PnL: -$17,563.

Net PnL: -$18,064. $347 in borrows.

Just embarrassing trading today. Zero reason to keep adding to HEAR short, and naturally got punished for holding it far too long by eating it with slippage at the highs. No difference though, cause the fault was in letting it get that far. Stop should have been in the 11s. Kept adding, and narrowly missing covers. The stupid thing of course is that, a random price drop (thus meeting covers) would have saved this blowup - that's terrible trading.

Some other really good trades today and took a couple of stops nicely before the blowup as well.

Trading Review: 05-10-2018

Gross PnL: +$940.

Net PnL: +$689. $193 in borrows.

Good solid day, with some good trading. Was a little bit late to take the original stop on HEAR, but still took it where I needed to; and had the right mindset going into it (was looking to cover down as I recognised the strength).
This mindset prevailed if you look at BLNK where I took profits in the exact right spots. In particular there was one cover where I recognised that it should be dropping and it wasn't - was my order that started a 30c bounce.

Probably big unfortunate thing of the day was getting long on HEAR right before it cracked. Shit happens I guess. A really good stop.

Other thing today shows is how much borrows can influence things for me. If I couldn't get AWX or BLNK but still got HEAR the day would be different.

Trading Review: 05-08-2018

Gross PnL: +$616.

Net PnL: +$4. $486 in borrows.

Wasn't aiming for breakeven, but ended up that way. Terrible day, with good trade decisions fueled by revenge trading (thus impacting size).
Found myself down nearly 5k off that random BLNK squeeze, that I had literally sized into like 5 minutes earlier. I had a mental stop, but it literally blew right through it and I had to eat the loss. Hard stop would have saved me, while at the same time I don't think it would be practical to constantly be editing it for the size.

Focus on process, forget about size and put together some good trading days

Trading Review: 05-04-2018

Gross PnL: -$1500.

Net PnL: -$1507.

Kinda weird, literally two halt downs the moment I decided to buy... So the bad streak continues.
Today was the essence of a bad streak. Bit of hesitation on some trades that would have worked, trade that I take (that was pretty patient for) - completely destroyed. Tough to even take a stop it moved that quick.

Trading Review: 05-03-2018

Gross PnL: -$879.

Net PnL: -$1000. $33 in borrows.

Tried to start into IMTE for the next leg over yest highs, and it never came and losses were bigger than expected (purely a liquidity thing, which ironically is why I started in prior to break). Made some back on that big wash.

VVPR I caused the crack through vwap. Kinda nice in a way cause I was thinking about being stubborn. Something really good I did on VVPR was to try and buy 100 shares, or sell 100 shares to see how it would be absorbed.
Something I did poorly on VVPR was that I was managing to sell each pop, so I allowed it to drawdown pretty heavy on me. That is, despite being spot on with my read on the vwap wash - I had risk on above that because I kept getting the nice pop for sale.

Anyway another rough day. With fakeout on ESPR not helping the case.

For tomorrow, need to break this losing streak. So moment I am up more than $200, just take it. Small size, play it safe. Happy to sit on hands for ages to ensure a good trade is taken.

Trading Review: 05-02-2018

Gross PnL: -$667.

Net PnL: -$987. $164 in borrows.

Oh man what a terrible day. Could have been a monster that would replenish a tonne of psych capital. Bit all over the place; details below:

Started the day with the right mentality. Need to recoup psych capital. So at the top of my watchlist I wrote in capitals SMALL SIZE, REBUILD.

So I had a couple of shitty trades, where I had slightly wrong strategy but took stops and/or profits (as a side note: with more confidence these would have been good trades). Then came along ESPR, and I was comfortable with the setup - slowing piecing into it. For some reason I ended up pretty deep short ESPR. But I realised and covered down most size at breakeven, then just took the profit that would have been non-greedily at vwap. Thankfully I did because that was the low.
At this stage I realised I was trading poorly, so stepped away for half an hour. It hadn't been super bad, so seemed pretty easy to continue for the day. Just needed one or two mediocre trades that were clean.

Came back from break, completely misplayed NVIV getting too deep, and not fixing mistake when I realised... Got chopped around on TSLA (although happy enough with trades there). Then finally IMTE (which I had seen earlier but was too low volume and out of the blue?) started to offer some clean setups. Very obvious long to the moon at this stage, and a great scalper opportunity (although still illiquid so some caution required). Anyway nailed the clean trades and wasn't super greedy - was literally childs play.
One of those trades that I've been waiting for, for months... And I nailed it. Not to mention it would have been a great rebuild.

So naturally I took the next trade (SEII) which had shitty liquidity with big size and gave it all back. Completely retarded. Not to mention NVIV gave a nice exit and I didn't take it, ended up stopping on size on it.
So the lesson (and I already knew this, which is why the emphasis is on psych capital here). Even when the opportunity is a complete gift, if you're not trading well - will still fuck it up. My limitations at the present point are purely psychological, and so if I'm not on my game there is no point pushing boundaries too hard.

Trading Review: 04-30-2018

Gross PnL: -$4840.

Net PnL: -$4853.

Real shitty day. So dumb that it could even get this bad.

So what happened:
- Took a chunky loss on GNPX, from the same mistake I made last week on CHEK(?). Tried to adjusted and bought from the pop off the open.
- At the same time, I was down roughly $1k on ANDV which wasn't ideal and was about to take the ANDV stop.
- At that point being down $2k I realised I would have to wait while I topped up account again (thus have to have another day off work)... So I got stubborn and didn't take the loss...

So see you later an entire month of great trading...

Trading Review: 04-26-2018

Gross PnL: -$2657.

Net PnL: -$2862. $74 in borrows.

Real frustrating day, and the frustration definitely got to me. Had been noting that my stress levels were rising, so somewhat of a culmination of that.
Unfortunately that usual trick of putting a couple of negative days in a row together. But good break, and should be back into it.
Monday trade a little smaller, just to ease into it. Need to lock in a few positive days, rebuild the psych capital.

Trading Review: 04-25-2018

Gross PnL: -$1347.

Net PnL: -$1474. $70 in borrows.

Weird day, littered with small mistakes. But no big ones; and more importantly no breaks in discipline.

Mistakes:
(1) The CHEK bounce that I was playing for, actually played out to perfection. Unfortunately when it broke the premarket highs I tried to adjust; which resulted in buying a little higher.
(2) The wee squeeze pop that CHEK there was no reason to get long on dips at that point. Again was just getting faked in.
(3) TSLA got long at highs, and short at lows once each.

Apart from that a pretty solid day trading.

Trading Review: 04-24-2018

Gross PnL: +$1159.

Net PnL: +$910. $210 in borrows.

Made one big mistake today that nearly cost me. Shorted a boatload of HEAR at the lows, for some stupid reason. The epitome of what usually gets me into trouble. So naturally pretty annoyed about this - completely avoidable, and would have been a solid trade if I hadn't fucked it up. Think to some extent it was frustration from not having borrows recently.
As I detailed in the post recently about things that get me into trouble: (1) Shorting at the lows; (2) Going full size immediately. Fixing either of these probably would have made the world of difference in the trade.

Anyway took the day easy while I waited for HEAR to resolve itself (either by big stop, or recovery). It would have been an amazing day, there was some insane distribution that I read correctly, but that's all good. Focus is always on managing drawdowns and managing my psychology first.
Anyway towards the end of the day was starting to get a bit extended on the market, and even more so on some of the beaten names. Now on trend days you have to be careful fading, so I played it very cautiously. Then there was a spot where the beaten down names held the lows, while the market had a relatively substantial flush lower - that was the spot to pull the trigger and nailed it.
Very solid trading, and great patience/execution.
They obviously continued, but given the day I had wise to take it and run - again, all about managing psychology.