Greg L's Trading Journal - Full Transparency 2019 Live

[Greg 54]

March 7th 

P&L After Commissions:  -$57

Trades: 9

I had a tough day today. There wasn't a lot of on my watchlist that i liked. I had two stocks and since I don't have access to the chat anymore, I resorted trading the usual suspects. This is a mistake and will more than likely be a mistake. I took a decent trade on AAPL that I didn't manage properly and other than that I traded like how I used to trade when I was trading the stocks that weren't necessarily in play. I haven't been consistently green, but I have been trading much better when I trade the stocks in play vs trading FB, AAPL, MU etc.. 

There wasn't a lot for me to watch today and I went fishing for trades. All of my losses today came from when I took a gamble or wanted something to happen with a stock. I took entries, not based on setups, or confirmations, but on what I felt would happen or what I would like to see happen. And I was wrong everytime! I am almost glad that I wasn't right anytime on these trades because I didn't deserve to be right. I need to wait for confirmation! 

This should have been a 1 trade or even a 0 trade day. I dont need to take a trade everyday. I need to learn that. 

One other interesting thing to point out is that I couldn't even last a minute in the majority of my trades today. That is a sign to me that I didn't take good setups and I gambled. 

$AAPL - I found a great entry on this trade, but I didn't manage it as well as I should have. I took 100 shares and I covered 35 shares between the first two covers for about a 10-12 cent gain. I did slightly better on the later covers. I am ok with the 3rd profit taking. The 4th profit taking is something I do often where I after a pullback I take profit again at the point it couldn't break the first time. Sometimes it bounces, but more often than not, it bowls right there like it did here. I took more profit and held 25 shares left for another break down. The reason I exited the trade where I did instead of actually waiting for the breakdown was because I traded MU poorly and wanted to lock in profits. I should only be in one trade at a time and I certainly shouldn't be  letting another trade affect my current trade.  Disappointed with how I covered the final share here. 

$SPY - The only other trade where I waited for some confirmation today. I went with the momentum and took it short. I took 150 shares and only covered 20 shares where I did. The rest was a slight loss to get me to B/E on the trade. I maybe should have taken more profits, but I thought SPY looked really weak and was going to break down further. I later realized that the 200SMA on the daily chart is at $274.80 which it broke but couldn't hold.

Peter in the chat and I once took the same trade, we both held without taking any profits and exited at B/E. I asked himhis thoughts on the trade and if he regretted not taking profits. He said he didn't because the trade didn't cost him anything. That is the same approach I'm going to take here. I knew the risks of holding and I don't regret anything because this trade didn't cost me anything. 

 

The rest of my trades will be posted together. I made the same mistake on all of them. I didn't wait for any confirmation and instead just took entries on what I wanted to be pullbacks. Each one wasn't a pullback and went right through my entry causing me to exit almost immediately. I took them all at a level of resistance/support, but I they were gambles. I need to wait for the right entries and the right setup instead of trying to make something happen. 

First trade was a hotkey error that I exited from for tiny profit. 

 

Every single one of these was a gamble on a pullback and they weren't even great gambles. I need to wait for setups and confirmation. 

 

[ktw 1]

Hi Greg, thanks for posting your trades. I just joined BBT but before joining I watched the live pre-market show on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfO2yCpx6_XU-xovhpJuaYw/featured. You can watch Carlos build his watch list so you have some stocks in play instead of the usual suspects. 

[Greg 54]

1 hour ago, peterB said:

Hi Greg, you can improve your trades with one simple rule. do not long on red and do not short on green candles. try it and you will see! you seem to be trying to anticipate instead of reading the real trend.

and don't be shy to exit on break even if the trade does not work.

Peter, I'm going to have to try that. Clearly looking at my charts today and from the past few days, it would work. 

You are 100% right though that I am trying to anticipate instead of waiting for the stock to reveal what it will do. I do slightly better with this problem when I have stocks in play that I like, but yea, it hurt me today

[Greg 54]

29 minutes ago, ktw said:

Hi Greg, thanks for posting your trades. I just joined BBT but before joining I watched the live pre-market show on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfO2yCpx6_XU-xovhpJuaYw/featured. You can watch Carlos build his watch list so you have some stocks in play instead of the usual suspects. 

KTW, 

 I do watch the moring pre-show, thats where I build my morning watchlist from. I just wasn't a fan of anything today and resorted to the main stocks. 

[Greg 54]

On 3/4/2019 at 11:30 PM, trader_JK said:

Greg,

I know exactly how you are going thru. I was in SIM for over a year before going live, yet I lost $8K in the first week. Went back to SIM after a month, came back lost $10K more. This is called "addicted to action". My suggestion to you is to read and put to practise Mark Douglas principle in "Trading in the zone"if you haven't read it yet. It is not completely a discipline problem because I considered myself to be very disciplined person. I played very advance electric guitar and bass. I trained many year in free style kick boxing. The kind that your couch pushed the sand bag at your face until your nose broken. You just wiped the blood and continued. I could lock myself up in a room for 4 hours straight to read technical books like Cisco or Juniper. Those books are like eating cardboard. Those skills take serious discipline. But you can see that I am not better than you when it comes to trading because of the instant gratification. However, I realized that trading is psychological in nature. How we trade is a reflection of who we are. If you're frustrated, the stock will creates event that caused you more frustrated. I am stable now for a few months. This morning I trades 2 stocks only and made $800. Most of the time, I trade just one stock and make average $500. Here my suggestions to you.

1. Don't come to the market to try to get something or to fight. Come to the market to look for opportunity. Tell yourself, I don't have to trade today if nothing good.

2. Plan your own trade by join Carlos in pre-market. FYI: Talking about lack of sleep. I left work and got home at 1am PST every day just to wake up at 5:15 to plan my trade and go back to sleep around 9:30am and again wake up at noon to go to work. So I am with you regarding lack of sleep. I've done this 1 1/2 year now.

3. Before market open, do deep breathing exercise by closing your eyes and visualize something fun and happy while taking multiple long deep breath. I ALWAYS nervous before market open. So this will help me relax and not too jumpy or anxious (FOMO). Remember, how we feel will attract the same result to us.

4. I choose "CONSISTENT" over making money. The moment I got my first win, even if it's $50, I shut DAS and my PC down and go to sleep. I don't care how many good stocks are in play. This will reinforce your inner strength because you do what you said you're going to do. It's not easy. But after 2 weeks, it becomes natural. We make habits then habits make us who we are. Be strict with your rule but flexible with you outcome.

Everything else you seem to get them in control there. Hope these help. I will add more when I can recall what I did back then to stop this kind of compulsive aka addicted to action. I can tell you this, when your mind is calm and you don't try or struggle to win, the setup will come to you. For me the winning trades are obvious and easy. I see what I need to see and get in right on the money and ride it all the way. In the past I would flip my position 10 times on the same stock without even knowing that it's consilating or being choppy. I just know one thing "I got to win". That's how bad or stupid it was. Looking back I can only laugh at my dump behaviors. I wanted to win at all cost. The market thought otherwise. To me because I did so well in the SIM and when it comes to live trade it did not work, I could not let that happen. I am no where near perfect yet but I am on my way. I wish you the best !!!

Johnny

 

 

Johnny, 

Awesome post man. I definiltely have Trading in the zone on my to reread list. Struggled with it the first time, but ready to give it another go. I agree with every point your making. I do come to the market to fight. My latest post shows me taking entries based on what I want the market to do. I need to go with the flow. The A1 Setups/Winning trades are so obvious when you see them. I need to wait for the obvious trades, that is going to be my key to success. If they aren't there for that particular day, then I need to learn to walk away. I don't need to go and try and extract money from the market if its not there. I will not win, and the market will eat me up like it has been. Its ok to have a day without trading and its ok to have a red day. 

I have seen some progress just by working on my bad habits. A month or so ago, I would let my losers break stop loss and let them run in hopes of coming back and also doubling down on my losers. I had a hard time with that for a while and I couldn't really keep it under control by myself. I implemented DAS risk controls to stop me out if my trade ever gets to $90. This was a number I knew I never should be hitting unless a stock really goes against me and I let it. It took me a few days, but I stopped doubling down on losers and stopped letting my losers run as well since there was no point. The most likely outcome when letting my losers run will be to be stopped out with a $90 loss and it would be totally out of my control. I still have the risk controls in place, but I exit trades properaly and usually at around $15-$20 and I no longer have the urge to double down at all. When something goes against me, I don't take the wait and see approach and maybe add to my position, I exit. 

As far as me being addicted to action, that is one of the harder things for me to deal with. I think I do a fairly good job on most days, being patient and waiting for a good trade for the first trade of the day. It is after that point when I can lose control. I will take chop and I will take bad entries across the board. I am working on walking away after my first 2 trades for 5 min and then coming back to reread my premarket journal entry before I trade again. I need to almost take a full reset to make sure that I am in a good state of mind to continue trading. And this happens whether the first trade is good or bad. Its going to be daily thing for me. Fixing this will be the next stop to me trading consistently well. 

 

[Greg 54]

Peter, 

I want to make sure we are on the same page here. 

First the max loss DAS stop out is a number I should never ever hit at my current risk levels. I should never have a $90 loss on one single trade. The only way that should happen is if I let something go significantly past my stop loss and/or if I double down onto my losing position and the trade continues to go against me. As you can see, I generally lose $25 or less. The $90 is just a number that I know I should never be hitting and if I do then I did something drastically wrong where I couldn't stop myself and I have to rely on DAS. It is my safety net. 

For the amount of shares I take, I actually take half of what is shown in the volume chart of my trade log. The volume column contains both the entry and the exit. So the 500 shares of MU is actually only 250 shares bought and 250 shares sold. That is how tradervue compiles the chart. Your point still stands that 250 shares for $25 is a 10 cent move on MU which happens regularly. Sometimes its all you need to know you need to exit the trade and sometimes you get chopped up with 10 cents. 

I don't trade with the risk/reward as a % of my buying power. I trade with a fixed risk style. So with that APPL trade, I entered at $174.18. I would have stopped out above the 200SMA, lets say $174.38. I took 100 shares on the trade so I risked $20. My first two profit taking points were early, I took 14 cents and 13 cents. I sometimes take profit at 1/1 and sometimes I dont. This particular time, I took it less than 1/1 and I wasn't happy with the exits.  My next profit taking was $173.84 and then 173.83 which is a little short of 2/1. The final profit taking was at $173.64 which is near 3/1. The final exit at $173.71 was me chickening out of the trade. I ended with a 1.5/1 R/R on this trade. It wasn't the best trade by any means, but I want to give some clarification for why I took the trade and the risk that I am taking.

  

As of now, I'm not focused on % of buying power. It maybe an issue down the line when I am taking larger share sizes because AAPL may be less attractive to me since I will be capped at around 500 shares for 100k buying power. And in that case this trade would have been $100 risk and $150 reward, but for now I am ok with the fixed risk method. 

 

[Greg 54]

March 7th 

P&L After Commissions:  $40

Trades: 4

Much better trading today. I switched my DAS layout so I only watch 3 stocks at a time vs 5 stocks that I used to be able to watch. I want to really focus on the stocks that I am watching vs getting overwhelmed trying to keep an eye on everything. The goal was to stick with just the 3 stocks that I picked out in the morning for at least 30 minutes. 

Overall I'm happy with the entries that I took, I just didn't do a great job capitalizing on the moves and taking enough profit. Every trade had a much higher MFE than actual P&L. All 4 trades I had to stop out at B/E or just past it. 

$LLY - Traded LLY 3 times. First time I saw it pushing off the 20ema on the 5 min chart which coincides with $124. I felt that was a great spot to take it short. I covered a little too much on the first profit taking. I did 45 shares, could have done half that and covered more when it dropped. I only took 20 of my 100 shares at that point. The rest, I stopped out when it briefly popped up above VWAP. I entered the second time when it pushed off vwap and below the 50SMA. It looked like it was going to hold the 50 and I took it short there. IT dropped about 30 cents from my entry, but I didn't take any profit and stopped out on the squeeze. 

The final short on LLY was when it broke the 50SMA on the 1 min. Again dropped down 30 cents and I just sold a small portion of my shares. Rest at B/E. 

 

$BA - Went for a reversal play on BA. Took it when it broke under the EMAs. Not the best entry. I was hoping for it to break the 50SMA. It broke under for a split second but couldn't hold. I stopped out at B/E. 

Much happier today with my trading. I was more in control and limited myself to 4 trades on the day. Big improvement over previous days of trading. 

 

 

[Greg 54]

March 12th

P&L After Commissions:  $53

Trades: 5

Took 5 trades today. Had 2 winners with 3 losers but finished up $53 after commissions. I had two winners who moved about $1 each but the profit taking wasn't the best on them. I could have let more shares ride for a longer time period. I was too antsy with profit taking on both trades. 

$MOMO Long - Took MOMO long on a VWAP break when it came back to retest VWAP. This was a bad trade. There wasn't any confirmation that the stock would hold VWAP I just assumed and wanted it to. It was not a great long and I got stopped out quickly. I took it again a second time a few minutes later when it broke through VWAP. A much better entry would have been a few candles later. I took my first profit after a 25 cent again and the second profit taking was supposed to be a $30 cent gain but I had a bad fill. I then started taking profits every minute or so. I need to let the trade ride out instead of being so aggressive with profit taking. There was no reason to take profits where I did. I also should have let the trade ride until it made a new 5 minute low. I exited near $37, just because it was a whole number. Decent entry, but profit taking can be a lot better.

$MOMO Short - First attempt was when it broke between the moving averages and seemed to hold the 9ema for one candle. It popped up and I had to exit the trade. I entered a second time when the price action looked like it was going to drop back down. It looked like it couldn't hold $37.70 so I took it short there. I sold half my shares before it crossed the 50SMA and sold 25 more shares at $37 and the rest near VWAP. Again could have been a little better with the profit taking but happy with this trade. 

[Greg 54]

March 13th

P&L After Commissions:  $-111

Trades: 9

Terrible day of trading. 3 losses accounted for the majority of my day, and dumb mistakes were made. It was a very slow day for me. I wasn't a fan of the gappers watchlist and I wasn't patient enough to wait for the perfect setup. 

$CRON - Thought it would be a VWAP break. Saw the moving average on the 5 min but still took it regardless. I then held too long on the trade. I wanted to give it a chance to move and when I exited it was at the top. I then swapped my position thinking that since it was going to break down below VWAP that I could take it long. That trade didn't work out and I exited that one appropriately. 

$ROKU - This was the mistake of the day. There was no reason to be in this trade. I was impulsive and thought it would bounce off the 200SMA as it had for the past 20 min. Also was holding under the moving averages on the 5 min. The trade did push back down a little but couldn't break under the EMAs on the one. I was ready to exit the trade. The spread was about 5 cents on this stock. So about $5 on my 100 shares. A little more than you want to see, but not a deal breaker. I was ready to exit the stock, but instead of exiting. I kept trying to set a limit to get a good fill and a good exit. I didn't want to eat the $5 spread. I had a few opportunities to exit for a $5 loss but chose not to. The stock then moved up to $15 loss and I chose not to exit there but instead set a limit order to fill. It popped up again and I moved my limit order up. I was chasing the stock with my exit. I was setting a trailing stop in the wrong direction. I kept worrying about the $5 that eventually the stock popped up to a $30 loss and I had to exit with a market order. 

I do sometimes record my trading session and I did record this one. I've attached some of the screenshots from the recording showing with me trying to get a good fill on the exit instead of just taking the minimal loss to begin with. My second limit order is where the first exit would have been if I just did a market order! When its time to exit a trade, I need to exit the trade! 

$CRON - I was trading my P&L at this point. I was up about $35 on this trade but didn't take any profits. I was hoping for a bigger move and wanted to capitalize with having a full amount of shares. Was shooting for it to break below LOD and down to $21. Exited near B/E. 

 

$ACB - Another bad trade. I was trying to make my money back and I took this ACB because it looked like it could be short. No reason to be in this trade either. Originally had 300 shares and added another 100 at the 50SMA. Very poor trading today. 

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Greg

[Greg 54]

March 14th

P&L After Commissions:  $55

Trades: 9

I had a good trading day going that turned into an ok trading day. I am super happy with how I traded for the first 6 trades that I made today. I even got up from the computer and called it quits. For whatever reason when I came back to the computer I took 3 more trades and all were losers. I was greedy and I just jumped into trades without waiting a good setup. 

$GE  - I first went long thinking it was just a pullback but quickly exited. Then I took it short when it came back to the 200SMA on the 1 min chart. It broke under VWAP and I was shooting for a target of $10 which is a lot to ask for with GE, and it never came. I took some profits along the way but got out the rest when it came back above VWAP. 

The third GE trade, I took long when it couldn't stay below VWAP and was pushing back up. I took it below the 200SMA which was a little risky, but I thought it was strong. It popped up and I held for 25 minutes without taking any profits. I wanted to get back to the HOD and see if It could break it. I was hanging out for most of the time I was in the trade and when it pushed below the 200SMA I exited. Maybe not the best exit since the stock did jump back up, but I wanted to be protective of profits. 

$AAPL - I saw AAPL couldn't hold above VWAP. I was targetting $183.35 but missed the entry. Decided to still hop in since there was a lot of selling pressure. I was worried that I chased it, but it dropped pretty easily still. My first target was the previous day mark. I first sold 25 of my 100 shares, and for whatever reason I just hit the button to get all out. I was little mad at myself for that. Not sure exactly why I did it. Maybe because the first few GE trades got away from me without me taking profits. 

$FB - Took FB short when it could break above the 200SMA. Dropped as soon as I got in. First partial was meant for VWAP. Bounced off VWAP pretty convincingly so I took another partial when it came back. My plan was then to hold until the stock wasn't going to go lower. It held at the previous day mark so I took partial profits. I exited the rest when it popped back above VWAP. I held the last shares too long. I saw that it was on the way back up when it started to make its move, I just didn't exit. I still need to find the balance with my strategy if I'm going to hold or take the profits and run. 

 

My last 3 trades were just bad trades. There wasn't a good solid setup and I was trying to get a quick buck. Not sure why I did it. I was at $80 after commissions which would have been good enough for me for the day. I went ahead and just took 3 bad trades that I didn't last a single minute in any of them. I wasn't at goal for the day, but I should have stopped since I did walk away from the computer and tell myself that I was done. Need to be better at walking away when I am done for the day. 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Greg

[Greg 54]

March 15th

P&L After Commissions:  -$33

Trades: 12

There are some clear cut signs when I am trading bad. When I trade things not on my watchlist and when I short significantly more than I go long. The only thing on my watchlist on Friday was ORCL. Because of that, i was looking for things to trade. ORCL gave me plenty of opportunities, I just didn't capitalize. I should have ended my day much sooner than I did. 

 

$ ORCL -  I don't really mind my trading on ORCL. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad. I really liked my first trade. I took an ORB after it broke the 200SMA and held it. It dropped about 20 cents and I took some minor profits. I was really hoping for the break of $51. It didn't do and I took a slightly loss on the remaining shares. I dont mind that this winner turned to a loser, because it happened so quickly and I felt the R/R was there. 

The second trade was a bad trade that I got out of immediately.

The third trade is the one that bothers me. I wanted to take it long for a VWAP break and I did. I just didn't get the entry that I wanted. I was looking for something closer to $51.55 instead of $51.60. A very insignificant amount and not a bad entry by any means. My stop would be break of VWAP so about 15 cents. I was just scared after 3 straight losses and didn't want to take another loss so I exited out of this trade before it hit my stop loss or even tested it. It dropped merely a few pennies and I exited this trade. Absolutely no reason to exit the trade. The next minute it popped and I regretted it. I knew I messed up on that one. 

$SPY - I shouldn't be trading SPY at all but I was looking for things to trade. It was slow and I should have just walked away. 

First trade was a 200SMA break/reversal. It was holding the 200 and looked weak so I took it short. It dropped to VWAP and I meant to partial some shares, but accidently sold all. I wasn't happy about it, even though the stock didn't really go further down. I felt I exited out of a potential big time winner. 

When it came back and pushed off VWAP a few minutes later, I thought that would be a good entry point for me to reenter. I don't know if I would have taken this trade if I didn't exit early on the first one. For sure this was a revenge trade to get some of the potential profits that I felt were coming and I should have had. STock popped and because I didn't have the cushion for a decently entry, I exited the trade. 

The third trade was much better. This one wasn't a revenge trade, I took this trade for its own merits. It broke under VWAP and held it so I took it short. It didn't drop as strongly as I wanted it to and I got out after taking some minor profits. Wanted to keep the winning trade, a winning trade. 

Everything else was just chop for the day and poor setups on my part. I should have called it a day before taking any SPY trades and just stuck with the ORCL trades. 

 

[Greg 54]

March 18th

P&L After Commissions:  $36

Trades: 9

Got into a hole early today. I exited my first trade early and then to decent sized losers with FIS. I was able to keep a level head and churn out 3 good winners after. The P&L for the day wasn't great, but I'm happy that I took good trades to finish the day. 

$FB - First FB trade was a bottom reversal after an ORB. It seemed to be holding he $161 level. The candles never closed below that level. I was in long at slightly above $161. While the candles never closed below $161, they did try to break down underneath it multiple times. That made me feel uneasy with the trade since I was already letting it run 25 cents against me which is about all I want to risk at $25. If it did actually continue downward, the loss would have been a much bigger one than I wanted. So I exited this trade at B/E when I had the opportunity. The stock did make the move up to VWAP and then some, but the R/R wasn't there for me for where and when I entered the trade. 

$FIS - FIS got me good today. It wasn't the best trading on my part. I thought it was a pullback so I wanted to enter for the break of LOD. It was holding the 9ema and the 200SMA on the 5 min. I wanted an entry closer to $108.20, so I wasn't too happy or comfortable with the entry that I got. It popped up against me and I had to exit. 

It looked like bounced off PDC and came back down so I decided to try and take the trade a second time. I got an entry I felt more comfortable with but the stock didn't break down and I exited the trade. 

 

$MU - Took me 3 tries to get this MU trade. I could have stayed in the trade from my first entry and probably gotten close to the same result. It broke under the emas and was holding under $40.25. Took it short underneath the 20EMA. I was a little skittish after taking two losses previously so I exited quickly at B/E. It still looked weak later and I got right back in for a slightly better entry. It tried to break down, but came back up so quickly. There was quite a bit of buying pressure at that point so I exited the trade for a small gain.

I kept watching and it pushed down a little more and I still thought it was short. I got in at the right time and the stock dropped. Took profits at the 50SMA, VWAP and below VWAP. Got all out when it showed some strength. 

$FB - Again it took multiple tries with FB to get the trade. The first trade was early. It looked weak to me and broke under $163, but the stock clearly wasn't ready and I got stopped out. There wasn't a lot of buying pressure to push the stock up and it broke under the emas and again under the whole number so I took it short. I was a little premature with the profit taking. I should have only taken 1 of the first 2 profit takings that I did. I am ok with the 50SMA and the VWAP target point where I got all out. 

$AAPL - Last trade of the day. Wasn't the best entry. This stock just looked like it topped out to me. It tried to reverse about 15 minutes earlier but bounced off the 50SMA. It started to push up but couldn't really break above $188.25. I decided to take it short and it did come down and broke the 50SMa. Took some small profits to lock things in. Generally these stocks will retest the 50SMA after they break, but push off fairly quickly. This time it held the 50 for a few minutes, but I had a good entry so I could wait it out. Took more profits on the way down in case it couldn't go lower. It then gave me 3 straight green candles and it looked like there was buying pressure so I exited the trade. The stop out should have been above the 50SMA and above $188. I still would have been profitable at that point, but I chickened out of this trade and traded with the mentality of just locking in profits. Missed out on the move to VWAP. 

 

Overall, an ok day. I did trade a lot of stocks that weren't gapping up and I did short 8/9 trades. There wasn't a lot in the morning gappers so I did put FB and AAPL on my watchlist. I do need to work on trading what is in play. I feel my trade numbers were a little inflated because they were just me taking multiple stabs at the same trade. I do feel good that I was able to turn a red day into a green day. 

[Greg 54]

March 19th

P&L After Commissions: -$124

Trades: 11

I struggled and I struggled hard today. I fell into a hole early, and I couldn't quit when I had one trade get me back. I have a problem with red days. I cannot accept a red day. I am doing a much better job at keeping the losers small for the most part, but I can't seem to keep the losing days small. I will keep trading and trading to try and get back to break even or better. It is killing me and my account. I have learned somewhat to stop when I am having a winning day and I am able to end the day green whether I am at goal or not. I cannot end the day red unless I am at max loss. I have turned many acceptable red days into unacceptable max loss red days. 

 

As you can see almost every red day is a max loss red day where I hit $150 plus commissions loss and DAS stops me out. The smaller red day losses are days where DAS has stopped me out after hitting 3000 shares. I think on only one of these days, did I decide to walk away on my own. Almost each of those red days, I should have quit before things got as bad as they are. I have a hard time accepting a small red day. It goes against everything you are taught in life, sometimes it is better in this game to admit defeat than to keep going and I am having a hard time accepting that and putting that into practice. One idea is to lower my DAS max loss. That is the next major goal that I have for myself. I need to learn to walk away when I am losing and I am done trading. I lose very often, but I still don't know how to lose properly. 

 

Can you spot the sim days? 

 

As far as my trading day goes, I took some major losses early in the morning. I should have called it quits right then and there. One of the things that has really helped me was sticking to my watch list stocks. Today they were WHD, STNE, MU, NVDA. I only watch 3 stocks at a time, so I was already breaking a rule by making this 4 stock watchlist. In the morning, I was flipping between MU and NVDA which wasn't a good sign. I kept 4 available in the morning in case WHD or STNE didn't move or went too out of control. That is when I should have swapped it out for MU. I shouldn't be constantly flipping back and forth between MU and NVDA at the open.  I didn't trade well, but I am ok with my trading up until I strayed away these 4 on the watchlist.   

$NVDA - I took NVDA long when it seemed to be holding VWAP. As soon as I entered, it dropped down below VWAP and I had to exit. Stayed in this trade for 13 seconds. It doesn't help that there was a decent sized spread. It then popped up back above VWAP. The second trade upsets me. There was no reason to take this short. I am not sure what I was doing. It never closed below VWAP and was even making higher lows above VWAP. This was a long and not a short. Bad trade on my part. I'm glad to have gotten out for a small loss. 

$STNE -  I usually stay away from wild stocks at the open, but for whatever reason I went to trade STNE. I thought taking a small share size might help, but the candles were still too big. Might have been because I didn't have a great watchlist and I believe at this point WHD was moving a too far from VWAP for me. 

I need to wait for a better setup when trading. I dont need to always be in a trade. Seemed to be holding the trend lines and the 20EMA. It broke above it on the first trade and I exited. Came back down and I tried again on the trade. Was not good trading. 

$MU - I was down $90 on my first 4 trades. Not where I want to be and I should be calling it a day there. I didn't even thinking about being done because it was still pretty early in the day. Saw MU was curling up and making higher lows. Went long with a target of $40.40. The previous day mark and where it stalled out earlier in the morning. I sold most of my shares there, but held some for the break. It did break up and I panic exited on the rest of the shares on the first red candle. I didn't need to exit the final piece where I did. I was watching my P&L and I knew how much the trade made me already, so I wanted to lock in the profits and be ~$25 down. I have had trades where they go $30-$40 in my direction and I dont take profit. they end up going back to break even or losing and I wanted to avoid that here with the final piece here. One thing I need to understand is that on the HOD breaks the stock can continue moving. I need to let the stock run more on HOD breaks. 

$BABA - This is where it all goes wrong. I didn't like my watchlist at this time. Low Volume and not a lot of movement for STNE and WHD. MU was still climbing, but I wasn't going to re enter. I then started searching for stocks. I checked AAPL, FB, SQ, CGC and finally landed on BABA. No reason to trade this stock and I should have stayed away. Took 3 trades, 3 losers. 

$AMD - After having no luck with  BABA, I came across AMD who was moving fairly well. I saw it setting up for a reversal and took it when it broke the 50SMA. I took 300 shares and was targetting the 50SMA on the 5 min at $20.40. It did come down to about $20.50 which was 13 cents and about $40. I really thought it would keep coming down since it was below all trend lines. Just couldn't break the half dollar barrier. It worked its way back up to my entry and I told myself to let it go above the 50SMA on the 1 min because that is where my stop should be. It did that and stopped out. I let a trade go from being +$40 to a loser. Exactly what I wanted to avoid on MU earlier in the day. My greed got me on this one and it was because I wanted to make up my losses that I already had. I believe that if this were my first trade of the day, I would have taken some profits. I need to treat every trade as the first trade of the day. My P&L shouldn't be affecting any moves I make in a trade. Each trade is independent of the rest and the rest of my day. 

Goal going forward - Learn to accept red days and keep the red days small. They are going to happen and that is ok. I know that nobody can win every single day that they trade. Part of the process is learning how to lose and how to lose gracefully. 

 

[Brandon K 64]

Hey, Greg:

Read your journal from the beginning till now. I hope you are still trading and just decided to take a break from the journal. You and I seem to have similar issues on our trading entries and mentality. 

I do have a few words of advice that are helping me get over the issues we share. I initially struggled A LOT with trading in the first 5 minutes. Sometimes I would win, sometimes I would lose. But over time I realized that this was contributing to the get fast money FOMO mentality. I liked the idea of trading only 2-5 minutes and being one and done. I had to go through a detox phase to ween myself off that habit and mentality. To help, I would force myself to sit and watch the market move and go without me. It was painful.. and I relapsed once a few weeks ago for the first time in several months. Haven't done so again because that day I lost. (Luckily, not bad because I realized what I did).

My point here is, you have to take similar steps in your own way to stop that habit. You gotta recognize that urge that you have and be okay with it being there, but not acting on it. It's gonna be hard, but when you recognize "the trigger" activating, you will catch yourself. Acknowledging your triggers and letting the pain burn as you watch the market move without you will help. I don't have the urge to trade the first 5 as often as I used to. 930 is 935 to me now. But that's just one part of it. What also helped me is attempting to battle FOMO in my daily life. You gotta practice the same things while you're not trading. <-- That is critical. For me, I let things happen as they do. It settles my mind and I move at my own speed. I don't rush, I don't fuss and I try not to dwell on downfalls in life. It's not a life coaching per say, lol but there are more things that hit our psychology and minds in a day than just trading. So, we definitely should pay more attention to external noise that alters our mental. Whenever you are trading and you feel that urge to double down on a trade, acknowledge THAT FEELING and let it simmer. Don't suppress the pain and push it away by doubling down because the trade isn't working. You gotta catch yourself when these triggers are activated.

And this is not to say I am perfect because I am not. However, my trigger(s) are far less volatile and I think that is enough to say that it's a damn good push towards becoming a better trader. I'm not at the point of not trading anything in a day, but the trades I do take I have a reason on why I took them. In most cases, anyway, lol.

As for some of your trades (in my non live/professional opinion), your bias shows towards the short side. Which is fine and you know that you are. It got more neutral as I went through your journal. Something I would recommend doing is studying the moving averages more and how they form in different situations. I found myself going short on up trends trying to catch the top of a reversal to a moving average and getting squeezed within a few moments later. I realized I wasn't aware enough of what the moving averages looked like when forming a reversal/long trade etc. So, when I went short, I wasn't seeing the more probable long trend continuing or forming. When I see a possible short trade forming now, I think about how this trade would look if it were a long or if it will pullback towards the next average. That helps me see the moving averages in a different perspective. I also think about what is more probable to happen. If I short here, based on the moving averages and the price action, is it more likely to go up or more likely to go down. It has helped me see long trades a lot more and know when to get out on either side. 

You can check out my trades to get an idea on how I trade. I had a big blow up and went back into the cave for awhile too.

 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Brandon K

[Greg 54]

Brandon, thank you so so much for checking up on me.  I want to let you know that I still am trading, I am just not posting my trades on a daily basis anymore. I should have made a post about it, but I wanted to remove as many of the pressures of trading as possible and publicly posting my trades was one of them.

I made some significant changes to my psychology and trading mindset. I am not where I want to be yet as a trader, but I am making significant progress. I have cut down on a good chunk of my problems including overtrading, FOMO, and my patience issues. I've started to really focus on trading well instead of thinking in dollars for each trade. I'm slowly becoming the trader that I want to be. My confidence has gone up and my trust in my trading plan and myself is at an all time high.  I am taking actual setups in my trades and I am having green days. I'm feeling good about trading and my good habits that I am creating are getting stronger each day. 

As you can see in the calendar below, I am having more green days than red days. The biggest issue for me right now is accepting a losing day. My daily goal is $80-$100 with a max loss of $60, and as you can see I don't stop at $60. I have das risk control set to stop me out fully at $150 including commissions and I have been trading up until that point when I am losing. I set the $150 amount because it is way past my max loss and its there to stop me out when I couldn't stop myself out. That has been 4 out my 5 losing days this month.  Like most of my other bad habits including doubling down and overtrading, I have had to use Das risk controls to help me beat the problem. I have just recently lowered my max loss on das to $85. On my losing days I knew that I should have quit at $50-$60 but I have ignored the feeling inside of me that knew it was time to quit. Everyone of my $150 loss days, I knew I should have quit at $60, and I just didn't. I for whatever reason don't want to end red and I needed to get my money back ASAP. From Robert's Rants, he talks about the money being gone, and there is no rush getting it back, I am trying to adopt that mindset. 

 

 

 I checked some of my old trading days and my last 20 days where I hit -$60 or more and continued trading, I ended up green on only 3 of them, and over the 20 days my losses for trades after hitting negative $60 were over $700. My average win % on those days was probably around 25%.  With the auto stop out at $85, I will eventually learn to stop out when I know I'm not in sync with the market or I will have to always use DAS to stop me out as long as a trade. 

Brandon, if you still have the feelings of trading in the first 5 minutes, you could always email das and  tell them to lock your account until 9:35. When you know you can't trade at that time, you will lose the urge to trade at that time. It has worked for me! Das Risk controls has fixed my overtrading, my doubling down, and my breaking stop loss habits.