Trading

Tuning Time ( $FB $TWTR )

September 16, 2014 0

I really do believe I have turned a corner in regards to trading. Today I went through 5 straight losses and only toward the end did I start feeling some emotion (toward Twitter in particular… fucker just wouldn’t budge during lunch). I quickly reminded myself that nobody was out to get me, I took every opportunity that met my criteria and executed without question.

One issue I did notice today is that I missed a real ideal entry and instead of ‘chasing’ just a few cents I waited for the next setup to occur. Had I given myself a little more room for entry it would have easily been a nice winner.

Every trade but 1 worked in the sense that I reached my ‘risk mitigation point.’ That is where I take off 1/3 my position at the amount I use for the stop-loss (but on the positive side). Four of those six losers hit my risk mitigation points and I captured 20c on each contract. What I’m going to do in the future is tighten up my stop loss to 10c at that point so that even if she turns against me, it will be a wash and not a loss.

I had 1 winning trade out of 6 and the best part is, it almost washed away all those other losses. I’m down on the day less than the amount of 1 stop loss for 1 trade. That’s the power of letting your winners ride. With a bit of tuning and experience, I’m going to be just fine. Key is to take it day by day and keep a level head.

Today’s trades were all to the long side (looking for the price to go up). From here on out I’m going to use arrows to show my entry/exit. I’m not going to show all the places I scale out, just where I close the final contract. Green means I entered. Red means I exited.

$TWTR:

$FB:

I Act Without Reservation or Hesitation

September 15, 2014 0

It’s a numbers game. If you couldn’t tell by now I am primarily focused on $TWTR and $FB… probably because I am getting a small sense of familiarity with them. I entered on the crack of the low on Twitter and I entered preemptively on Facebook. I screwed up my order and accidentally took off 2/3 my position early instead of just 1/3. I reached my profit target for $FB but normally I would leave 1 runner behind… $FB proceeded to fall another dollar but hey, green is green. I saw the trade setup, I entered the trade, and I felt no emotions toward it when it was both in my favor or against. I’m going to rinse, wash, and repeat this every day.

Twitter had a nice flash crash down to $47.50 so that kind of made the chart look a bit wonky. All I know is that my runner for that paid out well.

2/2 on the day. I doubt I’ll trade the afternoon session but if something sets up, you know what I will do.

Edit: Took 1 more trade on $TWTR. I was looking for a bounce off the 13EMA for continuation to the upside. It broke $50 which was what I needed to see hold so out of the trade for a small loss. I was long this time, not short (which means I wanted it to go up. The rest of the trades today were short.)

Double Edit: Took ONE MORE trade on $TWTR. Market took a turn to the downside so once my setup showed itself, I took the trade.

3/4 positive trades on the day.

Caught Up On Some Reading

September 12, 2014 0

My mental state has been shaky lately as you guys have read. I purchased ‘Trading In The Zone’ by Mark Douglas back in February when I was preparing to depart Bitcoin trading for greener pastures in the great US equities market. I read the book and felt I had a good understanding about the concepts of a winning attitude and how to separate your emotions. The premise of trading is that of the ‘house’ in gambling. It is a probabilities game. You need a large sample size but a common problem is that you always carry your last 1-3 trades with you. As I reread the book yesterday and today, I seriously felt as though Douglas had written it for me specifically. What a difference a few months in the trenches can make when it comes to relating to topics discussed in that book. If any of you are trading and feel extreme swings mentally, pick it up. I promise you it is worth the few bucks it costs.

Confidence is a huge part of trading. If you follow your rules every time, you will become confident in yourself because you can TRUST yourself. You know that you will cut your losses when it says to. You know that you will lock in your profits without question and not get overly greedy. My string of 3 losers weighed so heavily on me I couldn’t believe it. Today I put on two trades. I could feel myself getting tense when it moved against me and then I just rambled off why I entered the trade and what my plan was for it. I was completely content with the money I put on the table to see if the market would work in favor of my plan. I realize that every moment is completely unique and that just because something happened before does not mean it will happen again.

The book opened up my eyes this time around. I plan on reviewing all my highlighted passages on Monday before the open to remind me what this is all about.

I took one screenshot today because it captured both of my trades. Both of these trades were pullback plays. At the red trend line I bought puts for both anticipating the markets/stocks to continue the down trend of the day. The green circle indicated my entry and the red circle indicates my entry. I was 1 for 2 on these plays that I initiated very late in the day. I spent the entire morning finishing up the book and I’m glad I did.


I may say this a lot but I’m looking forward to next week. The journey of transforming my mental state is going to be a 24/7 job but considering the passion I have for this, I’m ready 100% without a shadow of a doubt.

Need to Grow Some Stones

September 11, 2014 0

I knew this blog would capture the ups and downs of trading… and currently I’m in a limbo type state where I can recognize my problems but I’m having trouble correcting them.

My brokerage was down until yesterday but even with that, my papertrades were less than 50% successful. I knew that one of the largest hurdles in trading would be my own self but I definitely underestimated how powerful the human psyche is.

I see setups all throughout the day BUT if the first setup I see fails, I’m mentally put off and will usually sit on the hands the rest of the day. I just need to brush that shit off and move on. Maybe if I write more posts about how gunshy I am, I’ll eventually figure it out.

From here on out I’m scaling my position size down one half. I’m guessing when I say that the amount of the loss (all within reasonable tolerances) is too much for me currently. Maybe if my losses are smaller I won’t be affected so much mentally.

My losing trade from yesterday:

TWTR entry:

TWTR exit:

I got out before the complete 60c flush. Maybe I’ll start putting in the values of entry/exit with the screenshots.

Cash Buying Power: 0$

September 9, 2014 0

So because the brokerage I use went down on Friday and they had to manually close me out of my positions, the clearing house screwed something up and made my account think I put on a 20k position. Even though I didn’t, and I didn’t make/lose any money on it, it is automated to take 3 days to clear and give me my buying power back. So the past 2 days I have just been sitting on my hands and paper trading. I’m hoping to resume like normal tomorrow.

Apple made a nice 3% move today on the announcement of the new phones/services. Some of my friends made quite a bit of money. Next time it will be my turn.