Vikramaditya Trading Journal - Live 08Apr2019

[IamKarthi 342]

20.Nov.19

-1r. Today was the day with so much of opportunities, still I din't make use of it. 

Watchlist: $TGT, $LOW, $KSS, $PDD. $CGC. I liked my watchlist today.

Trade1: $TGT. Strong earnings, increased sales in digital channels, gapped up. All reason to be biased for long, I was looking for Fallen angel setup. Got one too, but my kid bothered me so much about something that I had to get out of position. Can't avoid it. Got back in again, after bounce of HOD for TT. 

 

Trade2: $LOW. Long after bounce off premarket high, added (not a good add) and got stopped out. 

 

Trade 3: $PDD. Sold off 25% at the open, due to bad earnings, China trade news and HK news. Triple catalyst, I was so biased to take short. All I managed was BE trade. It sold off so much that the pullback (profit taking) was 4$ to $35, when it started reversing again.

 

Good: Good premarket plan and mostly good execution.

Improvement: should have played $PDD better, could have been my 1 and done day. 

Overall disappointing day. 

Edited November 23, 2019 by IamKarthi

[IamKarthi 342]

21.Nov.19

Green day. +5r. 

Watchlist: $CGC, $TGT, $M $UBER.

$CGC. Gapped up. took couple of trades and closed well. I reduced my risk by closing some positions, when the move didn't happen immediately. 

 

$UBER: 3Bar play on the 15min, move didn't last very much (and to an extend I expected, which was 50MA on daily). Still good move. 

 

$AMD: Doji on the daily yesterday, and it had gapped down today. Took it short at LOD, on a wedge/bearflag. Good move.

 

Good: Caught the right opportunities and made good trades out of it. 

Improvement: $CGC open was not clean. Could have played it better, by waiting for confirmation (like engulfing candle) .

Overall happy with my trading today. 

[IamKarthi 342]

22. Nov.19

Blackday. BE. I was out till afternoon today, came back and took 2 trades. 

Watchlist: $CGC, $M, $TGT, $T (all continuation plays)

$CGC: Took short below the daily level on the bounce. Got out of half position to reduce risk (as I wasn't planning to trade today). But when I got my 2r move, din't take it. 

$M: Took a 2r trade on $M to HOD based on the L2 Ask. I place my profit target in front of big ask and get out AON. 

Overall light volume day, nothing much to write about. 

Edited November 23, 2019 by IamKarthi

[IamKarthi 342]

On 11/1/2019 at 8:50 PM, IamKarthi said:

BBT Anniversary and October Month  Summary.

Although this is supposed to be a monthly summary, I have also completed my 1 year with BBT, so I want to share my experience overall. (BTW, do the members get anniversary wishes from Andrew/BBT )

First off, thank you @Andrew Aziz and @Brian Pez for putting together such a wonderful community. If joining a Trading community was a trade, I hit a A+ setup by joining BBT. I could have lost my valuable time and money elsewhere, lucky I found BBT. The moderator team is awesome, I sorely miss @Robert H and @WilliamH 2 guys from whom I learnt the most, in this community.

Experience: 

I can split my Trading journey in the last 1 year into 3 phases , and this is something I would recommend to the new traders too. 

1. Simulator - I spent about 6months in Simulator. This was more to get used to the DAS platform, trying out few setups explained in Andrew's book and elsewhere. Get connected to moderators and other members in the community, observe and learn from them. More importantly learn how to do the routine independently and how to Journal and review.

2. Limited Live - It's very easy to be successful in SIM, but fail miserably while trading Live, and lose the capital early in the game. It's important to get a feel of how trading live is and learn to control the emotions. Set goals and stick to them. So, I went live under PDT (only 3 trades allowed in 5days) in Apr'19. That's when I started journalling in this forum. Now, this community is awesome not only because of the moderators but because of the members who are willing to share feedback and be helpful. After I created my trading plan, @Marek Liyanageand couple of other guys proactively reached out to me and passed on their feedback. It's confident boosting, when an experienced trader concurs your plan. 

3. Fully Live - It's very important to know when you are ready to go fully live. For me, I took the Besttrader challenge #1 to evaluate my readiness. I was the winner of DAS besttrader challenge #1 under stock instument. I stuck to my rules and executed my plans almost perfectly for one month. So I went fully live in July'19 after 3 months of limited Live.

Once I lifted PDT in July, I enjoyed the freedom to take unlimited trades. As much as it is thrilling to take trades (and lots of it), sometimes I forget the ultimate goal in Trading is to make money. And if it comes from one trade then I should be happy about it. Based on 1 year experience, I have evaluated what my strong points are and my improvement areas are and how I am planning to address them. For me it helps to write down my plan and publish it in the forum. It's a commitment. I hope it helps someone else too. 

My Strong points:

Trading is the best job in the world. Market is the boss and She treats everyone equal (from a Novice trader to the best minds in the trading world). The harder I work, the more I will get from the Market. 

• I always respect my STOP loss.
• Usually my Entries are very good. I don't chase stocks.
• I don't Average into my losing position
• I stop trading after reaching my Daily goal (or close to it)
• I manage only one trade at a time (unless I have a range order to cover my other trade).
• I don't Revenge trade when I take a loss on a proper setup - I move to next stock immediately to avoid Revenge trading
• I trade 8-9 setups successfully and I can find setups thruout the day. 
• I work on my own Premarket watch list, and hop on to the chatroom to see if any obvious misses. 
• My premarket list and my game plan for each of the stocks is mostly very good and accurate.
• Recently I have started taking more risk on my A+ setup
• I don't follow anyone to enter into a Trade, unless I am convinced of the setup.
• I have started trading off higher timeframes (30/60min) in the last couple of months
• I am learning everyday and I am happy and eager to learn more

If I was to begin my journey again, one thing I would have done differently is to focus more on L2 in Simulator itself. Andrew introduced it, Kurt taught in greater detail about L2 in one of his sessions. That was eye opening. It takes time to learn and trade off L2.

My Improvement areas:

WIP, will include it as working on a detailed list. 

 

My Improvement Areas as of 31-Oct-19: 

After I went fully Live in July, I was like a kid in a candy store. I took all kind of setups and price actions, premarket, postmarket,  Earnings, IPOs everything. Once I lifted PDT in July, I enjoyed the freedom to take unlimited trades. As much as it is thrilling to take trades (and lots of it), I forgot sometimes that the ultimate goal in Trading is to make money. The only thing that saved me was that traded with very minimum risk like 10-25$ per trade. Eventually, I Hulked on the 19th July trading $MDLA IPO, made good money before giving it all back and more. I had my worst day ever ~11R (for comparison my best day has been 10R). Next couple of months, I had couple of really bad days that took out most of my profit. 31-Oct I had a losing day that took out most of my profit from October, I ended up Breakeven for the month. 

The Pareto principle states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. 5 of my losing trades caused me -22R till end of Oct, that is only 1.5% of my losing trades causing 15% of all the losses. If I manage to cut down the big losses and Big losing days then I am in good shape.  Below is my improvement plan that I will be tracking each month. 

 

My weak areas that I need to improve upon	How I am going to improve
My most losses are in ORB	This is normal, as I trade mostly the Open. But I restrict myself to trade anything except Rising Devil/FallenAngel/3bar setups at the open henceforth, till I see a reason to lift this rule
I keep trading after 3 losing trades (which is my limit/day).	To bring more discipline, I am going to include an exercise schedule (1hr in Gym/100 pushups) as part of my premarket prep. Failing this I am not allowed to trade that day.  If I end up in overtrading situation still, I have setup DAS risk control for my maxloss/day that would save me.
I am a bit addictive to trading now, leading to Overtrading.	I have set a punishment for me when I overtrade. This is really something that I really hate to do. I have already tried this once, it is so Hard.
I am taking a stab at almost every price action that ends up in small losses eating up my profit	I have a clear set of setups that I trade. I think i have had enough experimenting in the last 1 year in SIM/Real.
My rules are not strict. Although it is necessary to be flexible on the trade management based on how Market behave, it is mandatory to be consistent. And only strict rules can enable consistency	I need to define rules for profit taking for different setups to make sure consistency. Should also be different for type of setups (Momentum, Fading, Trend etc,.)
I take multiple stabs when I trade price action	This is normal for a Trend trade. I need multiple confirmations for Reversals (e.g 1miin MA cross etc.,)
I jump in and out of the trade looking for small moves instead of one big move.	I need to build my cashcow setups like MA cross pullback or Fading, which may give 1-1.6Rs
I don't size my trades properly so miss out on trades that workout	although I use Kyle's hotkeys mostly, I am going to use them all the time. With limited trading setups, this is possible.
I hate to lose my trade	This is something I am still working on and improving. Trading is working in probabilities and everyone needs to lose some trades
Usually after my max Loss day, my next day is even worse	Skip the next trading day or atleast the open, next day.
I find using Montage is not fast enough	I have the streamdeck, once I make atleast 20R in a month I will set it up.
Overtrading - apart from setups, I try many trades to get a feel	Except for defined setups, everything else is for SIM only

Edited November 24, 2019 by IamKarthi

[Greg D 22]

Vikram, congrats on your 1 year anniversary! It’s been fun reading your daily journal and seeing you grow as a trader and man have you grown! The sky is the limit on your future as a day trader.

[IamKarthi 342]

25. Nov. 19

Greenday. +1.5r. It's a tough day as most of the stocks I watched didn't give me a clean large move. 

Watchlist: $CGC, $UBER, $PDD, $NVDA, $TSLA. 

 

Trade1: $CGC. Caught $CGC at the open when it broke the premarket high. This was the only trade I could take in $CGC. It was on SSR and couldn't trade short, sold for the rest of the day. 

 

Trade2: $UBER. $UBER had bad news, but was strong premarket near the open. I was hoping to catch a reversal, if the indications are there. I took short on the 200MA bounce with Shooting star. Got stopped out. 

 

Trade3: $PDD. $PDD gapped up and was strong at the open. I took wedge breakout to HOD at noon. AON exit at HOD. 

Trade4: I also took a trade on $NVDA and closed BE. Didn't trade clean, was not setting the trend. 

Good: Stick to my watchlist despite most of them not setting up for trend trade. Didn't overtrade. 

Improvement: I had great entry on $CGC. Appears, for my Add, i had LOD as Stop. This is wrong and too wide, which resulted in lesser share size. I should have kept the 2nd candle lower wick as STOP (per 3Bar setup). Missed out on a one-and-done. $UBER, i was so short biased. I should have checked the additional 1min MA cross for reversal (and 15min LL)

Overall Flat day.

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by IamKarthi

[IamKarthi 342]

On 11/24/2019 at 2:21 PM, Greg D said:

Vikram, congrats on your 1 year anniversary! It’s been fun reading your daily journal and seeing you grow as a trader and man have you grown! The sky is the limit on your future as a day trader.

Greg, Thank you! the feedback and comments help me a lot. really appreciate it. 

[IamKarthi 342]

26.Nov.19

Greenday. +1.5r.

Watchlist: $DKS, $GBT, $NTNX, $DIS, $DLTR.  I liked $DKS (gapped up with big shortfloat) however, there was a conf call at 10AM on $DKS, so was not sure how it would trade so missed it.

 

Trade1: $DLTR. gapped down more than 15% at the open, and was not sure how much it will retrace for the pullback and Rising devil setup. So I took a 1min ORB on the rising devil setup. When I combine 2 or more different strategies the accuracy of the setup increases more. I don't take just 1min ORB, it fails me most times, but when I combine it with other strategies it works well. This is what I have found out and been using, for e.g (MA bounce with 1min MA cross, 3BAR with ORB on higher timeframe, ORB with Risingdevil/Fallen angel). My favorite trade of the day. 

 

Trade2: $BBY. Bestbuy had gapped up on good earnings news. was looking for Trendtrade setup. Took long after strong 1min candle on 9MA. Added after the bounce. Now, something happened and my positions got closed while modifying the range order with the revised new increased sharesize. I got back in again, but entry was 10c more so got all out soon. Stock still held above BE to reach 83.6

Later when I watched the recorded video, I found out the mistake I made. I clicked the range order, instead of modifying the new Stop in the Montage, I clicked the chart. I clicked RPL and my positions got closed. 

 

Trade3: $NTNX. Gappedup on good earnings. but was selling off at the open. I took a reversal trade that failed, got out at 1r after fading.

 

Trade4: $DKS. This is purely based on L2 action. After missing out at the open (including 3bar play on 5min - also on $BBY), I noticed the $47 level is being held up by a buyer. Everytime it went down below $47 someone bought back up. I took long with stop at $46.95. Got stopped out first time, but re-entered and got 2R. Also my favorite trade of the day.

 

Good: Good trading day, although the P&L doesn't reflect that. Stopped my trading after 3 losses/BE trades.

Improvement: Sizing. Human error happens, but I know the issue now on $BBY range order. 

Overall happy about today, mainly because of the setups I took on $DLTR and $DKS. 

[IamKarthi 342]

27.Nov.19

-2.5r. I stopped trading after realizing I messed up the $BABA trade at the open, breaking one of my rules. 

Watchlist: $BABA, $UAA, $BOX, $DELL also $VEEV, $DE, $GES, $PANW (during mid day).

Trade1: $BABA. Gapped up, after successful IPO in HK exchange and also an upgrade. I waited as the price action was crazy at the open, looking to trade only 3bar setup today. I got long after the 3bar setup from the premarket high. Added after the pullback fromthe next daily level. Target was close to $200, but $BABA couldn't break the 199 level, got stopped out, so far so good.

Trade2: $BABA. i noted the shooting star on 5min, also realized 1min may be setting up for reverse ABCD. STILL after seeing the 1min candle break the previous body, I went long instinctively.  This was bad(atleast I could have waited for it to break the 198.6 level) got stopped out again. This is one of my worst trades at this stage. 

My rule is after 3 losing trades, stop trading. But because I hated my 2nd trade so much, I decided to Stop trading.

Later in the afternoon, I took a small trade on $BABA, for the break of 200$. There was so much of action on L2 (that I recorded) and wanted to be in on it. 30% position on this. 

 

 

Good: Started with 3Barsetup, as planned. Didn't overtrade. I remember the last couple of days of Oct, when small loss became big loss. 

Improvement: I missed so much of good trading today, because of my very bad 2nd trade on $BABA at the open. 

Overall mixed day. Disapointing because i breached my rule, happy that I respected the consequence and accepted it. 

 

[IamKarthi 342]

29.Nov.19

Green day. +2r. Light volume day due to Thanksgiving holiday and Half trading day. Took $PANW for followup move, one and done. 

Watchlist: $BABA, $PANW, $PCG.

Trade1: $PANW. Yesterday, $PANW opened weak, but had been strong thru out the day and closed strong. Interesting was, it formed a doji hammer on daily at support level. I was biased on a Long trade for today. I still held on to my plan though SPY opened weak this morning.

Got my entry above VWAP and held on for 2r. No more trades. 

 

Good: Planned the trade and Traded the plan today. 

Overall happy to close the month with a positive day and overall +21R for the month. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by IamKarthi

[Rob C 826]

9 hours ago, IamKarthi said:

 

Overall happy to close the month with a positive day and overall +21R for the month. 

Congrats on the +21R month. I have heard that >+20R is the magic number for becoming a CPT. The rest is position sizing depending on the consistency.

[Glenn Budde 356]

On 11/29/2019 at 12:43 PM, IamKarthi said:

Overall happy to close the month with a positive day and overall +21R for the month. 

Congrats..... That is what I am aiming for.....

Good Work....

[IamKarthi 342]

Thank you! @Rob C @Glenn Budde

[IamKarthi 342]

November Month Summary.

Green month. +21R. I can increase my risk by 10% next month. 

Positive points:

1. P&L: I have been going Hulk on the last 2 days of the previous months, In fact I would have had pretty decent months in Aug and Oct, if not for my last 2 days of trading.

Result: I was conscious of this fact in Nov. Thanksgiving holidays probably helped a bit too

	Final monthly P&L (in R)	P&L for the last 2 days(in R)
Aug 19	-2,00	-9,00
Sep 19	-10,00	-6,00
Okt 19	-2,00	-12,00
Nov 19	21,00	-1,00

 

2. My key issue from previous months has been overtrading beyond my Maxloss.

Result: For Nov-19 my maximum loss on a single day is -3.5r.  

3. I have been taking setups which are not A+. I have been trading a lot at the Open and trading just bias. 

Result: I restricted my setups for the Open and reduced taking setups that are not A+. My winning % is at 51% (second time in a month, where I had more winners than losers - other being my first month in Apr under PDT)

4. I have been overtrading a bit. I wanted to control this in Nov. 

Result: I had 280 trades in Oct, this has come down to 127 in Nov.

Althought I am overall happy about this month, there are many areas that needs improvement.

Improvement areas:

1. It is said that the first 6 months data doesn't matter much(after going fully Live). I am hoping to keep a check on my rules, guidelines and strategies going forward and achieve consistency.

2. My winning % need to improve. My goal is 60%. Accuracy dramatically increases the final P&L. 

3. I still take some trades which are not A+. I need to avoid this.

4. At the open, I still took some trades based on price action and bias, I am not supposed to take them.

5. Need to practice more L2 based trade management.

6. Need some high RR setups, as I think this fits my style more.

Edited December 1, 2019 by IamKarthi

[Carlos M. 230]

21R!!!!!

That is amazing great job man. 

Keep up the progress and the amazing work of detail tracking to find areas of improves. As  with Mike B., I am looking forward to these journals next year and see the progress continue to climb!

Great job man!