Live Journal Exercise – Learning to Trade an Edge like a Casino

[Mike B 623]

Feb 26, 

Been a little bit as I have been a little busy outside of trading traveling and do some side work so I have not been completely focused in on trading. Yesterday, I did not take any trades. Today was a different story. Got a nice move on $AMD only for it to stop me out and then make the move down. Overall a great setup and I executed the trade well.

 

[Mike B 623]

February 27, 2020

I got eaten alive this afternoon. My rookie mistake. Not taking into consideration the market sentiment. Had I done that I would have been only looking for moves that were headed downward instead of upward. Both afternoon trades I took to the long side and got stopped out. Had I been patient and took the market sentiment in consideration, both of those trades had setups to the downside where I was exiting. So in other words. I should have been entering at this spot not stopping out. Oh well lesson learned. Painful but accurate. Here my three trades. 1 partial winner 2 losers. -1.5R.

It may seem strange though, I met my goal for the day. I got three good setups in. I have not traded 3 stocks in one day in a while. It was not over-trading, but I would say I forced the trades instead of letting them come to me.

[Mike B 623]

Had some issues this weekend with my journal and excel file. I had to recreate, so my monthly stats and weekly stats I do not have.

March 2,

The day started out well with $CCL. I took it to the short side after it consolidated under VWAP. I got a partials at 1R and 2R for the day. The afternoon I can not say the same. I I did not trade my plan and I started focusing on the outcome instead of my performance. I let a lot of external things cloud my mind while I was trading and I ended up getting out of $AMD prior to my stop. It eventually went up to my 1R level before coming back to my break even. This was a compound of the previous two trades last Thursday that just missed my out and then went against me. Since I was not focused on trading my plan and instead on the outcome, I ended up with a loss on this trade instead of a 1R partial. Better tomorrow. Ended the day green still, but the second trade was a terrible execution of trading.

 

[Mike B 623]

Unintentional No trade day today. I got back in the afternoon too late to catch the moves to the downside. Too bad, there were some nice setups all over the place. I was very short bias, so I was not looking for any longs near the lows, instead I was looking for short setups and well they just didn't appear, so I ended up sitting on the sidelines all day.

[Mike B 623]

March 5 $MU and $CCL

Well in the morning I was not really into it as I slept really bad and was focused on external things, so I was quite sure if I wanted to trade the open. I eventually decided that it was worth trading but I was too slow on inputting the entry for $AMD. I watched for a little longer as the market continued to rise and then went to drop off my daughter. I came back and noticed the market was near the high of days, so I started looking for some stocks to take to the downside. I got in on $MU and a little later got into $CCL. My goal for the day was accomplished. Manage two positions at the same time. I ended up getting partials on both of them. Later I tried to take $JD to the long side but was again slow on the entry. It had to been the sleep last night.

 

[hailchaser2 185]

Do you have a normal rule for stops on this particular setup you trade? Or is each one different?

ie: do you usually use break of prior 5 min candle high? Do you look to the left of the high point for a level? 
 

looking at the MU trade I would have had the stop just above prior 5min, which it came very close to later.

On CCL I think I would have had it just above the MAs that are above the prior 1 min candle.

Is my stop analysis close to what you had planned?

thanks Mike!

[Mike B 623]

17 hours ago, hailchaser2 said:

o you have a normal rule for stops on this particular setup you trade?

So my normal starting point for putting a stop is at the last 1 minute candle that was above/below the moving average. This normally will coincide with the prior 5 minute candles high/low. I adjust this slightly with each trade based on what the price action has been doing and if there is any significant level near that area.

For the $MU trade my stop was at 54.78. On the $CCL trade my stop was just above the moving averages at around 31.75

[Mike B 623]

March 5, 2020

Took $JD to the long side and $AMD to the short side today. Both trades were good setups and I got partials on each one of them. I didn't have the best trade management with $JD to long side as I saw some large Bids come in after I entered, so my partial was a little quick. I was happy with all my entries today, smooth, quick, and with confidence.

The only thing I did not like was later right after power hour, I should have taken $JD and $CCL to the short side. I just didn't have the right feeling with them so I didn't. Regardless of what the stock did I should have taken the trade as it met my setup and had level 2 buildup in the direction I wanted to go.

 

[Rob C 824]

Nice Mike, what a beautiful double top on AMD.

[Brendon 138]

Well done Mike, superb!

[Mike B 623]

March 6

Great way to end the week. I had a awesome setup on $JD in the morning. Met all my criteria for a long, got the entry, but then it just stalled out and stopped me out. Didn't bother me a bit, it was a trade I have to take and let the probabilities win out over time. The second was a short on $CCL. Another great setup and I executed it well. I was a little worried I would not get the fill as it was on SSR, but it filled slightly below where I wanted my entry. No big deal. I got partials at 1R and 2R before getting stopped out at break-even. Good way to go into the weekend.

 

 

 

[Mike B 623]

March 2 -6

Here is my weekly recap. Missed last week because I had a file error and spent the weekend fixing it.

Top Three Good Trends

1. I was able to take 2 trades per day regardless of the outcome of the first trade. My goal is to get to three trades a day where I am comfortable regardless of the first two trades.
2. My entry process was great this week. I executed smooth and confident entries on each of my trades. I had limited issues worry about whether the trade would work or not work.
3. My risk management was good as I was able to keep my losers smaller than my winners.
4. I was able to remain calm during the first part of the week when I had some issues with profit taking and holding trades. By the middle of the week I was able to bring myself back to normal trading comfortably.

Bottom Three Bad Trends

1. I can definitely tell this week was not one of my best week's at managing the trade. I had some major issues with discipline and patience this week that was troubling.
2. During the trade I was not sticking to my trade plan and was taking profits too early instead of letting them go to my plan target levels. This was the root cause of my anxiety, which lead to mismanagement of the trade, followed by poor discipline.
3. I am interested this week to know if increasing risk correlates to a small draw-down until your mind is comfortable with the new level. Most of these mistakes or errors in my profit taking and psychology I remember from when I first was trading. When I increase risk the next time, I am going to pay particular attention to this area. As the week went on I became more and more comfortable trading. Most of the mistakes were early in the week.

Focus for Next Week

1. Taking 3 trades in a day that are good setups. I do not want to trade 3 times, just to trade. Here is the plan. Enter the first trade, set limit orders, start scanning for a second trade. Enter a second trade, set limit orders, once one of the previous trades hit 1R partial, then start scanning for a third trade.
2. Managing the emotion upon entry and executing my plan to remain calm, so that I stick to being disciplined and patient.
3. This week I am not going to trade the first 30 minutes live. I am going to be in sim to begin testing a new pre-market level breakout strategy for my tool box. In order to do this, I will have to take a break at 9:45 and refocus my mind for live trading. I am going to have a new display setup for the open. When I switch displays that will be the time I go live.

[Mike B 623]

I did not trade live today. I am working on a new opening strategy, so I am only trading Sim for the first 10 minutes. I am at the very beginning stages, so only worrying right now about the entry. After 30 minutes I am transitioning back to live, but after the craziness in the market this morning I called it a day. I tried coming back in the afternoon, but the markets were choppy, so instead I decided to spend it with the family.

[Mike B 623]

Busy couple of days outside of trading. I did not have time to journal my two trades on AMD and AAL. End with -.4R. It was a wash.

Today didn't trade as I was not focused and had way too much other stuff on my mind. I basically took the day to calibrate my mind for tomorrow.

[Mike B 623]

Thank goodness for risk management this week. I have been on a negative streak and it seems all the trades I don't take work and all the trades I take don't work. The all reason to take every setup if it is within your edge. I did not follow that today with $MU and missed two opportunities that would have netted me nice gains. Instead I took a trade on $JD and it netted me -.5R. Oh well what are you going to do but learn.