Just a Day Trader

 Past 2 days have been not what I thought they would be. Ultimately looking like a failed break higher out of our falling wedge. SPY now gapping lower to prev lod and then some. Coiling premarket around it, I had a lot of failed breakouts to look to short and it seems to be the route to take today.  Long side isnt completely gone yet. There are still several super strong breakouts that did stick and some still ready to pop. Ultimately I think short has the best setups, but longs can still be here. Need market to give me some direction. May end up being a fairly choppy day as we work things out around these levels. I think as long as we are above 331 in SPY, we have a shot at starting an upmove again.  Goal today is patience. Ive only taken 1 trade the past 2 days as things are really not giving me clean and clear setups. Wait for it to come to me, play my game, play what I know works best for me. No need to force anything. GRPN LY NNIO SPOT IVZ DADA LI CRM Good pop, back ...

 Today looking like a chop fest. For starters we got a ton of FOMC today. All day starting before the market opens. CB Consumer confidence 30min after the bell. SPY is right in the middle of our Value area around mid 330s. Looking for pulldown to 331ish to hold and maybe we can then test top of range. Will be interesting to see how structure forms from here on.  Overall edge to bulls. Watchlist is not that big today. Most gapping well under prev hod so itll be a while before most give me a good setup. Others still looking ok but seems like its going to be a quiet day. Staying patient is goal number 1. Following entry checklist and making sure im not trading anything I shouldnt be. TSLA BA COST AVGO DXCM PLUG QCOM NFLX strong pop and market to start the day. Back to prev hi and bo level. Had good sell but didnt drop, got in as we ticked up and SPY broke higher. No go.  Market is gross right now.  Thats just annoying to look at. Names out here are stupid strong though....

 Starting off annoyed already, market gapping up big, throwing a lot of setups out the window. Always sucks to see these breaks happening in premarket, usually means were going to give it up and close back under with another reset of the setup maybe in the future. Or maybe well take off right from the start and not come back. My focus is on the ones that havent broken yet. Those that have will have to pb and base out for a while for a long.  SPY was in a falling wedge and were gapping out of it. Lots of names the same case. Some still havent made there move yet so hoping the market can at least hold up here. Last thing I want is a sell off to stick and hold under the levels. I want to see small dips being bought each time for longs to look good.  Goal today is to let it come to me. Rules are in place for every trade. No extra thinking required. If market fits what I want, I trade. And when I trade I follow my rules. And win or lose I am happy.  SQ TTWO AVGO ENPH NOW ...

 M Didnt trade. Felt sick, was still working on other stats. Let the day go without me. T Awful. Crushed me. Half my fault, other half market was killing me. Up down all around, failed at every corner, then trend from pivot to pivot in a straight line. Just when you thought long, it was failing.  Trade management was biggest issue. Did not cut losers well at all. Held on to wait and see if it would get better, Never did.  Maybe a little less than half my losses could have been prevented, but other than that, that market flat out didnt let me get a good win going. Every trade I took was a good trade to take, looked good, at right locations. Its like as soon as Id be long, the market would drop. So hard to get something going so I had a lot of trades at +1/2R so a lot of tiny losses. Those losses though I was sized up in. Favorites,10star and with market help. Everything I wanted. Just couldnt happen for me.  W Another fast red day. Undisciplined. Taking anything. Mark...

 Last day of a roguh week. Been sick all week, bad trading, bad sleep bad everything. Need to be super patient today. Watchlist is small. Not focusing on a lot, trying to take it super slow. Grind back with small wins and if the big ones come then great. COST FSLY SQ IVZ AZEK LI LMND ZI DXCM Not on original list but alert hit. SPY sideways getting weak edge to bears. DCM clear weak pattern with tape. All checklist met. Starter size before break as were ticking lower. LOD is prev lod, just a point after is huge D breakdown.  Very slow spready name. Will take a while.  Pulled up a flash, offers took over clear sell dropping us. SPY losing it dropping more under vwap, internals new lows. Market looks ready to flush. Will add more.  Came up right away on me above vwap and held it. All out, market faked out lower now making new HOD.  AZEK Strong all day, with market strength back at HOD and HTF levels. Took breakout starter. Looking to add.  Market is failing th...

Structure looking ugly. Looking like more downside is likely and premarket is already dumping pretty good. Lots of names might be leaving without me to start this day. I have a checklist in place for criteria that must be met before every trade I take. Wont be too hard to figure it out as I go. Goal today is to follow that every step of the way. But it doesnt seem like ill be able to be here for the open. Gotta take my cat in the vet and keys locked in the car. Gonna be an odd morning but perhaps not a bad thing. Will come back to the desk and be able to clearly see if the market is gonna be trending or choppy. Hopefully some clean setups still left for me to take, might end up missing a giant short somewhere but so be it.  AMD OSTK RAD SE MCRB CNK Got back 3 hours after the bell. Might not have anything. SPYs been up, internals flushed just now though on this pb. Could be a rollover day. Some names still setting up for shorts. But not yet. Market has to get weak. Dont have any lon...

 Really bad past 2 days. Lots of trades, lots of red. Getting caught up in settling for less again. Going to review my wins this month, see commonalities, drill into stats. Come up with a plan for tomorrow.  I dont want to say I dont want to look at my wins, but I already know what im going to come up with. Ive done it several times before and the answers dont really change. They are clean and clear, not fighting market conditions, above vwap. Tape and volume signals. Always better if the trade has a failed break the opposite direction first. Very near the HTF level/zone. And no surprise that is exactly what I saw. Same side as vwap for every single one. All of them clean and clear with holding above/below the level.  Because im having such problems lately, I cannot rely on myself to do the right thing without some guidelines. Im going to make a checklist of variables that need to be in play before I enter a trade. Before that though, how many is enough? 3? 5? 7? And what...

 Yesterday my trade management was terrible. Took a lot of huge losses that I should not have if I just followed my rules. The idea of waiting and seeing if it comes back kills me. Because lately I have seen so many of my trades stop me out to the penny and then turn right back in my favor. Now this has led me into some bad habits of seeing my stop price trigger, but me waiting and seeing if it comes back. Yesterday this killed me. It just doesnt matter how many times its recently happened. I need to follow my process.  My process allows me to cut my losers short and still get back in. Take the small hit. Im trying to save pennys and its costing me more pennys. Best trades, I dont need to worry about these things. So come time to worry, I need to follow what I know my data tells me I should do. 1. Cut losers efficiently.  +1R stop becomes if breakeven cant hold +2R stop becomes before breakeven +3R stop is at +1R At -.5R look to get out on any pb to breakeven if it doesnt...

 Didnt have anything worth taking yesterday. Market was not clear to me so tried to stay away. Setup for some really good moves today though. Looking ready for a deeper pullback higher. Lots of failed breakdowns, looks like bulls are taking this chance to buy some more. Looking for a lot of big turns today to head back up to breakout points.  Beatdown names no longer looking like daily traders. Will be waiting on strength there before looking at them again. Just trying to take it slow. Watchlist not that big at all. Waiting for the good setups to appear, manage risk well. Get back on my game NFLX AMD TSLA FSLY SQ INO Well I had a whole day written down here. Somehow everything got deleted.  Basically got screwed on exits. Took some huge slippage in some names a few -2R losses.  SPY hurt me in one as it dumped hard lower just after I got long ZI.  SQ Strong recovery along with market, coiled a long time around HTF and couldnt drop, each dip got bought. In and add...

 Shaping up to be a no trade day. Huge gap lower in the SPY, pretty much any plan I had on any stock is shot now. Will have to wait and see but not expecting much anymore. Long weekend review and lots of room for improvement will be focus for this week. Main thing is pulling it back, trading less and not settling for anything less than amazing.  Every trade starting at 50$ risk and depending how many other variables in favor will determine if my adds are smaller or bigger.  BA DOCU MGNX Banks. CCL reversal setup. Good action. Super slow on the break back up, turned lower on me and got out as was SPY. Small L.  Nothing else. Worked on stats today. 

 M Total disaster. Missed several trades. Chopped to hell in a couple others. Missed wins everywhere. The simple way was to buy and hold until youre right. Obviously that doesnt work for me. Things would not go for me from where I wanted it. Had to settle with breakout orders everywhere and let it pullback 80% of the way to my stops. It was bad. Market was my enemy. I did not help myself out by following my rules, for trade management and re entry. Was a day to make a killing, but hard to get it.  T Tough day. Tons of trades. Only trades I should have taken were on one name. Not getting in killed me again. Market simply wasnt my friend in other cases. Stop out, get back in, stop out, back in. Couldnt get a clean move to save my life. All in all the red day wasnt terrible but still no fun at all. W Can it get even worse? Yes it can. Another chop fest day worse than the last. No pullbacks. Straight vertical moves both directions and just when you think the market wants to make a...

 Im in a position now with my trading where im not happy. Theres a number of things that are going wrong.  1. I am taking way too many trades 2. My setups are not specific enough 3. My intraday setups are not specific enough 4. Im not exiting positions/losers fast enough.  5. Individual stocks / SPY fake outs / Lack of trend 6. Getting very emotional during trading 7. Risk plan does not cover enough. Catch? Failure? Breakouts? 8. Missing trades/Re entering trades 9. Accountability Lets start with #9 I was in a pretty nice spot, Market trending higher with ease/ Everything up, I was making money just about everyday. Doing very well. Why change or adjust anything if im performing that well? I was not running into some of the issues listed above then during this stretch BUT, issues #2,4,7,8 were always there, just not that significant in my trading yet.  Now that these other issues have shown up, its making feel lost in my trading again. What I used to do it not working...

Markets in a very interesting spot still. Giant failure on SPY and others leading to our premarket selloff already gapping down well below levels I wanted short at. And on the other side, Banks, air/cruise/beatdown all super strong yesterday looked great for more upside, now halting that idea for the moment but potential is still here. Edge to the bears, thats a pretty big fail we had higher up and huge rejection with volume. Thinking we got more downside so will end up shorting good bearish price action. If im lucky we got a solid pop at the open back to these levels so we have a clear area to be short against with a retest of it. If not, just means we are that weak.  My trading is good. My lack of trading is what is killing me. Take all the trades. Get in where youre supposed to. Take the breakouts, look to add to it after. Re enter when necessary. Size appropriately.  SPY VXX AMZN DOCU FSLY LAKE SHOP Banks/Air/Cruise/Beatdowns VXX Coiling tight above bo level at the bell, w...

 Market in a very interesting spot. Had decently strong day and gave it up and then some into the close, now were gapping higher into top of range and currently selling off losing it in premarket. Im thinking short still if we cannot reclaim this. Now we have tested above the range, failed it, and now crashing lower.  Majority of my plans were on the long side, but plenty of shorts as well. Hoping to see us turn around here and continue higher, seems like today will be a day to decide that. Beatdowns popping, airlines broke out and look to build above, other big tech names breaking out, some bottoming looking to curl back up. Banks look like trash. Super coiled and ready to breakdown hard.  As for my trading yesterday it was a super busy day. Tons of things in play and lots of trades to take. Watchlist was at 49 trades and I took 41. All but a few were meant to be. Couldnt get any good follow up and the ones I didnt get back in were the big wins. Thats why we gotta take a...