Rob C's Trading Journal - starting Feb 1 2019

[Rob C 826]

Tuesday 7/16/2019

I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning. My nerves were bad as soon as I woke up. I am not sure why.

I took three SIM trades today. But I did not set up my platform correctly this morning and I was pulled away from my screen for the last 15 minutes of premarket. I made it back with 30 seconds until the open. I was frazzled and my nerves were bad even before I missed the last part of the premarket. I was not able to run through my checklist and I didn’t know I was in SIM until I finished trading and looked at my P/L. Since I really thought I was live and had all the stresses of live, I am adding the two trades to my data set and journaling them here. I did take a “real” SIM trade on a 15min ORB, which of course I was stopped out.

I was focusing on MU and AAPL, but FB would have been fine as well. I had the scenario if AAPL was weak and broke down through the 200-5min I would go short. The problem was it did just that almost immediately after the open. Since I was still frazzled I was not quick on the draw and let it go. Sadly, it reached my target. The price bounced back and bounced off of VWAP giving me another chance. But I was caught in the headlights. It broke through the 200MA, and I didn’t take the trade. Then it passed the body of the first candle, and I didn’t take the trade. Finally I took the trade right at the level that was supposed to be my first partial target. Yikes! What a bad entry. My R/R was about equal to one. Thus, I was stopped out quickly.

This is what the chart looked like when I entered the trade.

After the AAPL trade I was just in time for a 2min ORB on MU. I entered at the break of the 2min candle body with a very tight stop at the 43.71 level. Maybe too tight, but I seem to get caught on these early reversals on MU. My target was the 43.34 level. The price went to the penny of my stop out but I held on. I did take 4 partials but I made an effort to take small bites. Actually, the next partial was going to be my first large partial. But it didn’t happen. I exited on weakness when it was close to my B/E. Due, to my small partialing I only made 1R on the trade. So I am flat for the day. The small partialling didn’t work out well for me today. But, I am still experimenting with the partialing.

Score card for my trades that I thought were live.

What I did good today:  Took a classic 2 minute ORB. Nothing fancy.

How did I challenge myself today?  Kept cool after realizing I wasn’t trading live.

What I did bad today:  Missed my checklist and traded when frazzled (arriving at the platform 30sec before the open).

What can I do better tomorrow:  Don’t trade if not mentally ready. Take a minute to regroup. I should take a large partial when it reaches my target.

 

[IamKarthi 342]

3 hours ago, Rob C said:

 

I took three SIM trades today. But I did not set up my platform correctly this morning and I was pulled away from my screen for the last 15 minutes of premarket. I made it back with 30 seconds until the open. I was frazzled and my nerves were bad even before I missed the last part of the premarket. I was not able to run through my checklist and I didn’t know I was in SIM until I finished trading and looked at my P/L. Since I really thought I was live and had all the stresses of live, I am adding the two trades to my data set and journaling them here. I did take a “real” SIM trade on a 15min ORB, which of course I was stopped out.

 

If it is any consolation, you are not alone. I entered my first trade of the day in $AAPL thinking I was Live, but was actually in SIM 😞

Edited July 16, 2019 by IamKarthi

[Rob C 826]

5 hours ago, IamKarthi said:

If it is any consolation, you are not alone. I entered my first trade of the day in $AAPL thinking I was Live, but was actually in SIM 😞

Thanks. I surprisingly shrugged it it off easily. I am not trying to make money now. So since I thought it was real, I got in the same practice time. Of course I am saying this being flat for the day. If I was up 4R and realized I was in SIM......

[Rob C 826]

Wednesday 7/16/2019

I had a well-being score of 4/10 this morning so I only traded SIM.

Today was one of those days showing why I don't like trading SIM. I took a trade on a bad setup and immediately got stopped out. Then I started taking lots of trades and breaking lots of rules. Yes its all on SIM, but these are bad practices that will weaken my resolve the next time I trade live (hopefully tomorrow). What makes things worse is my last trade was a big winner, thus helping to solidify the bad habits. I will not journal any of my trades here, though I will review all the video tonight to see if there was anything to be learned. 

I hope the rest of you had a better day.

[Mike B 624]

16 hours ago, Rob C said:

Wednesday 7/16/2019

I had a well-being score of 4/10 this morning so I only traded SIM.

Today was one of those days showing why I don't like trading SIM. I took a trade on a bad setup and immediately got stopped out. Then I started taking lots of trades and breaking lots of rules. Yes its all on SIM, but these are bad practices that will weaken my resolve the next time I trade live (hopefully tomorrow). What makes things worse is my last trade was a big winner, thus helping to solidify the bad habits. I will not journal any of my trades here, though I will review all the video tonight to see if there was anything to be learned. 

I hope the rest of you had a better day.

I have found, that when I trade sim if I focus on a specific element of my trading plan to work on it allows me to focus and feel more productive. i.e. yesterday, I focused on taking an entry for moving average cross overs and analyzing why I thought it was a good entry. I did not care about the rest of the trade just analyzing why it appeared to be a good entry to myself. 

[Rob C 826]

Thursday 7/18/2019

I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. My nerves were actually OK. I wish I knew why some days my nerves are better than others so I could control them more.

I took one live and one SIM trade today. Though I will only journal the live trade here.

I was focusing on MU and AAPL again. I was hoping to trade FB at least once this week, but AAPL had OK premarket volume and some news. AAPL opened and the price dropped and bounced off the 200MA-1min and formed a hammer with really good volume. There was a triple level of a 203.97 daily, the $204 and the 50MA. When it broke these levels I went long. My target was 205 and stop out at the 200MA-1min. R/R~3 which is really high at the open. I took an early partial at the 200MA-5min since I was worried about a bounce. Then I got a really bad fill. My fills with Centerpoint have been getting worse and slow lately. So, I essentially took a partial at B/E. That messed up my emotions. So I did what I usually do when I am not controlling my emotions, I take a ton of partials. The only thing that saved me was I took small partials. So I did have 20% of my shares left when I hit my target. It doesn’t sound like much, but if I partialed with regular size I would have had 6% left.

What AAPL looked like when I took the trade:

The complete trade:

I also took a SIM trade with MU. I actually had a winning 5min ORB. I can’t remember the last winning one.

Score card for my live trade.

AAPL

88%

 

What I did good today:  I was much more prepared today for the opening bell.

How did I challenge myself today?  Tried to trade on SIM as if it was real.

What I did bad today:  Let my emotions effect my trade management

What can I do better tomorrow:  I should have tried some calming exercises during the AAPL trade instead of just baring the emotional swings.

 

[Rob C 826]

Friday 7/19/2019

I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. My nerves were good. Trading half share size since it is Friday.

I took two live trades and three SIM trades today. I was stopped out on all 5 trades. So I did take a hit to my confidence. I will only journal the live trades here.

I was focusing on MU and FB. I chose FB mainly due to trading AAPL I find addictive. So when AAPL is no longer in play I have trouble NOT trading it.

My first trade was with FB and wasn’t very good. FB created a nice hammer on strong volume. I went long when it broke the $202 and VWAP. The first level above my entry is a strong one at 202.48. If VWAP was my S/O then my R/R is acceptable. But that is too close of a S/O when I take a trade less than a minute from the open. So I chose the 201.60 level and took a small share size to keep the correct risk. But the R/R<1. I was little biased to take the trade because of the empty space of no levels above the 202.48. So it may run if it breaks it. Now thinking rationally I know that doesn’t work for FB. This is not MU and has a different personality. If the next level is too far away there is nothing to pull it there. So not the right idea. I was stopped out 2 minutes later.

What the chart looked like when I took the trade:

The complete trade:

 

The next trade was with MU. I liked the bearishness of the 5min chart and I watched 3^rd 1min candle engulf the previous (and large) candle in 9 seconds. I went short at the break of the 200MA-1min. Target was $45 and S/O was VWAP. The price actually reached my first partial target but was more of a spike and I was unable to take a partial. I was stopped out quickly afterwards.

What the chart looked like when I took the trade:

 

 

The complete trade:

Score card for my live trades.

What I did good today:  I kept to my Friday rule of half share size so I kept damage to  -1R today.

How did I challenge myself today?  Did not have AAPL as my main focus.

What I did bad today:  I forgot how FB trades.

What can I do better:  I need to review my notes on the stock if I haven’t traded it for over a week.

 

[Rob C 826]

 

Live trading summary for week ending 7/19/19 and data set analysis.

Traded full share size ($25 risk/trade) all week as I slowly get myself back up to speed after a painful 3 days of terrible trading at the end of June. So first week of July I traded SIM only, then last week at half shares.

My score card for the week was a bit disappointing at 85% since I made 2 low score trades this week. I only had 6 live trades this week so that has a big impact. The weeks win% was also OK at 50%. I do like I was green for the week with 50% win-rate. It’s a nice confirmation my winners are bigger than my losers.

I took a look at my 1min/2min ORB setup for the last four months using the Van Tharp method of system quality. The quality is determined by the mean of the data set (in R) divided by the standard deviation (also in R). Using this guideline my system has a disappointing “poor, but tradable” quality. Looking at the data set I noticed I have 5 really bad trades. I didn’t break the rules, but I tried new things that should be tried on SIM first. All the trades were -2R losers. Out of curiosity if they were normal stop outs at -1R, my system would have had “good” quality rating. Though I have made quite a few poor trades in the last 5 weeks of live trading, I do not have any of the really stupid trades discussed above. Just looking at the data set for the last 5 weeks the system has an “excellent” quality rating.

This just shows that lots of -1R stop outs really have little effect on your profitability. They are normal. It’s the stupid -2R mistakes that destroy your profitability. I only take 1 or 2 trades a day. So a stupid trade, once every two weeks, really impacts my trading. From the 5 bad trades, 3 trades I was adding to a winning trade that reversed on me and I didn’t know where to stop out with the added risk. One trade was a double down which I did stop at my plan level. The 5^th trade was the setup looked so perfect I doubled my shares to be stopped out quite quickly. Thus, I shouldn’t add to my trades and I need to stick to the planned risk/trade.

I traded almost entirely MU and AAPL this week with one unsuccessful trade on FB. The trade with FB was just to make sure I don’t get addicted to trading AAPL again. I traded a few 5/10/15min ORBs on SIM with only one winner. I have lots of work to do on those.

Back test data shows AAPL in play. Both MU and FB had marginal weeks and may no longer be in play at the open. TSLA is starting to become in play at the open, but I will need to trade that stock in SIM first, to get to understand its personality.

Here is my plan for this week:

Concentrate on process and score card, not on W% and P/L

AAPL is still in play at the open. Make it the primary focus.

Both MU and FB are marginal. They should be secondary focuses. Choose order based on premarket and previous day action.

Stay at $25 risk per trade.

Don’t add to any trade, even winners.

 

 

 

[Rob C 826]

Monday 7/22/2019

I had a well-being score of 7/10 this morning. My nerves were good.

I took one live trade with AAPL.

I was focusing on MU and AAPL. MU was in play this morning and back test data says AAPL is trading the well at the open. As usual I created my mental scenarios what I would do depending on possible setups. Then a few minutes before the open both stocks had some activity that threw out my scenarios. I quickly created new ones. One of the scenarios was if AAPL powered through all the levels (203.97 daily level, 200MA-5min, $204, and the 204.06 premarket level) quickly with high volume and showed respect to at least one of them I would go long. I also like there was a 60c gap in levels if it broke through the first obstacle. The price ran through the first 3 levels then bounced off the 204.06 premarket level and retraced. Then on the second try broke through and I went long. My target was the 204.93 premarket level. My stop out is usually VWAP, but I already planned to give this trade a larger stop since it will probably occur very near the open. So my stop out was the 50MA-1min, making the R/R ~2.

I knew I had to take a partial at the 204.33 daily level. Then I partialled too many times as usual, but my first 3 partials were small share size since SPY was looking strong at that time. I exited where I did, mostly due to having very few shares left. A few seconds after I exited the price had a large pop. In hind-sight of course the large S/O was unnecessary, but I think I did the right thing. It is too bad it made a +2.1R trade into a +1.3R.

What the chart looked like when I took the trade:

 

The complete trade:

 

Score card for my live trade.

What I did good today:  Changed my trading plan, due to change in market conditions, just a couple of minutes before the open.

How did I challenge myself today?  Used smaller partialling size.

What I did bad today:  Should have held on the last few shares longer. There was no signal to get out yet.

What can I do better:  Hold on to that last few shares for a sign to exit.

 

[Rob C 826]

Tuesday 7/23/2019

I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning. My nerves were not good. I am worried I am going to give my profits back for the month and have another flat month.

I took two live trade with AAPL. Then two SIM trades: ROKU and MU.

I was focusing on MU and AAPL at the open again. As usual I created my mental scenarios what I would do depending on possible setups. Neither stock I had any bias this morning so I had the usual 4 scenarios in my head. One scenario was AAPL to pop up, on high volume, and go long when it breaks the high of premarket. After the open the price did pop and had to make a couple attempts to break the premarket high (which I like, it shows it’s a real level). It did make a clean break, so I went long. My stop was the 208.43 daily level and my target was the 209.43 daily level. R/R~2. But the price reversed almost immediately and I was topped out.

Now the trade looks like the short scenario I had. I have difficulty flipping positions, but since the setup looked just like the scenario in my head I didn’t find it too difficult and went short when it broke a premarket level 208.30. But I went small share size. Not sure why. I didn’t have time to think it out much so I gave it a large stop. My stop was supposedly the 50MA-1min, so in theory I was half share size. My target was the PDC. I got a little confused, not use to flipping positions, which was my last stop and my new entry, so I took my first partial well too early. My second partial was about where my first one should have been. The 1^st 3 partials were small. I only got 50 cents out of AAPL on this trade which isn’t very good. When I was finished live trading I took a look at my P/L and was surprised it was negative. Then I remembered the winning trade was half share size.

What the chart looked like when I took the trade:

First trade                                                   Second trade

                        

 

 

The complete trade:

 

 

Score card for my live trade.

AAPL	AAPL
86%	85%

 

As for my SIM trades, they were both 10min ORBs. ROKU I was immediately stopped out and MU I had a nice winner. So I was green for my SIM trades today.

What I did good today:  Created viable scenarios to follow at the open.

How did I challenge myself today?  Flipped a position.

What I did bad today:  I am not happy about the small share size I took on the second trade.

What can I do better:  I need to start thinking about the possible flip trade before I exit the first trade.

 

[Rob C 826]

Wednesday 7/24/2019

I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. My nerves were fine. I was looking forward to the opening bell. Wow, I wish I knew why. I seem to have little understanding of my nerves.

I would like to mention that I just started taking the home study version of the Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders. I really need to improve issues with my trading (fear, self-sabotage, over-trading, etc.). I think this course could really help. To place some accountability on myself to finish the course I plan to post my reading notes and assignments online. Hopefully, the info provided may help others as well. See link:

 

 

I took one live trade with AAPL. Then three SIM trades: FB and NVDA.

I was focusing on FB and AAPL at the open. FB was in play so I replaced MU to watch it at the open. I created my opening scenarios again. The long scenario for AAPL was identical to yesterday, where I got stopped out. But, the plan was to go long if it broke 200MA-1min, 50MA-1min, VWAP and finally the high of premarket on volume. It did just that, but on just enough volume to call it in play (300K). But, I was concerned due to my stop out yesterday. Then it dropped twice to test the high of premarket and bounced both times. So I felt better about it and went long. Target was PDC with S/O at the 200MA-1min. R/R~2. The price did make it to my target but didn’t move much after going red to green. I exited the last of my position when it went back green to red.

What the chart looked like when I took the trade:

 

The complete trade:

I then took 3 SIM trades. One big loss, one small win and one solid win. The big loss was due to not treating the SIM trade as real. I got a bad fill and thus my share size and R/R were now wrong. So I needed to exit trade immediately. Instead, since it was SIM, I stayed in for a -1.8R loss. My solid win would have been a big win, but I decided to experiment with adding to my position. This seems not to work for me, so I thought I would try it in SIM. SIM confirmed it. I had a big winner, then I added to my position and the price instantly reversed hard and I lost almost half of my profit.

Score card for my live trade.

What I did good today:  Created viable scenarios to follow at the open. Waited for a confirmation that it was not going to reverse back through the entry level.

How did I challenge myself today?  Took the same trade as yesterday even though I got burned with that setup yesterday.

What I did bad today:  The usual. Partialing could be better.

What can I do better:  Need to wait for the target for the 4^th partial. Not really pushing myself that hard. This is an incremental improvement it shouldn’t be that hard.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Rob C

[Rob C 826]

Thursday 7/25/2019

I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning, a bit of a headache. My nerves were fine.

I received my results of Van Tharp Institute psychological inventory test (176 question test). Wow, my results were really bad. Bottom 13%. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been if I took the trade last year before I improved with my discipline. It’s essentially telling me I shouldn’t trade. But too late I’m hooked. Plus I see personality improvement in other areas of my life so I am going to keep at it.  See link for gory details:

https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/1286-van-tharp-institute-peak-performance-course-for-traders-my-journey-through-the-course/

I took three SIM trades with FB, TSLA and AAPL. I decided this morning to trade SIM the rest of the week. I was concerned about it, since the first 3 days of next week I will be in hotels and was planning trading SIM due to using just a laptop and uncertain WIFI. So trading SIM today and tomorrow means a week without live trades.

The reason for trading SIM is as follows. I am usually positive profits going into the last few days of each month. Then my self-sabotage behavior kicks in and I give all the profits back and ending up flat for the last 5 months. Last month I was up big enough that even if I stop out every trade my last few days I will still be positive. But, my self-sabotage behavior was too strong and it found a way to give all the profits back. I REALLY didn’t want the same ending this month. So the simple solution, don’t trade. Call it a month and say yes after 9 months of trading live I have a positive P/L at the end of the month. Since I knew I would be trading SIM most of next week it was planned that the end of the month of July would be tomorrow (Friday).

Today I thought I would like to trade TSLA at the open, since it has been in play lately but I want some SIM time on it before trading live. My other focus was FB since it was definitely in play. FB setup first with a nice hammer in the first minute, but it was still a red candle. Waited until the 2^nd 1min candle was firmly white and went long. I gave it a large stop since the price movements were large this morning. My stop was the bottom of the candle. I would essentially bail on the trade if the candle goes red. I had a target of the high of premarket which gave a R/R~3 but there was the 200MA-1min standing in the way at 1R. But, the volume was so large I thought it was worth the risk. What’s odd about this trade and the next two is the moment I entered the trade I forgot I was in SIM. You can probably tell by my usual poor partialing L. But, that made today’s trading more useful than the usual SIM day. I took partials at the 50MA then 200MA. It never quite made it to my target and I exited when the price broke back through the 200MA.

What it looked like when I took the trade:

The entire trade:

The next trade was a 5min ORB with AAPL. I like that it bounced from the PDC so it made a good stop level and shorted soon after the bounce. But within a minute I got out at B/E. Actually, if I would have held on, the price never broke my stop and would have been a good trade.

My final trade was an ABCD on TSLA. The price was holding onto the 231.39 daily level that it respected (bounced from) multiple times. After it completed a red candle I shorted. My stop was the daily level (231.39) and my target was the 227.09 daily level. The R/R ~4 which is remarkable for the setups I usually take. The price action is much more volatile than I am use to causing me to partial even worse than usual. The price actually reached my target where I exited due to lack of shares.

 

What I did good today:  Took 3 good trades.

How did I challenge myself today?  Once in the trade it felt real so got some good training.

What I did bad today:  I feel a little wimpy trading in SIM.

What can I do better:  Since I will be on SIM the next 4 trading days I will work on experimenting with my partialing and trading TSLA at the open. I wish I thought of working on my partialing today. It would have been a really good day for it. It’s possible I may not get any trades that run in the next 4 days that I can practice on.

 

 

 

[Mark D. 435]

even though it's sim that TSLA trade was still awesome

[Rob C 826]

Friday 7/25/2019

I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning. My nerves were fine.

I took one SIM trade with FB. I was looking at TSLA as well at the open. I honestly wasn’t looking at much else since I really like FB’s premarket.

The scenario I was most hoping for is FB drop down to the $200 level and bounce back and I would go long when it broke the PDC. FB did just that but 6 seconds after the open. At 5 seconds before the open it dropped and bounced off of $200 and at 6sec after the open it broke the PDC. This is too early for even me to take a trade. I waited another 10 seconds for the fluctuations to die down and then I went long with a large stop. My stop was all the way down to the $200 level since it is still so close to the open. My target the 203.43 daily level. But, I knew in my gut that target was too far away and more likely the high of PM was all I would get.

Again, like yesterday, even though I knew that it was a SIM trade my heart beat like it was real. Now my objective was to take decent partials. WOW! I pushed my patience to the extreme. This was tough for me even in SIM. I took only two small partials on the way to the PM high. This was a $1 move. I usually take 5 partials by then. Then I waited two minutes and a nice ABCD was setting up. But the wait was killing me since if I exit then I have a one and done, but if it reverses, since I took small partials, this is a small win only. So I took another partial. The market was nice enough to teach me a lesson and 1 second after I took another partial the price popped. I thought this was about all the move I would get from FB and partialed out. But, over all I thought it was an improvement on my partialling patience.

Oddly, even though it was SIM, it was a big enough trade to call one and done, so I couldn’t get myself to take another SIM trade.

The chart when I took the trade.

The entire trade:

 

What I did good today:  Created a workable trading scenario so I can react fast at the open. I don’t have to think, just follow the plan.

How did I challenge myself today?  Tried to be more patient with the partialing.

What I did bad today:  I really like this trade. I am going to give the complaining a rest today.

What can I do better:  Keep working on the partialing. But, it was a good start today.

 

 

 

[Rob C 826]

 

Live trading summary for week ending 7/26/19.

Traded full share size ($25 risk/trade). Only traded live for the first 3 days of the week. Since the first 3 days of next week I will be trading from a hotel I will limit it to SIM. Thus I am calling Friday 7/26 the last day of the month. Since it is the last day of the month I was going to be highly prone to self-sabotaging behaviors. I usually have a positive P/L going into the last few days of the month where I give it all back. So just to prevent this behavior this month I stopped trading live the last two days of the month.

So I only took 4 live trades this week. My score card for the week was better at 88%.

I only live traded AAPL but I did take quite a few SIM trades which were much more successful than last week. My last two days of the week, which was SIM only, were my two best trading days of the month. Would it have been if I was trading live?

Back test data shows primarily the same as last week. AAPL in play and MU, FB and TSLA are possibilities at the open. As for TSLA I will need to trade that stock in SIM first, to get to understand its personality. Since I am trading SIM Monday-Wednesday of next week I will reevaluate what is in play Wednesday night.

Here is my plan for this week:

Concentrate on process and score card, not on W% and P/L

AAPL is still in play at the open. Make it the primary focus.

Both MU and FB are marginal. They should be secondary focuses. Choose order based on premarket and previous day action.

Increase risk to $30 risk per trade.

Trade SIM Monday-Wednesday due to unreliable WiFi. Take advantage of this to improve partialing and trade TSLA.

Don’t add to any trade, even winners.