AA's Journal

[AAgnostic 4]

I'm AA. I've been trading on and off for over a year now. Recently, I want to take trading more serious so I start to record my trades in a journal. My result hadn't been great, but I usually have some kind of ideas/excuses on why I would take a trade. So by writing this journal on BBT forum, I hope to get some feedback about my trades so I can improve as a trader. Anyway, I've been red all week so my goal for today was to make a few good trades and be done for the day. By doing so, I will be able to gain back some confidence in my own ability. Today, my main watch list is AMD, CROX, PX and WLL. My side watch list is QCOM, MU, and SPWR. Usually the side watch list are for stocks that price too high for my account or I don't have share for short, or maybe penny stocks. 

Trade 1: I saw that AMD had a strong open. I took a 1 min ORB when I see that it bounced back from VWAP on the 1 mins chart. 1000 shares at $30.66. My stop loss is below VWAP. Sold 600 at $30.7 which is high of the day. Then the rest towards the 200 SMA on the 5 mins chart for a profit of $70.40. I usually don't take trade in the first 5 mins so I was scared of the volatility of market in the first 5 min. As a result, I took profit way too early. As you can see, I scaled out way too early too... Missed out on a 60 cents move Good trade, but bad management.

 

 

 

 

Trade 2: CROX gapped up a lot. It sold off badly in the first 5 minutes. This is probably the sign of share holders and swing traders taking profits. I saw that CROX bounced back perfertly from $24.6 level. That is the 200 SMA level on the daily chart which is an extremely strong support level. Then, I saw CROX pushed up above the MAs and VWAPs. It consolidated at this level. On the 5 mins chart, CROX seemed to hold the VWAP. I went long at $25.69 for 1000 shares. Stop loss is a bit below VWAP. Target is at around the @25.99 level then high of the day. Anyway, I sold 600 at $25.91. 240 at $26.05. The rest was supposed to be sell at $26.35 but it dropped 12 cents on me so fast that I sold it at $26.23. Profit of $304.80.

 

Overall, today is a good day. I missed two opportunities today. One was on WLL. WLL gapped down a lot. I saw that it reject the VWAP and wanted to go for a 2 mins ORB, but then I saw that the spread was 10 cents! So I didn't take the trade. Right now it has SSR but I think it didn't have that at the time.

 

 

 

Another missed opportunity was on SPWR. It gapped up a lot due to good earning. The last 20 mins of the pre-market seemed like it was ready to pop up. Well, I saw a strong open in the first 5 mins, I was waiting for it to pullback to test VWAP. If it holds VWAP then I can go for ABCD + ORB strategy. Well, I saw the pattern on CROX around this time and decided to trade CROX. Next thing I know, it skyrocketed without me

 

Edited August 1, 2019 by AAgnostic

[Mark D. 435]

Hi AA, 

 

thanks for sharing! these are live trades correct? have you considered lowering your share size can help with you're wanting to get out early. great trades! missing more of a move on a winner is a good problem to have

[AAgnostic 4]

25 minutes ago, Mark D. said:

Hi AA, 

 

thanks for sharing! these are live trades correct? have you considered lowering your share size can help with you're wanting to get out early. great trades! missing more of a move on a winner is a good problem to have

Hi Mark! 

These are just sim trades. I forgot to mention that! I traded with real money before, but didn't do so well so I've been trading in SIM for 3 weeks or so. Well, usually I try to lower my share sizes if I am unsure about the trade or if the risk is too much

[Mark D. 435]

nice! i'd recommend position sizing your sims trade as realistic as possible to what you plan on taking on your real trades. i did the same thing you did taking 1000 shares in sim but now i only take 100 shares live so when i started trading live i had a hard time scaling out because the commissions are a considerable chunk of each trade on small share size so i started scaling out less. Same with commissions, make sure you're taking commissions into consideration.

I did not do that and it threw me off trading live. So once i went back to sim again after a couple weeks, i positioned and took commissions in to consideration and it made the transition back to live trading go much easier. 

[AAgnostic 4]

37 minutes ago, Mark D. said:

nice! i'd recommend position sizing your sims trade as realistic as possible to what you plan on taking on your real trades. i did the same thing you did taking 1000 shares in sim but now i only take 100 shares live so when i started trading live i had a hard time scaling out because the commissions are a considerable chunk of each trade on small share size so i started scaling out less. Same with commissions, make sure you're taking commissions into consideration.

I did not do that and it threw me off trading live. So once i went back to sim again after a couple weeks, i positioned and took commissions in to consideration and it made the transition back to live trading go much easier. 

Thanks for your feedback, I will definitely keep in mind my sim share sizes vs my live share sizes. Well, right now I'm using CMEG. The commissions + ECN fees are per share so I think I can scale as much as I want which is nice.