Trading Review: 05-11-2015

Swing Trades: -$174.

Back Account: -$558. Bit of a disappointing day after being up about $1500 at the start of the day. Was overtrading a little from around 10:30-eod.

Negatives:
(1) Not taking profits quick enough.
(2) In line with 1, didn't really manage positions effectively. For example ZU I should have taken half off instead of trailing stop-loss tight.
(3) Overtrading. Traded a little too actively.
(4) Have slacked up a little on reviews etc. Need to get aggressively back into reviewing.

Trading Review: 05-07-2015

Intraday Trading: +$1888. Oil breaking below $60 was a confluence of a trendline break, and a nice level break so as it got below 60 I shorted and covered into 59s leaving one contract on for 56-57. Also I feel that sentiment has sufficiently changed so that people on net are now bullish. Completely missed the layup rollover midday unfortunately which would have given me a chance to lock in more profit and give myself better ability to withstand whips while holding for lower. Good trade.

Swing Trades: +$500.Volume on CELH all but gone, should see further downside to low 2s at some point.
Establish a new swing in YELP. Had a massive rally on the day because they're putting themselves up for sale (from 39.50-49 high, a lot of which was just a grind higher from about 42.50-49), so I established a put spread for next week. My holding time is only around a day or so, but established it in next weeks duration so that I don't lose entire premium to duration.

Back Account: -$8338. Running out of time and need to start preparing for the market open, but the general jist is that I was try to take too much size in less that ideal setups. Was up about 5k on some solid trading but gave back and then some. Have withdrawn account down to original size which should help pulling size back to normal.

Trading Review: 05-06-2015

Swing Trades: -$168. CELH certainly testing the upper bounds of negating the swing trade thesis. Could be rolling over though, so just holding with stop at $3.25.

Back Account: +$2123. Bit of a mixed day, overall happy to end the day with a reasonable positive day. Historically speaking after a good run I have a tendency to give back quite a bit, and get a little weird mentally, so coming into today I was being mindful of that fact.
Still being mindful of the fact didn't help too much, took a little too much size in the morning (without confirmation) and was down about $5000, then regrouped and got a decent long trade together, was a little antsy and got the size on a little early (but waited for more confirmation), and was up about $15000 at peak. About halfway through the trade the trading platform started malfunctioning  and while I had been prepared to manage the position (although not as actively as I should have), this malfunction stopped me from any management and slipped me into home run mentality - so I gave back all of that $15k.
Then regrouped again, and grinded back with some really perfect trading! Came to the conclusion after today when comparing my trading today to yesterday (where I nailed a "home run"), that to actually hit the home run requires a lot of micromanagement of position. For example, long small in dip, sell pop, add little more on dip, sell pop, each time adding size if it does exactly what you expect, then selling a lot of position into strength to allow the rest of position to ride (can always add back later). So the "home run trade" rather than buying massive size and holding massive size for entire move, will occur with a lot of active management + conviction.

Positives:
(1) Did a good job of recovering, from early morning poor trading.
(2) Didn't give back anything from the prior day.
(3) Really good lesson about getting big profit trades by combining trade management AND conviction.

Negatives:
(1) Poor job of controlling risk.
(2) Didn't have an incredible read on the stock today (which is unusual I think).
(3) Poor management of position.

PTBI: Premarket was the trade that got me down around 3k, was just a bit too large with too wider stoploss. Was a particularly poor start to the day!
As it came into the open I anticipated the opening drive, but was happy enough to miss it to wait for a higher conviction, easier to control risk setup, so I played it with small size.
The trade where I was up massively was playing the symmetrical triangle squeeze setup around 10:30am, did a good job of adding to a winner, but was a little quick to add to winner and got most of size on before the break (although it was holding higher). Then sold nothing and this trade brought me back to roughly breakeven on the day when I closed (should have been a 10k+ winner with proper management!) The key was to notice that it had stuffed through the high of day and then made a higher lower (although I should have been at least selling half into $11/$10.80 anyway)
Bias was shifted to short after the midday consolidation failed to hold higher (which coincided with a "stuff" over vwap), and I rode the trend lower.
An interesting side note. There was some really good guidance in the IU chat, e.g. modern rock shorting around $11, and Nate suggesting around midday that you want to buying weakness rather than strength. Point being, while you should make your own plan virtually independently, others guidance can help when being stubborn on anything (e.g. my going for home run) and help break that stubbornness.

TASR: Tried the trend break setup on TASR midday and it worked, but narrowly avoided covering risk into dip which was incredibly frustrating! I had the right read on it, but just missed it! Hindsight should have been more aware because of the habit it  has of "saving itself".

Trading Review: 05-05-2015

 Intraday Trading: -$238. Just the DGLY trade, same setup as the trade on the back account except that I had planned to turn this into a swing trade because TASR was up so much (again!). At one point was up 2R on this so that generally probably confirms the quality of the trade.

Swing Trades: +$984. Really frustrating, this is more realistically about +$100 because I missed the unbox on the open narrowly. I was psychologically biased wanting my box price when I should have just unboxed. That being said, I'm relatively okay with this given that I'm pretty unfamiliar with boxing - something to work on for the future.

Back Account: +$18175. Bit of a crazy day, so many things went haywire which could have caused some mental problems but held on after morning drawdown and recovered nicely.
First off, what actually happened today: I had some plans for the open, but missed stopout, got stubborn and had a roughly 5k drawdown, right at the peak of the 5k drawdown my internet crashed, so that was a stressful few minutes while I got on the personal hotspot. Then as I was holding 10k shares of PTBI, and went to sell 5k of them the order was rejected, and I couldn't sell any, then PSTI crashed and I eventually got a market order sell through about 10 minutes later and an entire $1 lower.
After the 5k drawdown I made a plan for exactly what I wanted to see to get me interested in a few trades, then went for a really solid walk and came back ready to trade.

BABA: Bought the gap down with a stop below $80, got the pop I wanted to $81 but missed sales because it was so brief. Stopped below $80, and missed the short.

DGLY: Based on the TASR upmove again today I expected a weak open red to green and eventual move to $20. Good idea but just never eventuated.

PTBI: Chased long early morning, stopped, then had a short once below vwap which was also stopped (after massive drawdown). This is when I went for the walk and nailed the long trades. Was a very basic pullback and higher low trading for the most part, and then when it was steeper I traded off the trendline.

TASR: Really nice short setup as it failed at $35 and failed the upward trend.

VLTC: Just the failed box... Managed to get net long near the bottom, then cover short on pop, but really bugger all of the setup was gained.

Trading Review: 05-04-2015

Intraday Trading: -$1452. Not the start to the week I wanted, a real slip from the prior week where I had excellent discipline, controlled losses and avoided overtrading. After observing/reviewing todays trading on oil it is clear that I excel on the days when oil has a trend day, and struggle on the days where it's range bound. This is particularly interesting because it makes sense that you would lose money if misidentified if it was a range day or trend day... But this was not the case today...
I had identified it as a range day and was looking to sell rallies (so long as held below $60), and buy dips towards $58.30 (and a minor level $58.60). So basically what ended up happening is getting stopped at the lows and being too reactive to weakness in it, and too reactive to strength in it (instead of fading either, was chasing either). Whereas if I was focused on fading weakness and playing the levels there would have only been two (possibly 3) trades occurred, and they would have been good (most likely successful trades), instead of the low accuracy that I had.

Swing Trades: +$623. Started a new position in CELH, really nice daily chart. Am trying to be quite selective with my swing trades, and I think CELH lines up all my criteria.
I boxed VLTC overnight, and covered some for a couple of reasons (very happy with my lack of recklessness here): (1) My average isn't very good, so a good gap up on fluff could easily crush me, (2) I should be able to shuffle around and micromanage to lock in a little bit on the box, (3) Probability of a morning shuffle seems quite high, this morning prime example, was up quite high pm before selling off and closing my box for slight profit.
I missed covering some VLTC when I was up quite decently, that was silly, and wasn't very well planned. I should have realised that the cautious approach was best because of my average.

Back Account: +$6151. Really solid day. Also notice the accuracy of trades, while most aren't big profits the point is that they were profits, so much better accuracy all round - sign of not overtrading. Interestingly, the one loss (which was also too big) ARRY was avoidable.

Positives for the day:
(1) Sized up in the right place. Adopted the approach, add where any short bias would be negated, which allowed aggressive pyramiding of position.
(2) Managed positions generally well. Even in the pyramid case mentioned above still had some locked in.

Negatives for the day:
(1) Was too much chasing going on... Need more patience to enter the position at low risk spot. This applies to almost all positions (SHAK, ICLD, ARRY, TASR). The ability to get filled at just a little better entry improves risk-reward immensely.
(2) Allowed higher conviction for trade idea to get in the way of price action (ARRY). Had high conviction on the short, but when I traded it, it wasn't setup, the setup was later in the day.
(3) Missed a bunch of easy setups, either through not setting alerts, or from not being quick enough on the sympathy plays etc.

ARRY: Reported an earnings beat, but it was from a one-time item which had already been PR'd in December. Was also a pretty decent size gap considering how the stock moves. So I had a high conviction short idea on this against the premarket highs. Now I never got that original trade idea off, which is okay! It didn't get high enough for me!
But then about 10:45 I thought oh it's rejected from the high and entered short around $7.15, which isn't the greatest risk-reward, and is a chase from the really nice easy short at the highs. Then it started grinding and I cut it at new highs. Point being, chasing ruined my risk-reward, and ruined what would have been a successful trade.
It also stopped me from trading the roll-over high of day rejection later on! Which worked out nicely.

CTSH: A nice callout from the SMB chatroom. Very basic setup, tight consolidation on a stock in play for more than 20 minutes and play the break to generate really good RR.
Covered some asap to cover risk and then let the rest ride into the low $63s. Really good trade!

ICLD: Gap up, hold gap, gear up, float rotation (although pretty decent size float), look for long. Very clearly you can see that my first long should have been around $3.30 but I was a little late to the party and chased at $3.39, I then sold half into the $3.50 pop because I was aware that I had chased so wanted to get any size off (good awareness). I think added back at original entry, because now it looked a lot better! But missed selling into the second pop over $3.50 (although to be fair two high of day fakes is uncommon). It was at this stage that I made the best decision/approach to this trade.
I could see that with the high of day rejection/fakeout that it could be setting up for a possible short, so I looked at it with a short bias and said okay well it shouldn't get over $3.50 again because that would be too many tests of the high, it should peak-out slightly below the $3.50 level, so I doubled my position when it got over $3.50, and while it didn't take off immediately it was clear that there was a bit of a character change.
Sold on the way up with a focus on management like I want to have at the moment.

SHAK: Never really got any size in this trade, although I felt pretty good about the trade itself. Needed a better entry, though, with the spread important to be patient. As can see, had about half an hour to get into trade at a similar price, was no need to rush it. Sold on pause around low $74s, again crossed spread, impatient (although it didn't narrowly miss my offer to be fair).
The key to getting more size would have been once it was clearly holding $72 on the pullback trade.
Only really netted 2R which isn't really good enough.

TASR: Had the idea to short into yesterdays highs which would have worked nicely if had stayed there until the open. Did a great job of stay out of trouble on the short side, before looking into it as it started rejecting. Really good patience!

VLTC: Was up nicely premarket and perhaps I should have unboxed there??? Either way managed to unbox for a tiny profit, which is ideal because it makes the risk reduction free.

Monthly Review: April 2015

Intraday Trading: -$6363.

Swing Trades: -$2526.

Back Account: +$7015. Brokerage is a bit of a killer in this account!

SPI Trading: -AU$3349, US$2577. I actually thought this was a little worse before I reviewed the figures. I guess the point here is that

FX Trading: Approximately +US$1203. This is a little confusing because for some reason on statement the conversion from AUD.NZD to USD has failed... So this is my guess.

ASX Stocks: +AU$557, or US$433.

To sum up the month it really comes down to psychological discipline. The blowout on oil and SPI's wasn't a methodology failure it came down to psychological factors. I found my discipline in the last week and a half or so, and am looking to build momentum on that.

This month provided some interesting lessons on trading with conviction; which I am hoping to implement going forward. I have shifted to doing most of my trading in my SureTrader account, which I have considered to be my back account because the act of going to the account (web browser based) seems to act as a physical filter for my best ideas. Using this physical filter seems to be helping me to improve on my patience, but it is slowing me down and causing me to miss fills etc - but thus far it seems to be well worth it.

You could almost break the month down into two parts. Effectively I traded the last 1/3 of the month working really nicely on the faults from the first 2/3s. For now I am happy to continue trading the way I have been for the past 2 weeks or so until I find my rhythm; that is primarily on the back account - and focus working on controlled disciplined trades on oil on main account. However, this will need some shaking up and changing round at some point.

Strengths:
(1) Psychological resilience. I took a beating this month in terms of day to day volatility, and while I did take some required time off, came back stronger than ever.
(2) Have improved with patient low risk entries, but further improvement needed.
(3) Have improved with placement of stop-losses (allowance for flush), but further improvement needed.
(4) Nailed some really nice high conviction trades with decent size. Really incredible!

Weaknesses:
(1) After locking in profit on a particular stock slipping back into negative. This resulted from poor size management and too wider stop-losses.
(2) Not managing some of position quick enough. Need to exaggerate this for a little while so the behaviour can sink in.

Trading Review: 01-05-2015

Intraday Trading: -$369. Narrowly missed selling some oil into a push (which would have covered risk). This is in line with the general theme of the day which occurred in back account (more on that in back account writeup).
Bought into the first $59 push, was offering at first target $59.37 which was narrowly missed. Stopped below. Looks like oil will be back to range-bound for the coming few days.

Swing Trades: -$204. Shorted VLTC at the end of the day, but is boxed overnight on my back account (which I will include in the back account totals for simplicity). The goal is to unbox into any morning push tomorrow and then ride it short for a swing down to near the recent lows. I actually initially shorted 2000 shares but decided to trim it a little, quite happy with this decision - correcting a mistake immediately that is. The stop will then be above that morning peak.

Back Account: -$635. Relatively happy with the day overall. I had a bunch of good ideas for trades, but gaps ruined the ideas, but I maintained my discipline and patience and waited for the opportunities. Additionally there was also a bunch of trades I narrowly missed entry on (being too patient waiting for prices) which is a good thing, rather have missed a trade than be a bad trade. These two combo's make for a frustrating day overall though.

Strengths:
(1) Patience waiting for right setups, despite narrowly missing multiple trade ideas. Missed BABA into $80 by a few cents (bounced over $1), missed TASR on open at $30 (low was $30.30ish, before rallying $3 on the day).
(2) Really good job of searching around for setups. Spent most of the day searching around, and eventually found LEAF, which was a great setup.
(3) Controlling risk (in general, this probably excludes ADXS to a certain extent).

Weakness:
(1) Too aggressive with first targets for management (VLTC, LEAF, CL, only just got met on TASR scalp, arguably ICLD). Need to remember that have to manage position on the first, easily predictable wave. The goal is for that part of the trade to be rinsed and repeated if need be.
(2) Accuracy of trades just wasn't there again (however I feel this is related to missing that first management spot). ICLD, VLTC would have been slightly net profitable if taken some off at first target.
(3) Implementation of level edge (CTB).

ADXS: The only real setup that I allowed a decent risk for. The gap up ruined the nice washout buy that I had originally planned, but pretty happy with this adjustment trade. The general setup was that it is due for a bounce, and IBB was bouncing and holding above vwap (confirmation). I was possibly too jumpy to get into the initial position (first arrow), but did a great job of adding to position (second arrow).
My original stop-loss was below $17.30, which is fine for the original position, but I feel like once it hit the double top and had the peak-out around $17.70 after the double top I should have trailed stop-loss to $17.50.
Did a good job of changing bias on this. Did not revisit the long idea because price action was telling a different story.

CTB: Given the size of the move on the day (4x ATR), size of retracement (from $36.18 to $38, over 1 ATR) and size of revision back to the lows without a decent bounce was setting up for a scalp against the lows. Given it's weakness this is a stock that you would want to be super patient for you entry on the long side and keep risk tight. However, this is probably the one stock that I wasn't. Entry was $36.33, and stop was $36.14 (filled $36.11, aka the low). This isn't exactly how the level edge is to be exploited... Stop should have been at least 0.10x ATR below the low, and with the coincidental round figure of $36 so close that would have been a nice spot (effectively a fakeout of the low, but held by round figure). This is all in hindsight of course, but that's a pretty typical setup... So disappointed with the way I traded it.

GLUU: Good job controlling risk on this one. Entered half position on the gearing, with an idea to add once it broke $7. This approach was taken to ensure that if $7 b/o failed (which it did) risk was controlled, but also so that if $7 b/o occurred average was better so size could be held through oscillations. Good trading!

ICLD: Really really nice setup. Could have been more patient for entry, but really happy with this trade. Entry was $2.45, stop was $2.39. There was no need to get excited and pay $2.45 so I could have been more patient on this... It made the stop slightly arbitrary, and indeed I was narrowly missed on stopping out. As mentioned I could have managed position once it got over $2.50 (high was $2.55 which was around 1.5x risk, but there is no way you could expect it to fail over $2.50 again, arguably the setup calls for adding over $2.50, so happy enough).

LEAF: Was waiting for $46.50 (support) but didn't come, so bought on the breach and prior hold of the $47.30 level after the capitulation. Original entry was $47.62 (which was a chase, but was a clear change of character), and narrowly missed selling into spike (high of spike was $48.31, and if I recall correctly I was offering $48.47 or something). Key here is that it most definitely should have been sold here (especially because it was a chase, chasing makes management even more important). So then when it pulled back I added against $47.30, sold 2/3s on the pause above $48, and held rest into high 48s. This was a great trade, but would have been made even better (to the tune of about +$700) if first management hit, so really just shows even in a nice winning trade management is just soo essential.

TASR: Original trade idea here was that I wanted to buy into $30 with a stop below... Missed that and it turned out to be an amazing trade idea. After it had moved a little over it's ATR ($1.50) I looked at it for a short scalp, and nailed the top, and nailed covering into what turned out to be the relative bottom ($31.41). Reality is that my target should have been $31.53 or something (aka higher probability), but was a good scalp. This actually turned into a nice long setup, but I decided against it because it had already moved its ATR (rather be out of a trade wishing to be in, rather than in a trade wishing to be out!), so happy enough to have declined this setup.
I had another short scalp, but it wasn't quite good enough setup, and when I realised this I was bordering on being stubborn but covered for some slight profit (with a little prodding from Sam, thanks!).
In the end after a 2ATR move it had a high of day rejection setup and then setup for a late day fader, which I missed, but not worried about missing it.

VLTC: Am long some overnight in this account, which will be included in totals on Monday, but the purpose is to box the swing position in main account. As an aside, I did a really good job of staying away from this stock (no borrows, thus I could have been undisciplined and made some stupid long trades on it). The gap up ruined any sort of long continuation trades I had planned.
This setup for a nice late day pop and I got an ideal initial entry with only 10-15c risk, and then added as it confirmed. narrowly missed management by 4c before being stopped for a small loss. I'm pretty happy with the trade, aside from the management issue mentioned already multiple times. Hindsight I should have been expecting the range b/o to fail given the overhead resistance created from trading down all day, but all in all good trade.