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Mike B

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Posts posted by Mike B

  2. Posted

    January 13 - $AMD

    It feels like an forever since I traded live. It was good to trade on the first day after retirement spending the day at home with the family and not worrying about whether or not I had to catch a train. Total focus on trading today and it felt great. I didn't take anything at the open. I was looking at $QCOM short, but I was not feeling comfotable with it as it had no news catalyst, so I stopped watching it. I came back in the afternoon and took a short on $AMD. In the beginning I could tell my emotions were getting away from me because I had not traded in a while. I calm myself down and decided no matter what to stick with my plan. As a matter of fact, that is my plan over the next month or so. Trade my plan and let the chips fall were they do. My stats looking back on the year say I will be profitable if I do that, so that is what I am going to do.

    I took a partial at 1R and all out at 2R because we were within the last 1/2 hour of the Market. Looking forward to another trading day tomorrow.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P S P G S S P G 17 18 19 20

    xHHdYCs.png

  3. Posted

    December 31

    Well ended the year on a positive note. I finished the year up doing some analyzing on my strategies and performance in various aspects of trading from data that I complied over the past calendar year. The moving average cross over strategy data and % of R is skewed because it does not cover the whole year, just the past 3 months.

    Some interesting things I noticed is that I have a workable winning percentage with the 3 strategies I trade. As I did not focus the majority of the year on profit taking and managing the trade while in it, you can clearly see that the financial stats do not correspond with what the winning percentage of the strategy is. Currently, that is my main focus of improving. "Being able perform while in the moment." 

    On to next year. Hope everyone has a great New Year

    dlYhq4s.png

    • Like 3

  5. Posted

    December 30

    Yes another day of just watching the charts. One thing I was not planning on was all the extra stuff that you have to do when you changing paths in life. I got my office setup finally today, so tomorrow I am going to test it out. I might even have an opportunity take a live trade who knows. In the meantime I have been working on adjusting my journal and trading stats excel file to streamline the process. I hoping to have it complete by the new year. I hope everyone had a good trading day.

  8. Posted

    December 26, 2019. 

    Did not plan on trading today as my focus was on identifying the issues in my new office that were causing my platform to freeze at the open. I think I have narrowed it down to my desktop at home and the BIOS. I can't seem to update it, so I may ended up having to build a new desktop sooner than I anticipated. In the meantime, I did a little re-configuring, so I can trade off the laptop until it is fixed. I might be able to get a couple of days of trading next week. I will see what happens.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    December 24, 2019 -

    The fun but frustrating experience of moving and setting up my primary office for continues. Thought I had the internet and KVM switch fixed, but again this morning ended up having issues with getting the charts not to lag. See the image below. When your last price line market does not match your level two data, and you have a hard line connection straight from the router to your computer, it is time to call the internet service provider and ask how is it that I get better connectivity using a MIFI puck then I get from a hard line. Got great service as they showed up a couple hours later, tested my lines, replaced all the connections, and gave me a new modem. We will see how it goes on Thursday. Hopefully, it fixed it. 

    Most likely not going to be trading for the next couple of weeks as things are going to get really crazy with my retirement and moving offices. 

    YXTK4dW.png

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Well the past week has been a fun and interesting one. Thursday I end up not taking a trade in the morning, but was looking forward to trading in the afternoon. Then came the train ride home on Thursday as I was flying to Phoenix on Friday to visit a Marine. Train late of course so I didn’t get home till around midnight, so Friday turned into a no trade day from the beginning. I got home yesterday from Phoenix and had to do some construction work on my new monitor stand as it was tilting over. I figured it was a good time to re-run all the wire to make everything look a little neater. Which brings me today. I started this morning and everything was working good except my keyboard and mouse that I had connected to a switch. The keyboard kept cutting out making it nearly impossible to type or use the mouse. I spent most of the morning trouble shooting it and found that it is probably the switch. We will see tomorrow.

    $AMD had a great 15 min Orb this morning, I wish I was able to take it. The afternoon was better spent with the family than staring at the excessive amount of chop. Pop there the stock goes, oh wait pullback, see there the pop again, nope pullback again, and repeat for 3 hours. Lol.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    December 18 - $AMD

    Today my focus was on trading the same way I traded yesterday, as I traded well but the outcome just did not go my way. I could only trade the morning as I had marathon meetings at work, so I was very aware of my urge to force a trade. I was able to hold off on my orbs as the setups were not there. 

    I than had $AMD setup the same way it did yesterday with the same setup, so my mind was telling me not to take the trade as the result yesterday was negative. I recognized this and made the conscious decision to take the trade on the break of the price level and see how it worked out. It made a move and gave me a 1R partial than moved back to my break even point. The art of probabilities at work. Same setup, different day, different result. Great trade to re-enforce the reality of probabilities.

    Looking forward to tomorrow.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P S P G S S P 16 17 18 19 20

    sQwUZaF.png

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    December 17 - $AMD, $SQ

    Got the email on the meetup, sounds good. If you stay through Saturday let me know, I am sure I can find something interesting to do. Old Town, La Jolla, even a feisty hockey game will be going that night.

    Well not sure what kind of day it was, I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I had a good morning, stuck to my trade plan did not get any entries so I didn’t trade. Came back in the afternoon, and ended up taking two trades. One on $AMD and one on $SQ.  They both turned out the same way for me except I think I managed the $SQ trade a little better. I got stopped out on $AMD at my stop loss, but I knew long before my stop that the trade was not working. I stuck with my trade plan so I let it go all the way to my stop. I than took a trade on $SQ and the exact same thing happened to me. I was really confident with the $SQ trade, moving averages crossing, price level breaking down, and a ton of white space to the short side, but the market just didn’t want to pay me today. I managed this better as once I determined the trade was not working I decided to just exit instead of letting it run all the way to my stop loss. After exiting it took about another minute than it hit my stop loss.

    Today I decided to add a portion in my notes to type in how I am feeling before entering a trade, during the trade, and after the trade.

     

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P S P G S S 15 16 17 18 19 20

    djZDTm7.png

    lpzQA50.png

     

  16. Posted

    December 13 - $AMD

    What a crazy morning with all of the trade news. I had a great setup on AMD to the short side, but was real cautious due to the pending trade news. I held through the pullback and I was ready to hold it when it started to move in my direction again; however, as it was reaching the top  of the hour the momentum died off, so I exited as I did not want to get caught in a squeeze. Eventually after the news release and the market calmed down I got the move I was looking for.

    My second trade was on AMD to the long side, as it was testing a price level and the news was about to come out. I entered right before the news broke. Unfortunately, because I was on WIFI and the volume in the market was extreme, my platform began to lag. The charts were not useful to me, so I had to go off of the Level data that was coming in without any disturbance. I meant to take a partial at the initial pop, but instead added to my position throwing off my ratios. Once I realized it, I quickly covered readjusted and entered a range order for the last little bit and got filled right away because my platform was lagging. Overall I was happy with the trade and how I managed the mistakes. Looking forward to next week.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P S P G 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    va8xQjq.png

     

    i9oHxL6.png

     

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    December 12 - $SBUX

    I wanted to do today was repeat my performance yesterday. Execute the exact same way. Well that didn't happen because I get interrupted at the open and spend 30 minutes dealing work issues. Then I come back for the afternoon and get interrupted at least 3 times with more work issues. I finally get a trade and stop out. Probably because I was not focused on trading and had several other things going on. I really forced this trade, but looking back I should not have been in it. Rough first half of this sample set. lots of red. 

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P S 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    EWX4rtA.png

  18. Posted

    December 11 - $PCG, $AEO, $HD

    Today was a good day of trading, but a reminder of how not being able to fully dedicate yourself can affect your outcomes. I took three trades today, to include my first stock priced over $200. I know most of you trade those all the time but for me, it was an achievement psychologically. 

    Trade 1 - $PCG, I took it short after the sharp pop at the open. It had a lot of bids to the short side and had the moving averages crossing right at a price level. After entering I quickly got stopped out. Best part of this trade was how I handled it mentally. It was a simple oh well on to the next.

    Trade 2 - $AEO Another good setup, but just died right after my entry at the $14 mark. It was having some issues breaking this point. My only frustration came in that I had to go to an appointment, so I had to alter my trade management plan and go to a all or nothing range order. By doing this I lowered the success rate by 22%. And of course the stock came down to my 1R partial level and than bounced back to my stop loss. Because I couldn't be at the trading station, I was unable to take the small partial and instead ended with a 1R loss. 

    Trade 3 - $HD, I had a my setup the only issue I had was that it was after the FED announcement but before the chairman began speaking. I decided to take it anyways as it was my setup and my goal for the day was to take all the setups I saw that met my trading criteria. I got a partial before it came back to the break-even point. I took a partial a little early because the Chairman began speaking and the stock just started to stall so I wanted to lock in some profit before. It just did quite run all the way to my profit target.

    Overall a good day trading psychologically, just the market decided that it did not want to pay me today.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G S [P(S)] P 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    cbgOfb0.png

    aKpWV1h.png

    .AZrTERa.png

     

    • Like 2

  19. Posted

    December 10 - Bad day of trading mentally

    I was off today mentally.  It seemed that I was always chasing the indicators. Meaning that the stock would move and then I would see the indicator instead of the other way around. I ended up not taking any trades today, but had 3 good setups. Again, I was just not in tune with the market and the moves were happening before I could process the information. 

    I really sat back this evening and took a hard look at what I was doing, because normally after 3 days of not trading I am eager to get into a trade and usually get in too soon. What I determined was I was not mindful of what was occurring in the markets and around me. Yes I went through my normal routine, was ready to trade, but it was just that a routine. A check in the box of sort. I never really committed to getting my mind ready for trading. Normally, I am able to put all the extra stuff to the side for the 3 hours at the open and again in the afternoon. Today, on the other hand I let all the other things interfere with my ability too focus my mind on trading the markets. 

    I.e. I dealt with an online order issue during the pre-market, left my trading station 15 minutes into the market to answer a knock at the door (I normally ignore the knocks during the first hour of trading), I answered several phone calls during the afternoon session, and I tried to trade after oral surgery. 

    In the end, I mentally was just not there today even though I wanted to be.  Goes to show you that when you are not mindful of what is going on, you can miss opportunities that are staring you right in the face. 

    The image below was of $MU as I was watching it going into the close, but failed to recognize my setup. This was an A+ setup for me.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    JtwzPB7.png

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    December 6 - No trade due to traveling

    December 7 - No edge present

    December 9 - Sim due to traveling as it had been a couple of days, so I felt the urge to push the buttons.

    I had about 3 hours of sleep, so my analytics tell me not to trade. I decided to trade sim, so I sat back and waited for $CGC to make a pullback to VWAP. I got the entry on a 15 min Orb when the stock rejected VWAP with the moving averages in a favorable area. Not much else to say other than it felt good to trade after a few days of just not being able to trade in a routine. Looking forwarded to having a solid week of my normal routine without anything crazy happening. 

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    Rgf5fyc.png

    • Like 2

  21. Posted · Edited by Mike B

    December 4, 2019 -$AMD x 2

    I had a tough day today. Overall it was a decent day just a tough day trading. 

    Trade 1 - I had a great setup on $AMD. Moving averages crossing on 1 and 2 minute chart, a price level, all the moving averages on larger time frames below the entry, huge bids stacking up, and it was engulfing on the 5 and 15 minute charts. I got a good entry, set my partial at 1R where the stock hit but just didn't fill me, before the stock pulled back and stopped me out to the cent, before making the move all the way to my profit target. I vented my emotions with a few choice words, before getting a cup of coffee and sitting back down to finish the morning.

    Trade 2 - This was in the afternoon and again it had a great setup, Moving averages crossing on the 1 and 2 minute, huge bids stacking up, rejecting VWAP, and forming a price level. I took the trade set my 1R partial. The stock moved sharply up but stalled and did a strong pullback coming within a cent of stopping me out, before heading up to my partial. This is where I made some mistakes and strayed from my plan. I canceled my partial order as I wanted to clear it with the hotkey in case it hit my level and didn't fill me. It hit my level I pressed my hotkey and for some reason I thought that my hotkey was set to my old %, so I covered again. Well it wasn't so I took to many shares out which threw my profit taking ratios all off. I did some recalculations and set a range order; unfortunately, it was after the stock had hit the price. I left it because there were still huge bids stacking up that should carried the price back to my profit target. It did, but not before stopping me out at my breakeven.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G S G 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    hzZuhOY.png

    LJG6RoJ.png

     

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    December 3, 2019 -$JD

    I had a major bias today to the short side. I think I finally got my platform back to working at the open. The few days I had some issues. 

    I didn't take any Orbs as I just felt the market was chopping around. After the half hour mark, I saw $JD testing a price level just above VWAP with the moving averages on both the 1 minute and 2 minute charts looking to cross. I entered long on the break of the price level with moving average cross on the 1 minute. I had to force myself to go against my bias as I really was having trouble taking a long position. I took an early partial because I was so biased to the short side, and the market was choppy. Plus the partial came at a moving average on both the 2 and 5 minute charts. I set my range order for just under the HOD and got filled.

    Overall good trade.

    Sample Set Results,

    G S S G 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

    mPdDmTH.png

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    2 December 2019,

    I was traveling today and only got my typical 3 hours of sleep along with the 3 hour drive, so I sat on my hands and just watched the stocks in the morning. In the afternoon, I came back and decided to trade sim as I was pretty tried and was having trouble staying awake while looking at the screens. I did eventually, see a decent setup on $QCOM, so I took it short. I stuck with my plan A for taking profits and got a 1R partial and a 2R all out. My plan B also ended up working out, which is a 1R partial, 2R parital, and a 3R/Profit all out. 

    IXEMpBJ.png

  25. Posted · Edited by Mike B

    Well, no trades on Friday as the market was slow and I had some platform issues. Over the weekend I completed my 1 year of trading recap. well actually 13 months as I wanted to compared November 2018 to November 2019. So here it is a month behind when I originally plan on posting it. I hope you enjoy it. I am also posting it in the members only forum.

      

     

     

    I thought I would take after Rob C. and do a 13 month of trading anniversary recap about my trading journey. In this recap I am including the biggest lessons I learned, what I wish I had done differently before going live, and last but not least my recommendations for new traders, at the end I also added a comparison of November 2018 to November 2019. Hopefully, this help you not make the same mistakes I made, or help you prepare to go live. I figure, it will be best to start with recommendations for new traders, so here I go.

    Recommendations for New Traders

    1. Develop a business plan that has a vision, an overview, a trade plan (Robert H. Template is great), objectives, and an action plan with monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals. If you would like an example, send me an email and I will send you a copy of the one that I use.

    2. Trade every type of strategy until you find what you are good at, and then refine it and come up with a playbook before going live. There is a link in my daily journal on page 13 if you would like an example.

    3. Develop a risk management plan, and then seek someone out that has been trading live to give you constructive advice on it. Take that advice and apply it as you see fit, and remember they probably lost money at some point in their journey.

    4. Number one in my book is “Respect your Stop.” You are going to be wrong, have hotkey mistakes, and make bad trades. One of my criteria’s for going live was to go 20 straight trading days without violating my stop, because if I could not respect my stop in Sim, then how could I think I would be able to respect it when I was live. I believe this is the reason I have been able to not let a stock go past my stop this year.

    5. Last but not least, and I am sure you heard it from a lot of traders, it is a process that will take time, so enjoy the journey as you develop yourself as trader and truly get to know what makes you tick.

     

    Recap of the last year

    Personal – The one thing I was not expecting once I began my live journey was how much I would learn about who I was. Andrew and all the other moderators talk about how important psychology is in trading. It is not just the psychology while trading, but also getting to know yourself and understanding why you react the way you do in different situations.

    It took me a couple of months, but I eventually figured out that I hate to be wrong, because in my profession being wrong can have catastrophic consequences. That is why for the last 23 years I have strived for perfection in everything I do at my job. Now introduce a profession where successful traders are wrong 40% of time and you can see I have a lot to learn. Trading live for the last year has made me a more flexible individual, and is helping me to become a better overall person.

    Technical – My biggest fear once going live was that I would blow up my account and not be able to continue before I could get through the learning curve; therefore, I decided to take Andrew’s advice and treat this like a business. Prior to going live, I developed a 5-year business plan, and a career plan, trading plan, and metrics to achieve over a year.

    If any of you kept up with my journal, you saw that I approached the last year through baby steps. I would attempt to master one topic first, then move onto the next. Below was the path I took:

                    Step 1: Risk Management Plan – Failed at this until July 2019.

                    Step 2: Stop Loss Plan – Mastered it in Sim, I say this because I made it a whole year without violating my stop loss (full disclosure: 1 time I couldn’t get out a trade due to platform issues, but I did hit the button to exit).


                    Step 3: Entry Plan – This took me a while to nail down on my Orb strategies but by May I was very happy with it. When I introduced an afternoon strategy it became a huge problem and my equity took a hit, because my entry plan did not work, 25% accuracy when I took it live. Thanks to my risk management plan I was able to survive with minimal losses and have been able to readjust the entry to acceptable win rate of 61%.

                    Step 4: Profit taking – By far this has been the most difficult thing for me to deal with. I refer you back to I hate being wrong. I would be quick to take profits, so I could be right, but then would miss the larger move. If I held on longer; however, meant I would get stopped out more, resulting in the dreaded being wrong situation. I am still working on this but having a solid risk management plan has made it much easier to deal with.

    Monetary – Well, I know I am not the next great trader, nor have I ever thought I would be. I am perfectly happy being the 3rd string quarterback making minimum wage, so over the last year this has not been much of a focus for me yet. The only monetary thing I really wanted out of this year was not to blow my account up. In the end I accomplished that, so after I get a profit taking plan that works with how I trade, I will look at increasing risk. I know it is crazy trading stocks not to make money, but to develop my trading skills, I think I read that somewhere once. 😊

    Biggest Lessons learned

    1. I hate to be wrong

    2. Thinking in probabilities is a must, and I needed a lot of work in that area.

    3. I am really good at executing my stop loss

    4. I have sufficient discipline to execute a solid trading plan.

    5. My risk management plan I developed in sim was crap and caused me to lose more money than I needed to.

                    1st Risk Management Plan:

    November 2018 December 2018 - Took same share size per trade with no consideration for equity amount

    January 2019 – July 2019 – was risking 3% of my equity per day to make 1% of my equity, yeah makes no sense, right?

                    2nd Risk Management Plan: I now risk 1% of my equity per day to make 2% of my equity.

    6. The more I focus on money the worse I trade.

    7. Having a business plan prior to going live gave me a road map to follow when things did not go the way I expected.

    What I wish I had done before going live

    There is only one thing I wish I had done before going live.

    I wish I would have had my risk management plan focused around max loss per day instead of focused around what I needed to risk in order to make X dollars. This was a huge miscalculation on my part and I didn’t figure it out until 9 months into trading, when I started to focus on profit taking and why I couldn’t get my winners to outweigh my losers. Once I realigned my risk management into a correct ratio, I started having bigger winners and smaller losers and my net equity curve finally started to move up.

    Comparison of November 2018 vs 2019

    Item

    2018

    2019

    Total Days Traded

    15

    12

    Total Trades

    28

    9

    Average Trades per day

    1.86

    .75

    Profit/Loss %

    (2.6%)

    1.2%

    Rule Violations Average per day

    3.5

    .6

    Trades outside Edge

    5

    1

    Net Equity Curve November 2018

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    Net Equity Curve November 2019

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    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
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