Trading Review: 08-05-2015

Main Account: +$540. Really really solid day. Met target very early and took most positions off. CYH and one NFLX trade were taken on top of that once I had finished. Little bit greedy, and some positions were a bit bigger than they should have been but 10x better than yesterday. However, one thing of note. The positions taken after I met my goal were small and I had a much much better mindset taking them. AKA I knew I didn't want to give any back so used small positions and good setups.

Positives for the day:
(1) Met target!
(2) Really solid execution, patience, and sizing can see even the trade ideas which turned out to be duds were still profitable.
(3) Two best trade ideas (AAPL, NFLX) off the open were both fades and were much better  ideas and executed than fading AAPL the prior day.

Negatives for the day:
(1) Wasn't quite prepared for the NFLX parabolic and how far it could go (even though it went 1 ATR as exactly outlined in a possible scenario), and so ended up with a worse average than I wanted.
(2) Took a little too much size on AAPL/NFLX. Partially because they went further than expected (for some reason).
(3) NFLX and AAPL could have been massive trades if managed a little better. They both went about $2 from where I got flat.

Good news is that I'm not particularly concerned about those negatives and I got the execution, sizing and patience good today which is my target.

Back Account: +$538. This is the AVXL trade. I deliberately oversized it like I would in my back account; but I don't have access to OTCs on my back account so the deliberate oversize has to go in main account. Not a habit I want to get in though. All oversized trades should go in back account.

Trading Review: 08-04-2015

Intraday Trading: -$146. Really disappointing day overall. Started off pretty well but ended up under water quite a bit on AAPL, with a little more size on the front side than I should have. From there size slowly crept up and traded began trading a little more poorly as the day went on. At the peak I was up about $350 but had too much size on and was being a bit greedy. I was actually trying to call it a day but narrowly missed limit orders that I had set.
One interesting perspective I realised today is that when I want to be targeting more than $200 a day a really solid way to increase the max PnL is to lock in $200 (either via realised, or via trailed stop-losses) and then let winners run when there are setups where you expect a move for the entire day. This minimises the additional trading from targeting more than $200. Once get the hang of that begin slowly increasing the $200 that want locked in.

Positives for the day:
(1) Fought the AAPL downtrend for a decent portion. Got pretty beat up, but never greater than max drawdown (although it was a lot bigger drawdown that it should have been).
(2) The big trade (BXLT) was a slightly oversized position but good risk-reward was only risking about $100 if not less.
(3) Did a good job on waiting for trades to come to me (patience).

Negatives for the day:
(1) Ignored my $200 target for the most part. Can't let this happen because number one priority is to develop consistency and that will only be achieved by hitting a fixed target for a period of time to help change attitude.
(2) Too much size on some trades as the day went on. Lost focus on keeping size relative to the range of stocks and my max drawdown.
(3) Too much size on fading stocks in general.

Playbook Review: $NFLX 08-03-2015

Title: Buying at Morning Support

Strategy Description: When a stock has an opening drive lower and then has a hard bounce off the lows set off the opening drive it present a seriously good risk-reward opportunity to buy into that support. Note that it is important the stock had a solid bounce off the lows because that indicates the bounce potential for a second time.

This trade somewhat comes from the intraday chart, although it obviously helps if the level is significant on the bigger picture and/or in the direction of the trend.

Simply buy at support from the morning as it moves back to the price. Aim to get a ridiculous risk-reward ratio because a play like this can present it!

Be reasonable with objectives, this (likely, that is unless part of entry into bigger picture play) isn't a trend play; it is just a high risk-reward scalp off the lows.

Trading Review: 08-03-2015

Intraday Trades: +$251. Really solid day. Underperformed on the open given the opportunity available (which is relatively unusual for me so I'm okay with that). But kept cool head and scaled into a decent position on LXRX which ended up being a solid winner. Closed trades somewhat prematurely because I had met target for the day, and that worked out pretty well overall. Trades I had on did carry on a little bit, but not a huge amount.

Positives for the day:
(1) Really solid patience with moves. Had high conviction with LXRX and traded it patiently.
(2) Amazing discipline today. Got trade sizes really nice and good stops.

Negatives:
(1) Didn't quite get the whole concept of "buying dips, selling rips" on LXRX.
(2) Wasn't paying close enough attention to LXRX on the open and was short into the premarket high, when a clear seller had disappeared and as a result missed the b/o.

Overall though really solid day, would be very happy with a repeat tomorrow.

Back Account: +$145.

Playbook Review: $MDVN 07-31-2015

Title: Midday VWAP Rollover

Strategy Description: This trade applies to any stock that is respecting vwap, which will usually be when there is institutional interest and fresh news. In this particular instance it applies to a stock that was gapping up on earnings; however after this I will post a similar setup on LNKD which gapped down.

Based on the daily and the failure to retake the premarket high ($110) was looking for short opportunities. It becomes clear that the vwap zone is a pretty significant level around midday where it held early morning and then is tightly consolidating around it.
If not already short then below vwap (and holds) is the key to initiating a position and then taking profit into any downmoves and adding back around vwap.

The mistake I made while trading this is that I was looking for a solid rollover and trend lower... Accordingly I trailed stop-loss. and was stopped out at the X.

Included LNKD in this post. The intraday chart is very similar, you notice that dips to vwap are originally being bought, but the bigger picture gives different reasons to try and get short.

Daily (MDVN):

Intraday (MDVN):

LNKD:

Playbook Review: $UVXY 07-31-2015

Title: Buying VIX at Range Lows

Strategy Description: As the VIX hits extremely low levels and cannot move lower it presents a nice floor to trade UVXY against. As of this current market environment this level is 12, and while I can't imagine it going lower it could, but the point is that the VIX itself is asymmetrically skewed at this level.

Remember that can only pay attention to the intraday UVXY chart and pay a tiny bit of attention to recent levels.

As the VIX enters the buy zone (and trending down) look for buy opportunities. The general jist at this stage is to buy new lows and sell pops quite small with a wide stop-loss; slowly adding to position. As it changes trend add quite aggressively to position because risk is better defined now and should hopefully have some profit locked in from the counter trend trading.

It is important to hold some of the position, as it move sin your favour, for as long as possible because of the skew, say 1/4.

VIX:

UVXY:

Trading Review: 07-31-2015

Intraday Trading: -$269. This is effectively one of the days that I need to learn to avoid. Trim the loss on MDVN down to a respectable size and the day would have been relatively neutral.
So what happened with MDVN. Firstly, it wasn't just one oversized trade that I took a beating on which is a good thing. I think I was slightly oversized at some stages which definitely contributed (but not enormously). The real fault comes back to (surprise surprise) not picking my prices well enough. On the open I added when it looked like it was cracking, and instead of stopping out the moment it didn't crack I rode it to my original stoploss (fault 1). Now of course, that original price was close enough to the big level from the premarket where should be looking at entering short at resistance (fault 2).
The third fault was trying to get too cute with my adds and not having a wide enough stop-loss on a solid play. This can be the result of adding a little too much and basing stop-loss on how much prepared to risk rather than where it should go  (playbook entry for this particular play that I made).
Otherwise I'm actually pretty happy with the day. Although I should have stayed away from fading the WBAI move up once it proved it wasn't worth it - Chinese name, heavily shorted, can't find catalyst, thin, day 1 etc...

Back Account: +$224.