Trading Review: 02-09-2016

Main Account: +$467. Really really good day. Was up roughly $400 by 9:40am as a result of NUGT, TSLA, and UVXY. Interestingly I only got to 3/5s size on TSLA and 2/5s on NUGT and UVXY yet they were still massive winners - just shows how much volatility is out there - and there was so much left on the table. Simply trailing TSLA stop by the m2 low would have resulted in capturing another $10... Crazy stuff...

At this point I had a couple of starter positions on that were giving me a little grief, and I made a conscious effort not to fight too much. Really happy with this attitude, but because of the difficulty of the starter positions I was in (particularly MBLY) I ended up drawing down to around $170 for the day. My conscious effort not to fight too much resulted in being stopped on ETE at the high (on a fakeout at $4.91 when stop should have been around $5.06) and this was on 4/5s position, so was a decent hit. Trade idea ended up working , so would have been a profitable trade. The stop-out arose not only from trying to conserve losses (which I'm okay with) but not being picky enough with entries/sizing in a little too soon.

Looking at the price action in the mid morning/midday/afternoon I would have continued to crush it. TSLA completely reversed the entire move, MBLY did as well, UVXY was an amazing afternoon rejection from the highs. I will continue to trade over the $200 target, without risking too much of it (e.g. half normal size, and not too much fighting of trends), and look to bring in the emotional consistency throughout the entire day that I'm looking for.

Back Account: -$220. Happy enough with the trade on FREE. Was very picky with entry and the idea simply didn't work - so what can you do.

Weekly Review: 02-07-2016

Main Account: - $410.

First bad week I've had since starting the year - at least in terms of PnL. I have had some bad days in terms of process.

One positive for this week was that it was the first day I successfully exceeded the $200 target in the right manner.

Something else I have noticed is that when I'm trading well I very very easily meet the $200 target, and in theory I should easily be able to exceed it every day with current size. There have been multiple days when I have started with a bad trade (say -200 or -400) and turned the day positive through solid trading. Until I actually eliminate these bad trades there is no sense in increasing the target for the day though.

Looking at the statistics above I'm still not happy with size of average winner versus average loser.

The number one goal going forward is now to following sizing rules (1/5th starter, 2/5th once risk defined - then add to winner). This appears to be the number one reason for the big losses and should eliminate those trades that start me on -400 or whatever. Focusing on eliminating the greed is still a goal, but is taking a slight back-seat because I'm getting a lot better at it.

Given that the tilted trading occurs when I am down about $600 it makes sense to edit the max draw-down to $600.

Back Account: -$55. Current market environment not overly suitable for my niche strategy, so I will have to bear that in mind and be even more picky!

Trading Review: 02-05-2016

Main Account: -$1000. Hit max drawdown for the day. Quite an interesting day from a learning perspective. Started the day down $400 on TSN and grinded back really nicely, was some really nice trades on DATA, LNKD and HBI which brought it back to float over/under breakeven. After that had the wrong sort of bias on some stock (FB/NFLX/NEM/SBGL) but still was trading okay, but drew-down a bit as a result. The tilt didn't really come until I was down roughly $500... And then it came cleanly and I lost the extra $500 in about 20 minutes.

The tilt was obviously caused by somewhat of a sense of desperation to bring the day back, and by the amount I was down. The result of the tilt, was the usual suspects I have - chasing price and going max size straight away.

Trading Review: 02-04-2016

Main Account: -$256. Weird day overall.

Day started with a couple of fomo chases (possibly emotional/greedy due to yesterdays big gains?). Which didn't result in huge losses by themselves because they were only 1/5th size, but then I felt like I had to try and improve my average which led to adding inappropriately. This was mainly on VHC, but also on GILD - obviously the big loss occurred on VHC though - and was around a $400 loss. Ironically, despite being absolutely (couldn't be more) wrong on VHC, my original plan would have contained losses very very well.

Then I traded back exceptionally and was up a little over $200 on the day. So I closed everything out and kept a VHC trade on (which was a good trade) with a stop-loss, which when stopped put me a bit below $200. There was a bit of slippage so I was up around $160. In this set of decision making it seems that there was a bit of greed involved, but it wasn't too bad, and generally speaking a good decision - it's this process that will allow me to continue to push forward.

Anyway then came back and traded really poorly obviously and ended up here.

Overall, re-reading this review it sounds like I am trading my PnL far too much... But monitoring it actively is really helping monitor my psych; so the reality is that paying close attention to it from the right perspective is working.

Trading Review: 02-03-2016

Main Account: +$785. Incredible day... The weirdest part is the magnitude of the winning day - you would think that I got greedy and increased position sizes to try and push it... But that wasn't the case. When I hit up $200 I was already in a 1/4 of NFLX position, and my other positions were working. Being concious of the fact that I usually get greedy I manipulated position sizes and stop-losses to ensure that I was unlikely to slip back below $200 - aka sized down a little and put in appropriate stop-losses.
Then when NFLX broke a super key level I was ready to add to position and covered into resulting (decent sized downtrend), and got a final cover at the low - which coincidentally was when I felt the greed starting to kick in.

Missed a bunch of trades today - but with the results I'm obviously very happy!

Best trade of the day was probably NHTC, where I was only in 1/5th of position size and it had a big washout on the open. Usually because it's only 1/5th I might not lock it in... Anyway it reversed back to opening highs (which provided a really nice rinse and repeat, but didn't take cause had met target)... Anyway the reason I'm really happy with it is because I took the decent quick profit that exceeded expectations, and is particularly important to cover into down-moves (or sell into up moves) on thin stocks.

Feels like there was significant progress made today towards staying the course after winning trades. If there's evidence of a continuation of this over the next few weeks I can look to change sizes, drawdowns, and max gains.

Trading Review: 02-02-2016

Main Account: +$211. Some really good trading today and some really bad trading. Started the day with the poor trading (although NFLX trades were really good!) and the nreeled it in with some (reasonably) solid grinding later in the day.

To sum up the bad trading. Buying into resistance and selling/shorting into support. I always chase a little much, but was much more excessive than other times. There was also stubbornness on KORS. KORS was a -350 trade, but had a really solid trade on it late day.

For tomorrow need to really focus on maintaining good averages and taking profits quick. Without some silly trades I would have been done really early because I nailed the NFLX short.

Back Account: +$75. Need to be a little more selective with setups on back account. I am doing a good job of being selective... However, the market isn't suitable for my back account strategy at this stage - hence needing to be super selective.

Trading Review: 02-01-2016

Main Account: -$150. No screenshot today as had a power-cut and picture hadn't been saved.

To sum up the day. I met the $200 target relatively early, and followed my plan to slow down. Had a little bit of a stubborn trade on WUBA (lost about $150 overall, there was some methodology failures but nothing greedy and a good trade idea). But then not stopping at my target sent off some tilt a little bit and didn't trade too well after that.

Back Account: -$130. A good trade on INO, entry should have been a bit better (by about 10c) though but overall can't complain with the trade too much. If I had shorted more than I probably would have managed it a bit more actively as well, which would have helped.