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Here's the beginning of my nexusfi.com trading journal. Using my own algos in Easy Language, I've entered swing trades (average hold of 7 trading days) off and on (mainly off) for about twenty years with moderate success. For the past nine months I've been trading full time -- or better said, I've sat at my station six to ten hours a day learning, charting, occasionally trading, etc. On Dec. 22nd, 2020 I started actually entering one to two trades each day, from picking the stocks to recording and posting to my white board the PnL for each trade. I'm a fervent believer in journaling but think it may be a more powerful tool if it is made public. So here's today's entry
February 2, 2021
Strategy, Day trade pullback at open. TLRY looked like a good set up for either a swing trade and the pre market setup also looked good for a day trade out of the open. Initial candle broke the previous day's high and subsequent candle confirmed the trend but just barely. Since the confirmation was weak, I waited until the bottom of the retracement and added position on the way back up. Fumbled the first order entry so entered again to a cost basis of exactly as planned. Unfortunately I missed my third entry point which would have been 1/2 of my full position (I scaled in slowly on this trade.)
Sold 1/2 of the position for +3% as price make HoD at a major Support: Resistance
(S/R) line. Waited through a pull back and the sold other 1/2 at +2% as the retry at HoD failed.
I was not as quick on the trades as I would have liked, fumbled all three entries, and did not have a clearly stated (written) idea of an exit for the second 1/2 of my position.
February 3, 2021 Abev Trading Journal
HEXO - watch for break of 8 as it may run after the whole $ break
POWW Set stop @D20ema
Long on CBAT at open to start a possible swing. Wedge @D20ema and a nice pm gap might mean a nice pop at open for a momentum trade. Bought on pull back from pm high of 8.14. Scaled in at 7.95 and 7.75. Not following R-PB strategy; a pure bull flag break play. Set stop just below 7.50 as SPY was trending down on the 5m and falling below the previous day's low. CBAT Beta = 3.4 to boot.
Closed out of HEXO long swing at +17%
Scaled out 1/4, 1/3, and remainder of POWW all at +14.xx% within roughly a forty minute period. After lunch volume never came to push the action. Got out just in time as price took a dive on the candle immediately following the closing exit.
Picked up a swing right at the close that fit a lot of my criteria. This is a bit careless. The Daily chart is only strong from the beginning of January so the trade may not work. I got in just under the descending trend line. Starter share and a tight stop. Will see what needs to be done in the AM.
February 3, 2021 Abev Trading Journal
OK, hope I'm doing the journaling correctly -- adding a new day's journal by simply hitting "Reply" to yesterday's journal entry.
FTFT - Looked interesting yesterday but my mis-givings regarding the strength of the chart proved out and I was stopped out of the trade early on in the day. Still worth the try; still figuring out this new strategy. Worse was the fact that I did not set the stop last night when I entered but left it to this AM and, yep, I forgot to set the stop. Got distracted by the setup of the next trade and it almost got away from me. Minimal damage but I must set those stops if I'm going to focus elsewhere. Lack of stops is becoming a habit.
AVXL - Found this nice setup out of the blue -- was not on one of my watch lists but was mentioned in one of the chat rooms I sit in during trading hours. Looked good, the setup worked like a charm, scaled cautiously twice 1/3, 1/3 full size. Never got confirmation for the last third. Got confirmation for the first 1/2 to scale out, the price action stalled and I got a bit uncomfortable for about thirty minutes, and then received confirmation from the price action to take another 1/4. I want to leave 1/4 and set a b/e stop but I don't ever get around to it -- just take the profits. The profits put me over my week's goal so that was nice but if I'd hung on, I would have made an additional 2 pts!!!! And that would have been VERY nice.
No trades until Monday now. Wait for cash to clear from trades in my cash account and for PDT allocations to give me a trade in my margin account. It's been a good week.
Well.... ugh. Had just enough resources to enter a tiny day trade.
Took a tiny long position in SNAP about six minutes after opening bell. I followed what seemed to be the correct set of rules but the R-PB strategy leaves open several opportunities to take a different branch and I took one that ended with a stop loss of the entire position. The good part is that I lost just $80 to find something about the strategy that deserves backtesting.
There is a point were a pull back can come to a % that triggers a stop loss at full size, or, I can use the 10M13ema or the VWAP. I believe that the initial price action out of the open gives a clear indication of which actions should be taken several minutes later in the trade. I've run across the price action before but it always worked out. If the backtesting works out the way I hope, then I will have some clear probabilities to work with instead of gambling with a guess.
In the screen shot the chart is on the 3M timeframe, the white trend line is VWAP and the Yellow is is the 10M13ema. The Fibonacci can key off the VWAP or the 10M13ema. In this case it is keying off VWAP. When price rises quickly, the 10M13ema is left far outside the area of action described by the Fibonacci lines. At this point I have scaled in to a full position entering at 58.78, 57.78, and 56.99 (the middle three lines) and stopped out when the second red candle touched 56.77 (the bottom white line).
If I brought the 10M13ema closer to the action area by keying the Fibonacci lines to the 10m13ema, I would still be holding and waiting to start scaling out when the price action reached 58.57 at the dark purple line.
Assuming I made the above adjustment, I would have still been holding a full position for the change to the 10M time frame as dictated by decreasing volume , and been able to ride at least the last 1/4 of a position to what eventually ended up being around 61 or 62 -- a 7.5% gain. I have to back test this over the weekend to see if it's for real or just wishful thinking.
PLTR - played the pull back bouce off the 10m13ema and added on the way backup. couldn't get much out of it -- finished with an underwhelming +1.25%. But green is green so...
Entered FTFT late -- my trigger for a long entry was 6.02 and I didn't get in until a pull back on the 5m at 6.50
I don't see much for 2/9.... maybe if the SPY remains strong but more likely not until Wednesday.
February 10, 2021
Unfortunately entered into several positions just before the SPY broke down to and through the VWAP taking my positions in WIMI and OPEN along with it. Tried to take advantage of the dip in FTFT which was mirroring SPY at the time but set my stop very tight and was fine when I stopped out. Down OPEN -3.5% (that's an unforgivable paralysis in triggering a stop loss); WIMI - 1% (that's more like it -- break out or bail out111) and FTFT - 1.73%
I've now three strategies that I'm attempting to play in any given day. Too many. My attention -- particularly pre-market -- gets scattered. I had twelve stocks on watch at the open. No way am I able to keep up with twelve stocks and the indexes. So.... back to a single strategy that was making me consistently profitable before I started developing the other two strategies. Then (fully) develop, back test, and live test one new strategy at a time.
Not going to trade tomorrow and likely not on Friday with the tree day weekend coming up. So Tuesday is my next trading day. Will do what I can to develop M-20BO strategy. Just that one, and catch up on making sure I'm still following the R-PB strategy -- perhaps I can get in a set of backtests of R-PB modifications I've wanted to try. That'd be nice.
February 12th
No trades -- just looking for setups for next week for the M20BO strategy
Tell - expanding vol past three days & at a break point for a long at roughly 4.10 with a window to about 6.50
LAC - Possible break > 22.05 with a potential for 28 or so
ALGM - Possible break > 31.57 with potential to about 34.60 or so
TRIX - IPO strategy > 27.20
Ended up entering swings at the end of the day for the following
TELL LGHL VRAY
Worked the weekend to create a better scanner for the M20BO and was able to work around the limitations set by my unwillingness to pay for a "better" datafeed -- I still get as many as 100 tickers so plenty of space in which to work.
Swing trades taken:
TELL - Mid day and holding despite a nose dive in the Market (SPY QQQ IWM)
I moved the stop around a bit struggling to find a comfortable balance etween an acceptable R:R and a support level for said R:R Decided that if TELL could move through the 4.50 level there was little resistance til 6.85 or so. If a minimum R:R is 1:2 then risk 0.40 for reward 3.00 was good. That placed the stop at 3.44 which was a descending daily support.
LGHL - Same story as TELL with the weak market. I missed an exit pre-market but I don't trade pm so all is good. Stop is at 200sma descending which is right above the ascending 20ema and the price action has been faithful to the 20ema since Jan 2020 so that looks good
VRAY - I'd entered as per the strict rules of the new M20BO strategy so the stop is placed using the same set of rules -- i.e. just below the 20ema. M20BO often dictates an entry that is just above the descending accelerated trend line so I'm very comfortable with this stop. R:R is between 1:2 and 1:8 so good potential.
CBAT - entered a swing with just a few minutes of the day left also using the M20BO strat.
Totally f'd up the management of CBAT. 1st, for whatever reason I could not get a trade to go through pre-market. Since I rarely trade pm I have no idea why orders would not go through or when that started. I spent about 45 minutes looking for the config that would let me trade pm. Everything seemed like it was setup to allow pm orders but nothing worked so I couldn't get the +14% on CBAT and it opened at around +8% from my entry and I went to exit 1/3 as it started down and got +6% but I'd not deleted one of my pm attempts at getting orders to fill pm and it triggered and took me flat at + 8% -- i.e. right at the bell and seconds before I took the 1/3. So still green until....
The price reversed and went backup to the resistance at 9.00. 9.05 was the resistance I felt was a potential for a hard break to the long side so at 9.14 I figured it was holding/consolidating and entered. I think it got to 9.15 and then dropped to take me out at 8.14 wiping out all my profits from the first trades. Sooooo poooorly managed.
VRAY and TELL are down but holding at midday. Market is wavering and I really don't want to move my stops above the resistance levels where they belong so I'm sticking with the plan and if all my stops get hit... I'll have an ugly down day.
LHGL -- well managed scaling out at roughly +5% +10% and +20%
I'm hoping for the Market to be bought back up this afternoon or tomorrow morning as has been the tendency lately. Must get more aggressive on my M20BO entries so that the stops are not so far away and the first exit is not so close. Take more entries since the tight exits will allow more failed breakouts while keeping the potential for a 3:1 W:L ratio on that strategy.. And for f's sake do not enter into strength and for sure have a clear stop loss figured out BEFORE entering -- and use it. I'm soooooo pissed about CBAT....
