Grade: D

Goals: Be more selective and raise winning %

Reminders/Aphorisms: 

  • Don't fight the trend;
  • Be patient, take good set-ups
  • Respect at least 2:1 R/R

Overview: Yesterday the SPY looked like a nice downtrend which could have made money. Today CPI numbers came back better than expected and we popped close to $13. This kind of destroys a lot of zones we previously established which makes things a little difficult. However, we are oepning at the 388-390 zone where we had rejected at back in the beginning of November. The next zone up is around 395, but that would be a massive move.

1) I think we likely sell-off at open at the 388-390 zone and bounce at 384-385, for a longer grinding move up.

2) We can sell off at open to the 384-385 zone,  and move strongly back down to the next zone at 378-380. This would still leave the SPY green on the day.

Trade Analysis:

  • Trade 1 was a Trendbreak Short off the 5m premarket trend line. This first trade wasw a little early off the retest of the trend. I stopped out for bigger than 25c because I gave it a litlte more room but not enough.
  • Trade 2 was the same trade as trade 1 but I got in higher and had a better entry. Held this for 50c and then $1 on the runner.
  • Trade 3 was a trend continuation short, we had pulled up from VWAP and looked like we would continue lower so I tried to get in but got a bad fill, stopped out for a loss. At this point in the day I started using smaller size (35 shares) because we had a high rate of change.
  • Trade 4 was the same as trade 3, I just got a better entry, I risked the top of the last high and ended up getting spiked out. Looking bad these last 2 trades were not great trades, VWAP held strongly I should have either taken it long or sat on my hands.
  • Trade 5 I can't really categorize because we don't really have a larger trend. On the 1m it is more a uptrend reversal, we had a big red engulfing candle followed by a doji on high volume, I got in aorund the premarket high for a rejection and move down but I did not realize we were on the last 1 minute candle before a new 5minute and it popped on me for a loser.
  • Trade 6 was a uptrend reversal short which I caught for 50c on the short side for the partial but took the remaining shares for break even so it wasn't that big of a trade.
  • Trades 7-8 were downtrend continuations for small share size and small 50c winners. At this point I realized I was overtrading and tried to slow it down but I was already at 8 trades.
  • NOTES: Looking back on this we were up big and I was thinking there was no way we continue and close up so high on the day which is not a good thought process. We were in a clear uptrend - play the trend, stay on the right side of the V.  Too many trades today, have to be more patient. What really hurt me today was not trading yesterday and being antsy to trade and also going against the overall trend, trying to FOMO and catch big moves.

Lesson moving forward: Find the balance between getting in trades quickly/not hesitating, and being patient and taking only optimal trades.