November 1st week

Monday

Distraction. New doors here and installing right now. Not prepared for open anyways. 2 names. Watch and wait day. 

Didnt trade

Tuesday

Market still hot. IWM finally breaking out, lots of old bottoming names coming out breaking higher. Market is changing. Long is on. 

Weakness off the open on watchlist. Not a thing holding so far

Very surprising morning. Only YELP on WL took off, widespread, didnt catch it. Not really day tradable but right on edge. All other 6 fails. 

PLBY hour into day finally reclaimed vwap around HTF zones. Saw big buyer under vwap get taken out then price reclaimed vwap and im in. 

Market did pull in a bit back to vwap, now seeing bounce.

Drifted lower to bot range again under vwpa, still saw decent bids, v slow, market getting stronger, internals not tho. RVOL and option vol is high today. Still reasons to hold, but needs to find it on next pb to vwap or problems. 

Cannot add yet. Needs to hold a pb above vwap 1st. Momentum burst seems unlikely to happen on a break above vwap again needs to coil above 

TL from open / HOD breaking higher now above vwap. Good tape. 

Getting slow, but holding above vwap. Dont think I want to add yet. Market strong internals maybe confirming soon. Volume and tape is just slow here. Im not sure I have the confidence to add more risk on this trade. HTF MAs are above still. Its not totally 1 sided like id like to see. 

10min later, still building well above vwap low volume, market slight trend higher with internals not helping much. MA on HTF catching up now getting under. Add may appear. 

Stiiiill sideways. Nothing busting out yet. 

Building and building. Been in this range for almost 2 hours. 

Got above, big vol spike, still into HTF MAs so not adding. 

Re break of Weekly Range hi around 30.25 is what im looking for to take off. HOD is 30.50. Will take half at .25

And it failed, came back in range lost LTF MAs, market also turned lower failed HOD break. Out. 

Rose later after decent vwap retset, wasnt interested.

Wednesday

Getting hot still. Good looking setups, nothing A+ but all As. Just looking for a trade, been very quiet past couple days. Waiting to see it itll come. 

Another open of straight sell, nothing super special already. LVS maybe something but market pulling down fairly hard. 

And a big nothing day again, big runners evading me. Squeeze names squeezing, nothing there for me though. Not seeing daily setups on them, just kinda going. 

Thursday 

Market still ripping hot. 

Stupid busy open. 3 trades in and out in 5 minutes. Tough. 

ZM 

Trigger and super strong pop. Messed up though, risk was a lot tighter than I thought so only caught it small size. Came back under vwap lost and out all

TDOC

Clear trigger BO. In, did not add as wrote it needed time to catch up. Was right call as candle was massive on pop, but dropped it all in 3 minutes and lost vwap cut rest breakeven

PLAY

Choppy morning but starting to hold above vwap. Originally got momo adds in on reclaim and rip, but didnt run, cut momo tiny loss. Waiting now on re test of HOD

Ripped HOD, didnt have momo add BP due to going for WYNN

And failed under vwap hard cut rest

WYNN

same as PLAY but now breaking out after vwap fail, in and added momo. 

Failed, cut momo, looks like PLAY was the right call so far. Will cut on vwap loss and hold

Failed hard all out. Sucks, rated 1 and looked good with clear volume

Well shit. Caught 2 monster pops on TDOC and ZM on small size. Then caught 2 full losses on my best ranked plays and bigger size. So down on the day. 

All trades should have been taken today. None I should have avoided. 

1st issue, Is I cant expect to walk on my desk at 8:28:30 and expect to be 100% ready. I had all my charts and windows ready to roll, but there is a sit down human buffer than needs to happen in me to get mentally ready and say, ok we good now. 

2nd was risk. Because not 100% ready and clear headed, I was not ready to anticipate risk on ZM or TDOC. I took a quick glance at the L2 of the option, didnt even do the math right. My initial entry on ZM only put down 20$ of risk. 

WYNN and PLAY were fine. Correct risk, correct adds, correct removes, just unfortunate didnt act like the others.

Both great locations and good conditions. Obviously squeezing market. Just didnt have the gas at the open. 

All 4 of these ended up being big losers with failed breakouts. All 4 were also bottom poppers, not strong names in the past year. Nothing A+ look for quick pop scalp and go that on 2 of them. I suppose, that because WYNN and PLAY triggered and failed at open, that changes things. PLAY also right into another daily anch vwap. 

So I think I need to still be more selective. I shouldnt have more than 8 stocks on watchlist on anyday. 1 window of 8 names is more than enough to look out for at the open. 

Annoying, but onto the next one. 

Friday

Market still unreal, wont stop ripping. Very small watchlist today as 

And another nothing day

THINGS

Really had to think long and hard about my WYNN and PLAY losses. Main thing to note is these have been weak names, and not see any strong pops. Others might be doing it, but these have not. WYNN and other hotels have similar action, but are failing and getting stuffed. I need to remember these are not strong names, these are old strong names, that have not shown strength, and when they do, they are just reasons to sell the strength. 

I think its ok to trade these names because on D with MAs and some anch v, they look good. But context is not screaming bullish buy this breakout. Risk needed to be smaller, perhaps avoid momo adds all together. Risk plan = 1. B setups. 

Did more interal work on my plan and process this week than actual trading. I suppose I am familiar enough with my edge now to know when I have nothing to do. So good one me avoiding trades I dont know I have edge in.

There really wasnt much for me to do. Markets like this are not my ideal situation. My investment accounts love it. Makes me feel good about the future. But daytrading wise, Im bored. I suppose thats part of it

It is however making me realize I should expand my playbook. Clearly there is money to be made in times like this and I want a part of it. 

I have ideas of what I want to do. CLEARLY there are super strong momentum names. Of course now that I want to do this, it might not be the right time anymore, but certain stocks can still run. 

Dan Shapiro talks about 1hr dip buys on momo names just about everyday for his watchlist, I want to do the same thing. Find names that are ripping, when they pull in enough to hit 5day MA, look for the bounce to take long again as momentum continues. 

It shouldnt be something im finding 10 setups on everyday it needs to be more specific. In fact, I may be thinking about this too much. Dan and I trade very similar names and styles, I can just use his watchlist alongside mine and would find very little difference. In fact, thats probably where I should start. Why go through all that trouble just to find out it may not even be worth it. Stick with the pros, follow them

PROBLEMS

-I am not being disciplined enough in preparing for the next days open.

    -I made my checklist to go through every stock. Im getting lazy falling into being ok only doing most of it, not all the detailed checks.

    -Its important to go through it all to recognize rank, as well as risk plan. 

SOLUTIONS

-Rewrote checklist in a more detailed, A-Z manner. More fluid, easy to follow, not jumping from one webpage to the next back and forth. 

Lost 50$ this week. Basically 1 trade. Took 5 total. 4 in one day on Thursday. Just those 5 I learned more though. Was enough to get some more edge in. Improved watchlist process. 

Also recognized a way to finally risk less on a setup. Or what qualifies as a B setup. If setup is into any R. Anchv, MA, VA range. 

Also a bottom range breakout. All my HoF trades are strong stocks with very little PA behind and above them. Ive been taking some bottom breakouts, that can make good moves, but why expect them to everytime. B setups. 

GOAL REVIEW 

1 - On every trade I should answer these questions about the setup to determine ranking. 

    -BO or PB?

    -What is the condition?

        -Is it at the BO, into the BO, a 2nd day after the BO?

        -Is it day of pullback to BO, day after Failure, or continuation after failure/bo retest?   

    -Check Weekly, Options, News, Past significant BO level confluence, and TLs. 

    -Industry/Sector Theme?

    -Check * / 10 Most important Variables 

    -Does it need time to build out before considering adds? Time? Other HTF variables to catch up?

    -What risk plan do I apply?    

    -What is Ranking of watchlist

    -Well switched this up pretty fast. But did follow. 

2 - 2nd day Breakout trades, no momentum adds until price has clearly pulled in, and reset at vwap. Minimum of 15 minutes after the bell. Only if there has been plenty of pmkt action, then it is ok for early momo adds. 

    -Good. TDOC was one and I didnt go for momo at open. Wouldve been bigger win if did, but no reason to risk it. It got crushed within 2 minutes of big pop. 

3 - Chart SPY and Q everyday for edge on direction. 

    -Yes I did, but 0 pullbacks so as long as MAs on HTF holding, nothing to really chart. No ranges being made. 

4 - No longs under vwap

    -Good.

5 - 100% prepared to trade every morning. Watchlist ready and in order by rank. 

    -Close. Still failed a couple times, but better process leads to better results.

6 - Let my wins work. Do not take the adds off until the proper cues. 

    -Good, and cut appropriately on breakeven return 

7 - Trade without Fear. 

    -100%, preparedness was key.