September 27th, 2022
Today I used 2x my normal size so 2 contracts on every single trade I took except TSLA since it has the same rate of change as 2 SPY contracts. To be honest, being down only 72 is a huge W for me. Today I really was unhinged and emotional. Firstly, I held a shitty swing overnight in my main portfolio and was down 40 right at the open and that really messed with my mental because I was switching between 2 different types of trading and mixing them multiple times throughout the day. It was really awful so never again am I taking a swing in my daytrading portfolio. Holy shit, as I am writing this I completely forgot I entered yet another swing trade on the intraday and lost $25 from this so on just the daytrades I am only down $46 on the day. That is really not bad at all considering the fact that I was using double size. That is technically just one loser on the day and that would put me at -$46. Thats pretty good actually considering how badly I traded. I had multiple times where I had a thesis and was flipping back and forth.
1yr:1d
-Breaking down to new lows on the SPY and all other legacy indices today.
1d:2m $SPY
-Clusters of trades like that are really never good. They indicate that you have zero grip on the direction and its irrelevant to be trading in zones like this at any point until they are cleanly broken.
1d:2m $TSLA
1st Trade: $TSLA Trend Reversal Short
-This was purely a fomo trade. First of all I dont even trade TSLA so why the fuck am I doing it on a day where I know itll be choppy. At least there was a clear-ish setup happening for me to base my fomo off of. Took the breakdown of the trend and the retest. I also took a really deep out contract on accident because I thought this would be as liquid as the SPY which was stupid as fuck hahha. It was not even close and I got a shit ton of slippage on the way in and out. Id advise myself to never touch this again but cant say never in trading.
2nd Trade: $TSLA Trend Reversal Short
-This one hurt really bad because I had a decent entry and set my stop at -$25 and that was just too tight of a stop for this trade. I got hit right at the high then proceeded to watch this go right down to where my limit was and I just had bad timing. Out of both of these TSLA trades I had lost only 10 dollars but idk it just seems way less predictable without the SPY helping it perform moves so I think its best to avoid this ticker for now, unless you see crazy divergence and play the price inneffiency in it.
3rd Trade: $SPY Trend Reversal Long
-I started out my trade on the SPY very good by waiting for this break of trend then took an awesome long right on that zone. I nailed it and made about 46 on this trade which put me about 36 up on the day. I think this was probably my best executed trade of the day and I really like my entry and exit with my risk being predetermined and I had a great green move right after getting in. All in all awesome trade/scalp.
4th Trade: $SPY Trend Continuation Short
-Now here is where things start to get sketchy. Took this loss and immediately lost my entire profit from the last long trade. I really cannot hate this trade because if you look at the opening price (white dotted line) you will see that we are consolidating in an upward channel towards the morning lows (far left green on the chart) we had some great resistance here and we had VWAP above as well. Upwards channels tend to break to the downside and this trade wouldve been awesome if I got a better entry and was able to exit more quickly before having it squeeze up on me. All in all though I really cant hate this trade but when it brokeout very weakly and I started flipping my bias to long, that is when things started to get reallly sketchy.
5th Trade: $SPY Trend Continuation Long
-Oof yet another loss right here where I was going for a trend continuation to the upside which is definitely extremely stupid to think would even happen. First, we are in a huge downtrend after that opening sell off. The only scenario of us being in an uptrend for a long continuation trade is if we held open price and made a higher high with lower lows. This is an awful trade no matter which was you look at it. Just because we gapped up does not mean that we are in an uptrend. Why would I possibly think that this is a long continuation trade to the upside other than the fact that I am being long biased on the day from my swings going against me in the morning and that we gapped up overnight. I really only took this trade from mixing up my swing mindset with my daytrading mindset. DAYTRADING is about finding high probability entries with good R and REDUCED market exposure. Swinging is about having more market exposure and using timeframes only 30m and up. I cannot afford to do this ever. Pay attention to the intraday trend and dont be thinking about macro when doing micro. Lost about 40 here.
6th Trade: $SPY Trend Continuation Short
-Here is a pure anger/frustration trade that I took from taking that previous long. When I am flipping direction super fast like this and chasing a move down with an awful entry and terrible R then this is when you know that sizing and swing trading is effecting me becuase last week or the week before I wouldve never taken this trade. We broke the trend and I finally realize we are setting up a trend continuation trade to the downside but I chase it becuase I think we will immediately breakdown. Entry is so terrible here, I know that things retest after creating channels like this, why would I think that I wont get stopped out before the move right here? I need to be more aware of what the true macro trend is doing and not be so caught up in the 2m chart. I need to be more aware that when we have ascending channels they do not usually break and never retest. There are certain patterns like the morning open panic that usually do break and never recover but ascending and descending channels are NOT those. When you have a channel that is a micro trend within a macro trend and when they break you have to be patient and wait for the clean entry. lost another 40ish here
7th Trade: $SPY Trend Continuation Short
-At least I came back in right here and made back that last loss with an extra $10 ontop. The version of me yesterday was so terrified to even take a trade cuz of sizing. Today I have no hinges hahhaa. I was going for it and trying really hard to just let everything happen and not be effected by it. I think I did well in that sense on this trade specficially because yesterday I skipped out on a trade like this form being early cuz I was terrified to lose more money. Again like the last post, I figured out we are in a big downtrend now and I took thsi short and covered so damn fast. This wouldve been a much better trade if I took the first contract off and then held the second half for that previous low that happened about an hour before at 10:00. I couldve made back probably all of my losses if I had held that trade the whole way down to that zone becuase this contract increased by over $75 in value when it hit that previous low. The exit was just a classic trade for me but I think maybe next time it wont be a bad idea to just trust the trend and let it really go down until it has a hard bounce and retest. That is the future version of myself that I will have to work on a lot if I want to be able to hold shit like this. For now though since I cant scale out because I only have 2 contracts, I will stick to what I am doing and not holding for ridiculous moves just yet. Let me get a $100 day first and we will see what happens.
8th Trade: $SPY Trend Continuation Short
-I guess this isnt an awful trade because it is right off the lows of the morning but wow did I scalp the shit out of this wayy too quickly yet again. I had an awesome entry right at the morning low and then I sold it so fast because of my overarching fear to be red more than $150. If I wasnt a dumbass and realized that swings were down 65 and I was down only 60ish then I wouldve probably held this for my true target of $50 profit. I really have to stop trading my P/L and learn how to follow the price action and be ready for a trade before it occurs and wait for the perfect entry.
Easy Money Trades:
-This was by far the easiest money of the day and the highest R and just overall incredibly beautiful trade. So we have an uptrend in the beginning of the day and it is broken immediately to the downside and once we really start going down then we had a new downtrend occuring that was very steep (mid downward blue dotted line). Once we broke this then we have another uptrend that created an ascending channel and eventually breaks down, retests, then flies through the low with very little support thereafter. This is incredible and if there is someone out there who actually caught this trade then holy shit congrats to that person hahahhaha. Someday I will be able to wait and notice these trades perfectly, and I will size into them so heavily that within 50 cents I will be up $1000 and I can sell my partial and hold the rest for an extra couple hundred dollars. It is not far fetched and if I start nailing these easy money trades more often I will absolutely get there much faster than I think is possible.
-Yes, I took this trade but in the moment I did not even realize how perfect it wouldve been for a much larger move to the downside. I got a tiny tiny piece of it but wow this thing is as perfect as it gets for a trend continuation trade with huge upwards resistance on the intraday. We broke down huge from that previous zone and this was the chance to get in fror the 2nd leg down.
-The best way to trade these 2 easy money trades wouldve been to get in at the top entry and ADD into that bottom that was using the previous low as resistance. If I wouldve taken that entry and added at the second entry and held for the previous day close I couldve easily made $1000 even with extremely small size. 2 contracts at first entry that are 40 delta then add 1 more contract at that second entry and sell 66% at previous day close then hold the rest for the breakdown through the yearly lows. Even with that few of contracts that would be a $480 win on 1 trade with fees of about 3 dollars. That wouldve been the best trade of my life though hahah.
Takeaways:
-I really like how today I felt much more insensitive to the swings of using big size. I was in and out a lot more which kinda allowed me to get rid of my fear of losing a lot but it also caused me to have over $20 in fees and I overtraded a bunch with kinda a clouded view of the market from my swings being done in my daytrading portfolio. I know now to absolutely never do that again under any circumstance. They need to be separate portfolios unless I have ridiculous consistency in swinging and I can eventually handle the idea of having them both in one account but for now that is very stupid. Tomorrow I am going to be EXTREMELY PATIENT and I need to remember I DO NOT NEED TO MAKE ANY MONEY/I SHOULD NOT BE TRADING ANYTHING THAT ISNT 100% AT LEAST AN A- SETUP. Super quick scalps are not the way for me to make money. I need to find those perfect trend reversal and trend continuation patterns that have mutliple confluencing factors and nail those trades. Tomrorow I will do exactly this and I will make over $100.
