Today was a really good day in terms of PnL but in terms of trading is was still at best a C- day. I took a ton of very quick scalps that added up nicely in futures but they were not very calculated and patient trades so im not happy about them. I also shorted at the perfect spot on futuers and covered for a tiny loss instead of holding for the thesis since I was trading my PnL instead of trading the strategy. I watched a 40 point move happen right after I covered and luckily I caught a tiny piece of it with options but if I had held that futures trade it wouldve been another $150 ontop of my already 55$ (just futures) account on the day. If I wouldve done that then I could have hit the $300 mark which would be a huge milestone for me. Dont get me wrong I am very very happy to have my biggest green day ever but today more than ever I realized that believing in yourself is sometimes even more important than good trading.
1st Trade: Overnight Put Option
1d:2m
- AAPL GOOG AMZN earnings were happening after hours and we hit a huge supply zone about 2 hours beforehand. The spy was up 5% in 3 days and we have a ton of room to pull back. Yes this was my biggest winner of the day but it was also probably the luckiest trade I have had in a very long time. This is not a trade that I want to take ever again. Possibly in futures I would take it because I can actually sell it during AH and PM but cant do that in options. I need to make sure I never short a frontside again and this is pretty much a frontside short hoping for a pullback. Not a good strategy.
2nd, 3rd, 4th Trades: Futures Trend Continuation Short
1d:2m
-Thank god I scaped these moves because if I hadnt and I held them for bigger breakdowns I wouldve lost a lot of money. I think this is somewhat of an interesting concept but maybe I should do this more often? I am not sure but possibly scalping in futures is much better than holding for these massive moves. If we were in a more clear downtrend then possibly yes hold for a bigger move but when we open on the day down 1.5% with a massive gap to fill then scalping those drops is much easier than timing them. These are Trend continuation trades on the intraday but still trend reversal trades on the micro timeframe. aka, one of the rules I said I need to never break again. I am learning though and luckily this time I was learning and being right hahah. Since I scalped these early on in the day I started also scalping later on in the day and it ended up really screwing up my PnL.
4th, 5th, 6th Trades: Futures Trend Reversal Intraday but Trend Continuation Micro
- These trades all occurred right at the top where we attempted to fill the gap then failed. That top horizontal line is the PDC which we broke then someone immediately hit the sell button. After breaking PDC and immediately failling I was getting ready for a bigger short move because those gap fill fail trades are some of the most +EV you can possibly get in the stock market. I think yes if they are in the micro trend then its even better but this is still a good example of a gap fill fail trade. Again on all 3 of these futures trades I was scalping for $10 back to back to back. I had 6 total trades and made $53 from it so I still had about 10 points in wins on the MES but that is not good considering the opportunitiy that I completely botched in my 6th trade. As you can see we broke PDC then failed and we pulled back up and made a BEAUTIFUL rounded top pattern with a clear HOD to risk off of and a new LH on the rounded top. I shorted there and covered for $12 loss and I basically covered at the very top and completely missed a massive 40 point move lower that happened very very fast. I think the thesis on this short and stopping out at the attempted break of a new high is okay but not re-entering once we broke back down below the 13 and 50 was just pure stupidity. I couldve gotten back in and made a clean 10 point trade no problem right at the break of the 13. I did short it with options though.
7th Trade: Put Option
- Once I missed the opportunity in futures I took the trade in options. I have no idea why I am able to just be way more aggressive with my options trading compared to futures. Possibly because I have more control over the size that I want to use and the risk that I want to take on a certain trade. This trade specifically was about a $19 risk to make about $35. This trade though was about a 1.5 point trade on the SPY which is 15 points on the futures. I couldve held my futures trade and risked about $40 to make $75. I dont think holding futures losers is a good idea though because the size is pretty substantial. Going for the trade again though once we broke down wouldve been incredible. I couldve gotten in at the same spot where I got in with options and If I held for the same exact trade I wouldve made $75 instead of only $32. I think at this point in the day I was trading my PnL more than trading the chart. It is sad though because this was by far the best opportunity of the day and I really didnt capitalize on it nearly as much as I should have.
Takeaways:
I am happy I had my largest green day but half of this was really just luck. Sometimes it is okay to be lucky and I usually am never too lucky about these situations so its great to finally be that person but at the same time it feels very unfulfilling. I dont feel like I actually traded well to recieve that large of an amount of money. It feels not real. To truly deserve that amount of money I shouldve held that last short trade and I shouldve made all of that money only on that last futures trade that I stopped out on. The setup was absolutely perfect and beautiful and that was the first time in a long time that we had a short setup be better than a C trade. Yes I am shorting a pullback within a micro uptrend which technically means I am doing a trend reversal but if the intraday trend is down then that is where the trend is on the day. I know that I have to be careful and not go for these trades often because usually its just way easier to take trend reversal long trades when the market is down but since we were massively extended to the upside (still a shitty reason to take a trade) and AMZN AAPL GOOG had really bad earnings then I think this bearish sentiment was very much warranted and that last short trend continuation on micro or trend reversal on intraday trade was a perfect A+ setup that I should have nailed. On monday I am going to see how it feels to be a little more scalpy in futures and wait for those perfect opportunities to really get in, hold, take profits, leave. It may be possible that taking tiny scalp wins early on in the day is really all I need to get the ball rolling. I also really like how I kept trading today even though I was up big. If I had just stopped trading super early on in the day since I got my $145 win overnight then I wouldve never been able to make $210. I have to be willing to push it on days where I am in the flow and taking good trades and I need to stop early on those days where I am red and get more red quickly. Overall very grateful that I am even able to be a trader and very grateful for the market to give me that sexy 3x higher than expected non farm payroll number 1 hour before I was going to sell my put option. Sometimes its better to be lucky than it is to be right.
