Hi Everyone!
On top of my "Stocks I'm Watching Tomorrow" posts I've been doing all week I'm going to try something new. One of the best ways you can grow as a trader is to go back and review your trades each week, month, year and pick out whether or not there were any themes in your trading that can be corrected or improved. So, that's what I'm going to try to do with these posts. I'm basically just going to go over some of the trades I took, the stuff I opted not to take from my watch lists and whether or not it worked, and some of my general sentiment for how my trading was for the week and how I can improve it going forward.
First of all I had a pretty nice week. Although it was a bit slow at times since the market was pretty tame for most of the week, I was able to knock out a 68.75% win rate with 11 out of 16 trades being wins. I also finished green 5 out of 5 days which is what matters when it comes to paying bills. I did make some mistakes but nothing major. I'm sure I'll mention some of those as I write this post. Overall I feel the week was very solid and I'm looking forward to next week and hopefully seeing some better volatility. So let's look at some stuff from my watchlist:
2/23/15 : Some of my ideas from this post were a swing in IMGN that I already had, a couple of swings in VG and LF, and a bunch of day trade ideas in some parabolic shorts and other items (read the post if you want to know details). I did end up taking VG for a swing (actually I already had it from the day before) but my entry was a bit high ($4.59). I had to take some pain on it and it never really got low enough for me to feel good about adding more, so I just held my starter position and let it ride. Ultimately it did break out over $4.60 but it didn't hold. I ended up taking it off at $4.63 for a small gain after it tried to break out and wasn't able to. At the same time, the swing starter I took on LF at $2.59 had similar action and similar results in the end. It tried to break out but couldn't hold, so when the market started to weaken on Wednesday I took it off for a small gain. On 2/23 I also took two trades in ZIOP and VPC, at $9.86 and $1.15 respectively. VPCO was just supposed to be a day trade so I took it off for a 5c gain which ultimately turned out to be a mistake considering it went parabolic and could have turned into a huge gain, but given the entry I was still ok with taking a small gain on it since it was within the plan I had for it. ZIOP was an awesome trade. Now, part of me wishes I had "followed my plan" on ZIOP and bought it near the $9.30 area but in reality it never even got close to that area, so I think I played it well for the opportunity it gave. It took off on a red to green move through $9.65 and I avoided chasing it and waited for it to pull back and show some strength on the bounce before buying at$9.86 and risking barely a dime on it. In terms of RR this was my best trade of the week and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The rest of the watchlist was somewhat uneventful with the exception of a couple. I did not really follow my plan on HELI. If you look at the watch list you'll see I planned to buy it at $2.20-2.25 and sell partial toward $2.50. I guess I was expecting it to be a day trade but it turned into more of a swing and I wasn't willing to hold a long swing with the market pegged at highs and acting a little shakey. So I bought it at $2.25 (this part was ok) but ended up selling at $2.30 which was pretty dumb. It did ultimately hit my $2.50 target area and will probably continue next week. Basically every single parabolic (XOMA, CYBR, THRX, OCN, PRSS, MTL) worked perfectly but I was distracted by other trades and didn't capitalize on any of them, so that was probably a big missed opportunity...especially CYBR and OCN. Finally, ECOM I ended up trading later in the week (more on that later) and TKMR I took off my list after it refused to bounce on Monday. All in all I think Monday was a good day with ZIOP but it could have been better if I had capitalized on some of those epic parabolics.
2/24/15 : Tuesday was awesome. I didn't really have much on my list because I had some roll over from the previous day with the swings I had on my plate. I did have INO though, which was my absolute favorite and I absolutely nailed this trade. I had a plan to short it on a pop toward $7 in the morning but it didn't quite give me what I wanted...it couldn't bounce at all really in the morning. So, instead I reverted to my backup plan which was to edge into the position piece by piece assuming all along that it could still pop back toward $7. Once I had added 3-4 times I loaded it up big and got an epic crack. This turned out to be my best trade of the week in terms of profit, but I think RR was a bit lower than on ZIOP. Anyway, I was really happy with how it worked out because it exemplified the reasons that I plan for multiple scenarios on every trade. Also on Tuesday I started the LF swing I mentioned earlier and then closed it out the next day since I felt I bought too high. CPRX worked well but unfortunately it gapped up so I had to scalp it for pennies on a secondary setup. I probably could have done without that trade but regardless it was a win. CYTR I had a decent entry and opted to sell it flat since it didn't look ready that day. Turned out that was right as it did fade by the end of the day and ended up going a couple days later so no sweat there. Overall Tuesday was a kickass day despite not touching CAPN or ANTH or ADHD from my watchlist. This is pretty typical. I have one or two I am really focused on and those are where I make most of my money. Monday it was ZIOP. Tuesday was INO.
2/25/15 : Wednesday was my lowest profit day as I expected since I was out doing career day for a bunch of kids and talking about the stock market with them for most of the morning. I tried to remain patient and not take any trades that weren't on my list but my emotions got the best of me. I traded ANTH at $4.98 and BIOC at $4.67. Both were small losses. Luckily I was able to clear out my VG and LF swings for profit, and find a single winning trade in MPC so overall I was able to turn it around into a small green day, but it illustrated the importance of trading your plan. Because I missed the morning and most of my plans revolve around morning trading, i let me emotions take over and took sub-par trades and paid the price (literally).
2/26/15 : Thursday was a pretty boring day for me as most of it spent waiting for RDUS to crack. I tried shorting SEE in the morning but it started flagging so I took it off flat and then took another trade (RDUS) from my plan. Ultimately I ended up making money on that but it took FOREVER and probably wasn't the greatest RR. It worked amazingly the following day but that's irrelevant. Also on Thursday I took an intraday parabolic short on ZIOP (something I am learning currently) which ultimately worked out but the RR was very bad. I had planned to start short at $11.67 (which I did) and then add more over $12 but it never got over $12 so I think I misjudged it a little. It did get to $11.90 which was a 23 cent drawdown and I ended up covering it for only a 4c gain after it started to base around $11.50. I think this was a solid trade despite the terrible RR, and given the plan I think I got what I could have out of it. I guess if I could go back and do it again I would probably want to assume that if it was already holding over $11.50 the next logical spot to short would be closer to $12, so I was a bit early on my first entry and could have really increased the RR by being a bit more patient. Overall like I said Thursday was a bit boring but again turned into a decently sized green day so I can't complain.
2/27/15 : Finally Friday was another solid day for me with no losses. Despite all the wins though, there were a few things I could have done better. I traded CYCC, BCLI and ONTY, all long. CYCC was a nice flag break but I made the mistake of being too squeamish on it the first time. I bought it at $1.70, then stopped out at $1.65 and rebought again at $1.71 about 1 minute later. I was just a bit too emotional on it, but it ended up being an awesome trade after all as I sold at $1.96 and $2.03 for 14.6% and 18.7% gains respectively. Not bad for 30 minutes! BCLI was another nice one but I took my 2nd profit too soon. I bought it at $4.23 for an intraday flag breakout and sold $4.32 and planned to sell the rest at $4.48 but the spread opened up and squeezed me out on the 2nd half at $4.30 ...so I passed up an additional gain on that. Finally ONTY I really loved the daily setup on this, but my intraday entry just wasn't good enough to keep me in it. I ended up selling it for a 4c gain which, with size, is obviously a decent dollar amount but in terms of RR it was pretty shitty and the trade could have been better had I been better prepared.
All in all, great week. For next week I plan to continue trying to stick to my plans with conviction. There were a number of times this week where I had a plan on a stock and the stock did exactly what I expected, giving me a perfect opportunity to follow my plan and I simply opted not to, either out of fear or laziness. So I'm going to try to eliminate that next week. Hopefully the market will offer some assistance by providing a bit more volatility and increasing my conviction that the market will act predictably instead of just chopping around aimlessly or not moving at all.
That being said, hope you enjoyed the read and I'll see y'all next week! Going to post my ideas for tomorrow in just a couple minutes!
Chris
Submitted March 01, 2015 at 08:30PM by greenbartrading http://ift.tt/1zwVE1M
No comments:
Post a Comment