November 8, 2022 (2 Trades) (+$58.00)

Overall Grade: B

Day Summary: Today was a wild day as it was the 2022 Mid Term Elections. The day started with a quick double bottom, followed by a long grinding green move that was basically impossibe to trade. These grinding green moves are so hard to capitalize on even though it should be as simple as going long small share size and holding for 1-2 hours. I think I remember Gonz doing that on one of the recent grinding green days and he ended up making like 3$ /share profit. I should be willing to take a trade like that because we've seen these grinding green moves so many times throughout 2022.  Anyways, I had a feeling the market would eventually sell it all off but I told myself not to stick around waiting for that, which is good discipline.  I pretty much knew there wouldn't be a chance to get in short once it happened anyways because I don't like to chase those moves. The odd part about today is that we actually recovered 7$ of the 8$ sell off almost immediately, before a small sell off into the close. This tells me that regardless of the Fed continuing to be hawkish with their attitude towards interest rates, there are still much more buyers in this market than we had throughout Aug/Sept. It will be interesting to see if the October rally continues, especially with another CPI report due out this Thursday (Nov 10).

1YR:1D

1D:5M - 1D:1M

                                        Trades

Trade #1 - Long 3 Call Contracts after Double Bottom, Previous Day Close Reclaim (Trend Reversal Continuation)

Grade: B

  • This trade was frustrating because I wasn't ever really in the red, I sold almost immediately and it ended up moving to where my target was
  • This was a tough trade to take, so I think that spooked me out of holding, but as usual, I need to start following the plan and holding my winners to target
  • ^^ Is very important becaue, for example, this trade ended up basically being a 1:2.5 (Reward:Risk). I need to hold winners so that my winners outweigh my losers, even if my win % suffers
  • Targeting the PM downtrend area to exit on 3 contracts would've been a day making trade for me and I need to focus on allowing my winners to run a bit to cover the higher fees related with options.

FIX: All in all, I'm ok with this trade, I just need to stick to the plan. I can always move my stop up to breakeven once the trade moves up, giving me a risk free trade

 

Trade #2 - Long 2 Call Contracts at PM downtrend/VWAP hold (Trend Continuation)

Grade: B

  • This was another decent trade, but also not one of my set ups. I really shouldn't be trading anything out of my set ups but I had a bit of FOMO from not holding Trade #1
  • I held through a bit of drawdown during this trade and actually had my mouse hovering over SELL THE BID incase this cracked the low and it basically did before recovering strong which gave me more confidence to hold
  • I was more confident in this trade than Trade 1 and therefore was able to hold a bit longer. I also had a good exit on this trade once I saw weakness
  • This trade could have gone south quick to be honest, as I really was just anticipation it to hold the PM downtrend and VWAP again
  • One good takeaway is that I downsized to 2 contracts on this trade because of the above ^^

FIX: Don't trade anything outside of your set ups, but if you do, be ready to cut the loser quick.

 

Takeaways: As usual, I need to learn to hold winners. However, I did do a bit better on managing Trade 2 compared to Trade 1

Easy Money: Long grinding green with shares (smaller size) and open up the stop until it is high enough above your entry that you can move stop to breakeven. Little risk to get 2-3$/share