Trading Review: 11-22-2017

Gross PnL: +$481.

Net PnL: +$415. $34 in borrows.

Got done what I needed to get done today. Was extremely disciplined, and on the discipline side of things I completely nailed it.
Stayed around for a little longer than I had intended to, because my first three trades were losers; but never was at risk of more than max drawdown and always completely in control.

Today really illustrated the power of good risk-reward trades. The sequence of events today was:
(1) 0/3 from first 3 trades. Somewhat unlucky on a risk cover on one. Watched one work to beyond my imagination (EKSO) after getting wicked out.
(2) 0/4 with one breakeven trade.
(3) 1/5, but the winner was only a partial fill (CRM).
(4) 2/6 with a winner on DE which literally earned back all the profits from the stops.

Along came LMFA, which was the opportunity of the day - excluding the nice EKSO short I was wicked out of. Originally I actually put a tiny long on it, just to ensure I was patient with my short entry.
Didn't really work because the distribution was heavy, and eventually a fake bid ran it all the way up to retest the high. Shorted too early, and net RR was barely better than 1:1. So kinda annoyed about this. Difficult trade to execute on.

Trading Review: 11-20-2017 - 11-21-2017

Net PnL: -$27.

Let the tilt get to me again, which is fucking bullshit. Just when I thought I was getting past it.

Need to get back to basics, make sure fully planning trades - have only been filling out half of what I want to.

Goal for tomorrow is to string together a couple of well executed, patient, stop-loss already entered into market trades. Then call it quits early and build the habit back. I can't afford to be ill disciplined again - potentially trading career ending...

Trading Review: 11-16-2017 - 11-17-2017

Net PnL: -$956.

Two days here. Complete fuck-up again.

So what happened?

I had borrowed 1000 shares of CADC as a precaution because I knew they would run out; and if I wanted to add to a winner in the afternoon I planned to use them (had planned for this to be an all day short). Instead I shorted the bounce with the full 1000 shares where I could see I could reliably place a stop. Only problem was the platform lagged while trying to place my stop, so it was a lot higher when I got it in...
Thing is, I can't blame the platform because I only planned to use a maximum of 500 shares until the trade was cleanly in the money (as I mentioned planned to add in the afternoon if possible).

Days like these are the ones that make me realise I'm still nowhere there yet, if I can't control a small impulse to diverge from my plan.

Trading Review: 11-15-2017

Gross PnL: +$1283.

Net PnL: +$1159.

Was meant to be a quiet day but then things started getting crazy and massive opportunity showed up. Because I was trading extremely disciplined for the earlier parts of the day I kept it up.
Ended up slacking a little bit on discipline towards the end of the day (starting with LMFA short), but for the most part am okay.

Was late to stop on GBR, but first time I've really had a piece of shit move like that against me; so am okay with that - can see it as a lesson.

LMFA first short definitely worst trade of the day, just slacked on the stop; and coupled with poor entry. Ended up recollecting and taking the good stop, which led to the really nice short on it later in the day.

Best trade of the day was shorting QRHC. It went down quickly than I liked (similar to CCCL yesterday), and despite having quite a bit of conviction - I set out offers and absolutely nailed the sweet entry. Complete mastery of patience, directional bias, AND timing there.

Trading Review: 11-14-2017

Gross Profit: +$247.

Net PnL: +$163. $64 in borrows. Paid a lot for borrows, but proved to be worth it.

Absolutely retarded day deserved to be down $1000, not up slightly... Have definitely fallen off from the good mindset I had for the past few weeks. Didn't make the same mistakes as yesterday, but made different ones. Missed stops across the board, tad too much size, poor patience for entry.

Tomorrow will just focus on nailing a couple of trades: patience, stops, small(ish) size, good risk-reward. And try and reverse the recent trend in my discipline - then take rest of day off to lock it in.

CCCL deserves a special mention. Based on how heavy it was I figured it retraced entire rally. Lent into my conviction a little too hard, didn't take any early profits and didn't hit a stop when it triggered.
(Stop would have been higher if I had the patience to wait for correct entry).

Also ROKU I exhausted myself before the trade played out. I made a deliberate effort to avoid the morning action, then started into it too early after the morning. Tad frustrating, but at least I hit the stops.

Trading Review: 11-13-2017

Gross PnL: -$502.

Net PnL: -$559. $10 in borrows.

Just a bit of a dud day. 3 trades in a row on NKTR and of course it doesn't help that other two trades were losers as well. 0/5 for the day.
That being said, I think the trades on NKTR were marginal, bit too much impatience or fomo in those ones, or something like that.

Today reminds me of something I used to have to focus on, which was not getting stopped out for the day in the first 30 minutes. There were plenty of opportunities in the trading day, so it's so stupid to give up the trading day because of mistakes within the first 30 minutes.

Trading Review: 11-10-2017

Gross PnL: +$759.

Net PnL: +$~680ish. $38 in borrows.

Terrible day, not as bad as recent blowup day; but still very nasty.

Hadn't intended to trade today as was driving, but I got home right before the market open and the TOPS short was literally free money (clean, defined risk, and high probability of success). So I wasn't going to say no to that.
The problem was, I wasn't mentally prepared to trade; hadn't done review from prior day, and was just generally not quite up to the elite performance required. Didn't fill out a single trade plan sheet for the day.

Then some movers started to show up. These movers were super clean, and if in right mindset I would have crushed them, made more money than I did today (with smaller size). So I traded them, bit too much size, bit too slack with stops, bit too slack with entries. All as a result of poor mindset and lack of planning.
Good wake up call (even though I got away with it).