September 2nd Week

 Monday

    Close was terrible, weak all day and closed weak, looking like more to come still.

    Gap up though, will see what happened with it

COLM

    10star bo setup swing. In bigger

    Lost LOD, market not strong at all, waiting

    Reclaimed well, waiting for more info to see if add

    Whole market downturn, held well. Reclaimed vwap and had big vol spike above prev day hi again, added one more. 

    Blew up on new HOD push, internals and market coiled real well and moved up. 

    Missed add chance, got it on PB. Market made new lod quick and heavy. Might be problem as weve now lost vwap again. 

    Losing more, couldnt hold above, problems. Needs to recover soon or will just end up taking larger losss. Waiting

    MAs on HTF look bad, cant get back above. Bailing asap. 

    Couldnt bust lower, ended up reclaiming above and again making nice breakout higher. 10start setup, added again. Needs to hold higher into close or must bail as risk too big. 

Closed near HOD on uptrend didnt give any back. Will hold it all.

FIGS

    10star pb swing. In big. 

    Great run up, lost everything in 3 minutes just collapsed. Waiting

    Did a good job reclaiming, market still weak but good pull in, need to wait for more PA to see if add worthy.

    And completely collapsed again on me to break LOD. Out. Garbage action. Not sure I could do anything different about that one. Other than bail at vwap reclaim, but its a swing, cant do that. 

GLOB

    Para short setup, in and made ATR move to start the day, seems like more gas in it still, waiting for new LOD to take it off. 

    Took it off as it got tight and market turned higher. Well overdue for a pb in market and GLOB, not overstaying my welcome. Taking my good quick win that hit pt and walking. Not giving back with huge spread. 

    Was the right call. 

CAT

Coiled all day, made clear triangle breakdown with tight MA resistance as well as still weak market. In and added. 

Flushed well, market fine, RVOL very low so need markets help still. Right at mid day pivot point and intraday VA low. Will add on move lower. 

Got that and added more. Stop tightened. Half size stop at new pivot, other half at original stop at vwap. 

Volume picked up, looks like clear shot to lod breakdown trigger. 

Slowly rolling, it is early afternoon so cant expect much here big volume wise, but moving nicely. Industry not helping to the downside much. Market trickling lower to LOD again. Def need to take profits

Spiked up strong with big vol kick, didnt stop., Took majority off for small gain. Small runners left. If resets will add back in but not thrilled with conditions around the trade. Rather keep the gain than press on the gas here and hold for more that may never come. 

Intuition was right, market ripped higher, CAT followed, but not too much, broke TL and retapped prev breakdown level. Size is right.

Or wrong, made new LOD and broke BO levels. Took majority off, letting 1 ride. 

It sucks didnt catch with size, but I have to take into account several things

    -Low rvol

    -Pulling up market

    -Trigged and failed earlier in day

    -Not at HTF location

    -Low volume

    -No industry help, if anything against

Not my A+ edge nor setup, better safe than sorry? 

Broke lower and took more off. 1 left.

Reclaimed vwap and cut for small loss on last bit.

Tuesday

COLM

    -If weak at open, bail. History repeats and seeing a lot of sell up here. Should go if its gonna go right at open. 

Gap higher, sold right away, problem. Need to cut if loss of cut level. History.

Market seems ready for a bounce. Looking strong premarket with good pop in indecies. 

5min in, only 8 trades places whole day. Massive 2 and a half dollar spread. 

Now has not seen a single trade in 5 minutes. I do not need to be involved in a trade this big. 

Nobody trading this thing. Spread still stupid wide. Market capitulating. 

Has made 80% ATR move today already. Not sure that actually means anything given it hasnt even traded 10k shares today. Also given its Spread is literally as wide as its ATR

I suppose it can still make its move, but I need to take this off ASAP on daily breakout. 

Got a fill at .45. Literally at one point, wasnt even a bid there to trade. Should be grateful I guess. 

VSTO

In on trigger. Swing

Dropped lower, bought straight up to HOD. No chance to add, risk is at 50.

Rel strength, broke HOD and BO levels. Risk the same still. No chances to add more, no reasons to either. 

Market got even more vertical lower. Maybe bottom for moment. We held very well at vwap and HTF levels.

Dropped into and under vwpa and HTF, bought up. Would like to add to this. Market seems like it is bottoming, internals failing to drop, starting to make HHs. Need more time though here. Risk is fine and correct. 

And sadly dropped and lost vwap. Waiting to see if reclaim, if not, out. 

Took a bit, never dropped and reclaimed vwap. Then turned lower, just bailed on it. 

OSTK

In on trigger, DT added with pop. Widespread still kinda whippy. 

Dipped lower, reclaimed levels and vwap. No reason to add yet. 

And then big vol spike came in as it pushed to HOD. Added. 

And then dipped  hard again right after. under vwap and levels. Market is weak. RVOL dropping to 1. Seems like a problem. Must wait still. 

Failed to break LOD, ripped up to HOD again. Markets not helping at all here. Cant find strength. Cant add here, already way too big given spread on OSTK and option itself.

Rel strength, market hasnt pulled up at all today 30min in. Were holding above vwap now. Spread tightening. Seems like it might be ready for bigger pop. 

Back under vwap into 71 again for 5th time. 

Lost LOD as market got to its weakest. Maybe shakeout but I need to GTFO. I am way to big asking to take way to big of a loss here. 

Out as it hit VWAP and dropped lower. Barely -1R loss. Lucky. 

TAN

in on trigger reclaim. Swing.

Dipped lower, holding vwap well. Coiling around, decent RVOL still. Market no help at all. 

Market capitulated even more with its most vol this morning. Lost LOD but shakeout and reclaimed. 

Held nicely, made good range. Waiting to see breakout into HOD. Might be worth an add. Need much better conditions. 

Into below vwap again, must reclaim or need to be out soon. 

Could not, out. 

Problem today was my lack of recognition of what true risk is. Its part of my plan to hold and see if LOD breaks are fakes and shakeouts. Size was what made me emotional. WAY to big given what I expected risk to be, which was wrong. OSTK COLM absolutely too big. Needed only 2 on OSTK, instead had 5. Needed 2 on COLM. Instead had 5. 

Wednesday

Tough day yesterday. Risk was main issue. Losses are fine and normal, but taking larger than expected is not. Ignored the fact OSTK had 40cent spread on options, got way to big on lesser setup, Long when market clearly not a great long. COLM stupid wide spread in option and equity. Again same as OSTK.

Nothing but shorts for today. Majority are daytradable with tight spreads. Now is ok to get big again as we are looking at same side of market. Just wait for the trigger and do my thing. No 10star setups. 

Very busy 1st 5 min, 5 names triggered. BA SWKS YELP CRSP and KBH market weak and dropping./ 

BA popped up to retest and turned I added. Looking to take off at BO level Same with SWKS

BA STRUGGLIGN TO DROP HERE INTO BIGGER bo LEVEL but cant vut it yet. Caps lock. 

SWKS looks ready to lose it. 

BA did break LOD added one last lot. Needs to go. 

Added YELP breakdown with clear tape.

BA squeezed REAL hard right to hod. Ow. 

SWKS still holding lower just above breakdown point. Will add again. 

CRSP ripping to HOD as well after big flush. On no volume. Have to deal. Swing.

Market internals seeing strong push higher. V strong. Not like past days where we straight sold, we seem to be buying atm. 

YELP ripped back above to HOD. Waiting

SWKS back to vwap, but seeing reject, waiting. 

KBH to HOD too, and reject, waiting.

CRSP to HOD, and reject, waiting.

SWKS only DT here, might have add chance but market not helping neither are intraday conditions. 

SWKS dropped lower under MAs again, low vol, low momo, low rvol, no option rvol, market coiling lower, could still go either way, have to deal with risk. 

SWKS market turned up, so did SWKS above 177 with vol spike. Bailed for small win. 

CRSP ripped hod out.

YELP only trade left. Given every thing else is ripping and squeezing, why would I expect anything different here too. If it starts running im out. And it did. Out

Well 0/5 now. Going to have to wait a long while if anything resets. 

And slowly and suddenly all at once. We lose it all again. Names reclaim lower and break lower. Im in nothing, waiting.

BA reclaimed under vwap and MAs and HTF zone. Popped above range above vwap and stuffed quick and hard that was my in with tight risk. Market got weak again and under vwap with breakdowns. Internals trending lower. 

Spiked above waiting to see if restuff. Didnt out. 

Later in day SWKS showing clear rel weakness. Clear range breakdown and fail to reclaim. Broke lower into D BO level with big vol spike and back in. Only done 77% ATR so there is room here. Market not helping, nor hurting, just stuck. Vol is what we need and we got it here. Added with momo breakdown. I JUST implemented new add rules so need to follow. We should lose it here so lets go, if not then need to cut adds. 

Great start, QQQ also dropping well, we had another big sell cross the tape too. Will hold the adds then unless reclaim of recent breakdown level. 

Then QQQ ripped higher. SWKS followed on super light volume. Didnt cut adds. 

Just kept ripping. Straight to intraday range high above vwap before finally getting some kind of pull in. Lots of engulf on HTF candles. Internals all over the map. Not clear action at all on other markets. 

Exit as vwap held and turned up. Didnt cut adds and guess what, took twice as big as loss as I could have. 

Thursday

Gotta be better. Cut the adds. Correct size and risk at all times. Market turned up hard yesterday, back to all longs. Looking cleaner out here, lots of failed breakdowns. Should be a nice day to bust up if we can. 

VSTO swing again, looks better. 10star

YETI, widespread, nice pop, lost it, failed lod into prevd level, trying to get in. 

MET a dt finance name had strong pop at open, lost it back into D level, then saw strong pop again after failed LOD break into d levels, in and added.

KNBE swing also triggered

Market not as weak as it was yesterday, very choppy move lower, my names im in are holding well.

VSTO the worst though, lost vwap into dhi level. Waiting. But lost it and out

MET reclaimed vwap and retested, saw good tape added some more.

Market seems like its trying really hard to shake out, these names wont lose and hold anything below yet.

MET tried its hardest, but failed and lost LOD, out all. 

YETI had huge spike up above vwap and level,s added, risk can be tightened.

YETI turned up more to HOD, looks great.

KNBE giving it up, not great but must wait still. Failed and out. 

YETI failed and out that too

Yo, I am straight up not having a good time. Nothing im touching is winning. Market is not helping my trades. I need to take a step back, and really be selective again.

Swings are flat out not working. Day trades im still around 50% WR which is really notable, but swings just not at all. Tomorrow only trading daytradable names

Friday

Daytrades only, quad witching, lets see. 

DIS strong pop in. 

Market straight sell to start.

AMZN super clear tight triangle break into D. In and added. Looks great good start.

DIS failing under vwap wth low vol, can add though. 

Added DIS on break higher. 

AMZN completely stuff. So hard so fast to LOD I had no chance to do anything. Froze. 

I got so lucky the bounce was strong. Out for smaller loss

DIS had strong move up, but got stuffed and roller lower. All out to keep win. 

Will wait for better setups. Market trending lower, these names are very choppy at the moment. Need to be ok missing moves. Not clean, not clear. 

AMZN came into vwpa a 3rd time. Failed and bought up. Im in on HTF zone. 

WDAY got filled on bad breakdown pullback. Held well when put order in but lost it hard. 

AMZN again failed lower and bought up, added. 

AMZN spiked up added. Needs to run, or cut adds. 

And did not, stuffed lower cut adds. Small loss. 

Market refusing to pull up here. Internals weak trending lower.

Cut AMZN on range lo loss,  no reason to keep holding this weakness. WDAY also cut near LOD. Flat out didnt need to be in that. 

Im out of BP, but want to watch this playout. AMZN really seems like it wants higher, but waiting on market to pull up finally. Made another failed break lower and turned up again into TL break. 

Turns out I can go a bit further exp on AMZN and get another trade on it in. Building a ton of power here. triple/quadruple inside candles on HTF candles 10/15/5. Waiting for failed breakdown to buy dip. Market still not catching a bid neither are internals. Seems more than likely ill get that chance for failed breakdown. 

Failed breakout of triangle, retraces to bottom TL + vwap + HTF zone and got in. Market still not catching a bid, internals STILL continuing to get weaker. Market absolutely against me but cant ignore clear rel strength here and tape. 

5 Inside candles on 10 min, triple on 15. Market catching a bid finally, internals making 1st HH. Now would bne time to add if I could. We popped back up again. 

And failed just as market did. Inside candles breaking to downside under vwap. Maybe still see failure here. Held this area all day given weakness, could change finally now weve got all these insides broken. 

And it snapped lower hard. Cut it later on.

Bad week.

Big thing to note was market correlation. Low rvol generally means my trades are going to do whatever the market is going to do. There is no reason to expect longs to work when market clearly is weak and been trending lower past few days. Size is out of the question, and moreso, I need to ignore some setups all together when market is like this. 

Tuesday I lost big on longs when market clearly weak. Wednesday I lost on shorts when market, actually just screwed me, failed to move lower still, was not fast enough to adapt and cut BA faster and instead took big L on it as it and market ripped higher. 

Wednesday size made me emotional again. Mainly on BA. I told myself it needs to go now or problems, it was showing WS and bottoming patterns failing to drop. And once it ran against me, all those other shorts were screwed and we saw the squeeze, instead of being proactive, protecting losses. I held on for way bigger loss. 

I NEEDED TO REDUCE SIZE, not get out the trade. My entries are based on technical daily triggers, my adds are based on me reading of the flow of the stock. If my reading of the flow is wrong, my adds are wrong. GTFO or get trucked. This also happened in SWKS. And OSTK 

And in the case of SWKS, I did get a good read on the flow after my adds, saw that we were failing to drop and once we moved up, rest of everything else was squeezing, no reason to take that chance. I got the fuck out. OSTK gave me plenty of warning signs, all failed HOD breaks pushes, and I had size on. Take the size off.

I have had this issue for years where I hold full size for the full stop. 

I enter the trade on the daily trigger, then I add size with momentum if it works expecting it to run and break hard. If it doesnt break hard that means I am wrong about the momentum. The trade triggered on daily basis so it makes sense to keep it on as long as it continues to hold proper levels, but the size and momentum part of the trade, it doesnt make sense to hold that extra given size, if the stock has failed to continue that breakdown right then and there.

My best trades I dont ever have to worry about it. But these recent trades that have shown warning signs, failed breaks, weak pushes, why do I need to hold that extra size on the position? 

I hold it in hopes it can continue that breakout at a later point. But im wrong. I dont know that it will ever come back. I add size expecting it to run. It doesnt run. I keep size on? Doesnt make sense from risk management standpoint. It makes sense to keep trade on given technical triggers. But not size on. Im right, but not right here, not right now. 

I have to start implementing this in my process. This will help prevent larger losses while still keeping skin in the game, to try those adds again at a later point.

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Numbers this week are awful. Main issues are I traded how I wanted to, with no respect for what is actually happening in the market.

So for starters, what happened in the market this week. We pulled in clearly. We finally had our pullback that we should have been expecting for a while. So what does that mean for names I usually trade?

Well I trade breakouts. Mainly longs obviously. If im wanting long breakouts, and the market is pulling in. And the names im trading have low rvol, they are not going to perform that well if the market is not pulling up, helping the trade along.  

I took 23 trades this week, 4 wins. Of those 4 wins, 3 were on the short side. I could not stay away from taking the longs. Lesser or not. 

Looking at MFE, they did not go much in my favor at all either. It clearly was not the market to take any longs. 

Swings are not working. And havent been. I just need to flat out ditch that idea for now. I cannot keep losing money looking at my stats im really 6/50 last couple months. It aint worth it. Until I can get a bigger margin account again, it is not worth swinging options on these. What I want to do with them though, is the spreads. The time swings. As long as the stock closes in between a certain area, then I make money. But just straight calls are not working. 

PROBLEMS

Size

-I like adding to winners. I do not like trading incorrectly. Whats the similarity between these. Size and emotions. I want to be right and right right now with momentum. I enter on trigger, I add size with momentum. Momentum stops, I keep size on? That is wrong. I need to cut size off if momentum stops and prevent larger than necessary losses. Keep the trade on based on entry, and re add if resets with new break and momentum and repeat the process again. 

-My problem is emotions. Specifically greed, overconfidence. "I dont want to get out my adds, it can still come back and run for me." "I know this is a grade A setup, it has a great chance to still make that move im looking for." I dont know shit. I dont need to trade like I know whats going to happen next. You dont need to know whats going to happen next to make money. 

-My best trades go and never return. So when it does return, thats an issue. I have to get over the fact I might be wrong right now, and reduce size to reflect that. Looking at past wins I wouldve kept a lot of losers much smaller had a done this, and at the same time winners would still remain large and cover plenty of losers. 

-If the trade resets, I can always get those momentum adds back on, on a better intraday setup.

Holding momentum adds ^^^

Ignoring Warning Signs

-Ties in with the above. When I get momo adds in, and no momo happens, thats a warning sign, once it pulls against me, time to bail on them. Why? Expectations were wrong. I expected big move with momo, and didnt get it. Therefore trade is wrong. Therefore, size must reflect this. 

-RARELY do I have winners that fail at first and then turn back into wins. 

Market correlation

-This week market correlation was a huge warning sign. Every long I took was against market conditions. Yet I go for it anyways and with the size on. 

Swings

-I spent my time all weekend recreating my daytradable watchlist. Went through old leaders list to dig for daytradable names, then back to finviz to find more that are also leaders. Now I have a list of 270 stocks that I can trade knowing I have edge around the way they trade and how I trade them. 

Things to change

-Cutting adds off.

    -When adding to winners into breakouts. If breakout does not happen and warning signs appear, I must cut those adds off. 

    -Adds stop need to be played around breakeven or very near 1min range hi/lo

-Trading against market

    -Stop doing it. After 30/1hr into the day, if market is not helping, my trades are not working

    -Treat this as another warning sign if trade does not run. Be proactive in cutting wins short/losses short. 

-Swing trading

    -Is not working. No use in trying it anymore. 

You are only as good as the stocks you trade.

Time to reset, refocus, new plans, new process. Get to it.