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Wednesday February 13th, 2019 Sleep: 7.5 hours. Mood: good, ready to trade. first trade was an ORBD in TEVA. was thinking it was going to be an ORBU but then it lost the VWAP. took it short with a 10 cent risk at $17.10 for the daily level at $16.64. it broke the even dollar but only for a second. i got out after it bought right back up over $17 for a small loss / break even. i did not like the price action GOOD: got out before my stop when i saw the trade wasn't working RFI: i should have waited a little longer to make sure it was going to break lower. also, i could have taken this on the upside after getting out of the short. MOOD: ok. CONSISTENT: yes. Last trade of the day was a double top in ATVI. i liked the rejection of the daily level on the five minute chart at 9:50 and 9:55. took it short on a new 1min low risking the HOTD to the VWAP. i knew that 20MA on the 1min chart was going to be resistance so i was patient after my entry but i could have waited for the pullback to $45 to get in and i would have got way more shares. sold my first piece too early and the second piece right as expected. GOOD: good setup. RFI: entry could have been better. selling first piece could have been better MOOD: good CONSISTENT: yes. What i did good today: took only planned trades. What i did bad today: selling still needs work. use limit orders when you're in a winning trade. What can i do better tomorrow: maximize your winners. Other comments for tomorrow: Keep up the consistent trading.

A Day so bad you gotta journal twice. One thing that I noticed today is that I missed out on 3 wining trades because I set limits that I either pulled or were a penny off and didn't fill. I've had this problem for a while, and I usually have one or two trades a day, where I actually have my limit set, and it doesn't fill or I take it off. I get real close, but I miss out on the trade. I'm not sure why or when, but it must have been a few months ago where I just started doing limit orders and then I gradually switched all my entries to limit orders. Today it happened 3 times and each one would have been a day maker. I would have been done with the day if I got in any of those trades. Today I missed out on multiple $100 trades because I was trying to maximize $1 or $2 on the entry. That is a bad Risk/Reward! I am showing some of my missed limit orders for the day. I didn't have any limit orders today that I cancelled before it hit and would have lost on. I tried my best to place my pointer on the right price to show where the limit was set, but the gray line is very faint. $EXEL - I had a limit set for $22.95 and pulled it fairly quickly. The stock did touch $22.95, but I am usually last to get filled anyways, so there was a chance I wouldn't have gotten in this trade even if i didn't cancel the limit. And after I cancelled I placed a higher limit that didn't come close to filling. This was a killer as I took a lot of shares and it moved almost $1.50. My stop was a few cents above $23, so the R/R was probably 10/1 or even greater. $CRON - I had every opportunity in the world with CRON. It floated in the .96 to .98 range and I just didn't take it. I was in, then I cancelled, in then I cancelled, and in then I cancelled. I was so hesitant on this trade. Would have been a nice 30 cent move. $ATVI - Missed this one by literally a penny. It was an easy short for me. I would have sold most at VWAP for a 50 cent gain. 3 Times today, I missed out on winning trades because I was trying to penny pinch. I try too hard sometimes to be penny perfect on my entries. The funny thing is, I am so relaxed about it on my exits. For instance if VWAP is at $44.10 for ATVI, I would sell anywhere near VWAP. I dont need it to hit VWAP. I don't care about the pennies on the exit, just on the entry. I've had this problem for a while. I usually miss out on at least one trade a day because of this bad habit. A couple of questions arise because of this, 1. Should I be market ordering on all my trades? 2. Do I feel so confident in a trade sometimes, that I try to even be perfect to the penny in order to maximize gain? 3. Am I scared of winning? 1. Should I be market ordering on all my trades? I dont know when I made the transition to limit orders, but there was a point a little while back where I felt the same way that I do now. I am missing good trades because I am not taking market orders. Any one of those trades that I missed on today, if I took them, I would have had a +$100 day instead of a -$141 day. I think I need to start taking market orders on trades with reasonable spreads. If I were to trade TSLA or NFLX then a limit is necessary, but otherwise I dont need to penny perfect. Take the market order! 2. Do I feel so confident in a trade sometimes, that I try to even be perfect to the penny in order to maximize gain? This happens to me often. Obviously if the trade goes against me, I will get filled along the way, but it seems that I try too hard on these winning trades. I think I know when I see a winner, and I want the perfect fill to go along with it. I need not to be scared of the market order. If I like a trade so much that I am trying to get a perfect fill, then that means, I just need to get in on that trade. The those few dollars extra I would lose on a loss, do not outweigh the missed gains. In many of these cases, they are winning trades. 3. Am I scared of winning? The biggest question of them all. Am I scared of winning? As dumb as it sounds, it is a serious question that I must answer. I have been trading very poorly lately, and everyday I wonder, why did I barely miss my limit order fill on a big winner, but I had no problem taking a loser that wasn't a clear cut setup. From what I am reading, the answer maybe that I am fearful that I may not be able to replicate success tomorrow. I can take a winning trade today, but if I don't do it tomorrow, am I telling myself that the winning trade was a fluke. Is that what I am scared of? I play quarterback for a flag football team 2 times a week. I think we are far and away the most athletic team on the field, but we don't always win. I've thought the same there, am I scared of winning? Is is always easier to be the hunter than the hunted. It is easy to have a goal to be #1, but harder to achieve the top spot and hold out while everyone else is gunning for you. The target is on your back, is that something that I am scared of? Do I not want the pressure of being the best, of always having the pressure to perform. Is that what is holding me back here? Obviously there are a lot of things that I need to work on, but am I afraid of taking the next step and then having to always trade at this leveled up stage. If I have some success for a few weeks and then go on a losing streak, am I scared that it was all a fluke and I didn't deserve my success? I guess the second lesson that I am going to try and get today is that I need to develop a winning mindset. I want to do well and I want to succeed, but is the fear of pressure of constantly performing holding me back? I did say full transparency... I've actually had a real rough start to the 2019 year. I've posted all of my trading says since I started this journal here. You will probably notice that I have a lot of losing days. It hasn't been pretty. It may be time to get back into sim, there is no shame in that, but is something that I am trying to avoid. I feel like a day in Sim is a day I can't make money, but looking at my numbers, I might need to see it as a day as not losing money. Two winning days in February. Both were probably break even or near it after commissions. I am not trading well. I think we can all agree on that. I started my 6 trade lifestyle change on 2/7. Its been 5 days and I broke the rule 3 times already, still much better than before. A couple of things have happened with how I approached trading since that day. The benefits are that I am more selective with my trades, and I pay less in commissions. One of the side effects is that my win % has gone down significantly. My trading volume has gone down. You can see where I was trading freely, then trading with a 4000 share limit, and then trading with a 6 trade limit. I have won 7 out of 35 trades with one break even trade. 20%. Right away that looks terrible, but I think it can be corrected. I see a minimum of 5 trades that went enough in my direction that I should have taken profit and stopped at B/E. You could even make the case for a few more that could also fit this category. I also see about 4-5 more that have minimal losses -$5. These trades I am ok with. They are part of the game. The issue seems to be that I am trying to make every trade count as I should, but I am also trying to make every trade be that big winner. I'm not settling for the $20 gain or taking enough profit when the stock moves my way. I need to adjust my mindset so I accept a winning trade as a winning trade. I don't need to force my ideals of what I want on to the trade and instead I need to take what the trade gives me. I need to be ok and very happy taking a $40 win. I am also avoiding trades where the reward would equal $30-$40. Those are good trades and I need to take those. Winning trades are winning trades. I don't have to always have a preset reward of $100 plus in the trade. Or take a trade just because it is far from VWAP or the next level. If I see a trade that will move and I am confident I should be taking it. Don't pass up on it, hoping for a riskier $100 trade later on. The second issue with my trade selection seems to be that I am not waiting for confirmation, I am trying to increase reward, while also decreasing my edge. There have been times where I have taken a trade right at VWAP before it is signaled its direction and given confirmation. I impart my biases on the trade at VWAP or a significant level and hope the trade does what i want it do. I don't need to be controlling the trade and trying to make it do what I want. TLDR Take Market Orders - $1 isn't worth missing out on $100. Keep the winners as winners - Small winners are better than small losers. Wait for confirmation on trades - Don't need to be forcing out the directions, just go along for the ride. Be ok with winning

Im up for the meetup! we will meet at the circled place in the photo and decide the bar again. See you guys there tomorrow.

February 13, 2019 - $MU (2 Trades Outside Edge) Today is one of the days I lost my battle against FOMO. Three 5 min ORBs all of which had awesome setups feed into my urge to trade. $MU met my trade criteria, but pasted my stop loss before providing an entry point, which usually means I do not trade it because the stock is choppy. Instead, I decided to trade outside my edge when I saw $MU consolidate at the 9 SMA and start moving back up. When it broke the open of the previous candle on the 2 min chart, I entered, but forgot to move my stop loss to the new point I wanted resulting in my $ risk being more than I wanted. I decided just to exit the trade, reset the stop and move on from there with my plan. I took out a portion at the high of the day, I then took out another portion at another Resistance level, I exited when the stock engulfed on the 2 minute chart. After pondering the day and reviewing the trade later, this was good trading with regards to risk management and profit taking; however, this was not within my edge and my plan for the day. Sample Set Results P G S G S 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 

2/13/2019 Got smacked by my own bad trades and sizing once again. Also, broke a rule I haven't broken in months. I have been great by not trading in the first 5-minutes. After reviewing some charts, I saw some entries I could have taken in that time frame. Took one today and took a L. It's out of my system for awhile, now. Result: Watchlist: $TWLO - Had a gap down on TWLO and I was looking for the ORBD. I took the trade on a 1-minute pullback to the 9MA 1-minute. Went short 50 shares and added 50 shares after getting a move down. Covered for a loss after the price action began to uptrend. Second trade on $TWLO turned out great. Went short 100 shares after getting the close below VWAP/9MA 1-minute. Covered half at the low of the candle. Patiently waited for the next leg down and covered another half and scaled out. Could have held the last 13 shares for the rest of the way down to the 109.27 level I had. Great trade and very patient and timely on the entry. Now, if only I can consistently do this without taking bad trades. Last few trades on $TWLO weren't the best. Thought the price action would push back towards low of day. I got in too big on size with 100 shares. Covered for a loss. Got back in for another short 50 shares and added another 50 shares looking for a push down and stopped out again for a loss. Both of these were bad trades. $CGC - Price action was strong out the gate and I looked for a ORBU. Went long 200 shares after the first 5. Price action broke the 9MA 1-minute and I sold to prevent getting caught in a wash below the VWAP. Price action was clean, just wasn't time for the move. $MGNX - Price action gapped up in pre-market and then sold off hard at open. I waited for an entry to the downside on the 9MA and went short 200 shares under the VWAP. My entry was a bit late, but I did get in near the 9MA 1-minute. Was looking for a push down through low of day, but the 21.70 level held and bounced. Covered for a loss at the break of the 9MA 1-minute. $ATVI - I tried to catch a reversal to the 9MA 5-minute, but failed. Went short 100 shares and added another 100 on the second candle. Price action seemed like it wanted to hold and I covered for a loss. That move did happen a few minutes later. $EXEL - I missed the ORBD here. Perfect entry at the 9MA 1-minute. $TWLO - The retrace to the 9MA 5-minute and wash out was my expected move on TWLO, but I think my entry was too early in the trading day for it to happen. Almost like the price action didn't have time to find a trend and pullback first. $MGNX - Similar set up here, but the price action found the 9MA 5-minute as resistance and faded.