April 29 Recap

Trade 1

Thesis for the first trade. News at 10 sent price higher, with a trap move down and explosion up. I did not chase this move, but was frustrated I didn't get in. I waited, waited, waited for clear indication to get in. And, potentially was still a tad early.

The 10a 10m candle was extremely strong with high momoentum. I zoomed down to the 3m and once we held the 3/8 / 10/48 and PDC I looked to enter. I remained patient and entered closer to my technical stop out of a loss of the 3/21.

I've learned it's best to wait for THREE 3m candles to confirm a real change in direction. I know it's okay to wait and 'miss' the perfect entry, because I'm trading the 10m chart and that means there's room to run.

This time I only waited 2 3m candles. The logic was tehre. A second hold of the 3/21, 10/48 and PDC. I entered, and stopped out on the loss of the 3/48.

Of course I have a feeling that stop out will be the perfect entry for calls.. but two things... 1. This is why it's so so important to size correctly. I took an 18% loss, but because I was sized appropriately I did not breach my 2% portfolio max risk. 2. Even it it is the right entry, I can still get back in. It's best to just get out, because that was the plan, and the re-evaluate. TIAAT.

Welp it was what I thought. I exited pretty close to the ideal entry. But again because I sized appropriately, and got out immediately, I was able to see that and re-enter calls.

Trade 2

I'm still struggling with sizing. Once I realized I was stopped out at the ideal entry, I felt more confident in the direction, and therefore calls. I bought more because of this confidence, BUT that came with a desire to take profit quicker. Profit is profit but I can do better at deferring to the plan.

Having said that, taking profit when I did was also astute given we were at the next level.

I essentially re-entered at the same level that I entered the first time, but had confidence given the clear 3m reversal pattern, while the 10m failed to close below previous support.

First circle was trade 1 entry, 2nd circle was trade 2 entry. In both cases the PDC held, which put a move to the call trigger in play. Because I had greater size on I was content with the nominal profit and exited all but 1 near the previous high. The net of this trade bought me back to even on the day. Though that is not how I should, nor do I want to think about it, because as I've said multiple times, the outcome of any individual trade does not matter. It's the p/l after 1000s of trades. It ended up being the right place to exit, and I held the runner in case of a move to the call trigger.

I can improve on my runner management. Even if the runner loses money I'm still green on the trade. And, given price never moved back below support, the price suggested to keep holding. But, in fear of turning green to red, I simply took the stop.

Yet again, once I stopped out and waited for the price action to become clearer, I realized we found support and we're going to try another time to reach the highs.

Trade 3

Hourly was bullish. 10m was bullish. PDC holding. I saw a strong reversal pattern off of PDC and again essentially my initial trade entry point. I sized larger and because my entry was better, I was able to exit with meaningful dollar profit quickly. Again, I left one runner to capture a continuation up to the call trigger. Here's another thing with sizing, I tend to take profit quick, and then with the runner, hold on too long (to "make up" for having exited too early). In this case, my trade reached 25% and yesterday's high, but I insisted on waiting for the call trigger, because everything pointed to it! Rather than taking the 25%, I held out and stopped out at +7%. Profit is profit.

Interestingly enough my thesis of a move up to the call trigger did play out. And it played out without a break of the PDC. With more patience, confidence and experience, my hope is to enter the trade and ignore the effect on my P/L until PDC is lost or the call trigger is hit. The focus on my P/L, while prudent from a risk management standpoint, does also take me out of the "correct" trades too early.

This will come with confidence, and for now it's more important to stack small wins, to build consistency and confidence.

Another solid day. 2/3 on trades today, though if I had never sold my first trade, and instead waited for either PDC to stop me out, or Call trigger to take profit, I'd have returned more...

Wider stops. Being okay with losing. These are the keys to being more profitable.

I took 1 EOD trade with some of today's profit. Scalp GG open, bullish 3m, BUT chop chop chop. As a reminder all EOD trades have full risk, so I let them go to 0 / -100% and exit only if the specific profit level is hit. I did just that, but because I got in to early, the theta decay crushed the premiums in a way that I was "only" able to profit 20%. The contracts went from .75 to 4, but because I got in at 2.6 my exit was 3.2.

Another time, I will figure out how best to show day trades vs End Of Day 0dte Full Risk trades, as I'm completely okay with those losing, given the small position size and use of profits only. I judge my system win rate on day trades. But, the overall P/L is how I'll judge myself as a PM. I do think the juicing of daily returns with profit only is a great way of driving incremental profit.

Here are today's stats:

2 of 3 day trades, 1 of 1 on EOD 0dte.