Attached below is account performance information since inception.
Trade performance analysis for this period.
My TSLA Short scalp trade in the premarket made 6 points. Although only on 6 shares, I’m happy with my ability to adapt my preminary trading plan to take advantage of an unantipiated trading opportunity. I strongly thought about entering a bearish option spread because TSLA’s fundamentals and business model seem unsound. Public rumors of a buyout struck me as a prominent long wanting to reduce their exposure by selling into short covering caused by rumor news. Low energy prices and tariffs increases only add to TSLA’s woes. However, for a mere $60 Billion dollars or so, you could own a money losing company. Sillier things have been done before. Maybe. My return on a slightly out of the money option bear spread would have been 3 to 4 times my risk. I ended not taking this trade because of competing ideas for my attention. Having lots of ideas can be nice, but it can be counter productive and times and can cause loss of opportunities through over analysis.
My profitable long VXX day trade was the result of following my daytrade methodology well. I reached my profit target, took profits on half my position, and managed the rest of the position to take advantage of a possible windfall due to market conditions at the time. I exited the balance of my VXX position at better prices than my initial target.
My short YM losses were the result of me chasing a little bit and not having enough allowable risk allocation relative to the position size. Ultimately I entered a bear spread in ES puts that resulted in a double.
My PAAS position trade was an embarrassment because I entered into a position trade against the underlying trend. Although this trade was initially profitable, the weight of the underying trend on the daily chart started to take hold. I did reduce my position by half late in the trading session I entered into this position. Extreme overnight weakness caused me to reconsider my position and I managed to exit the remaining shares in the premarket at better than expected prices, thus containing my loss. I missed an obvious opportunity to go short because my mindset was slow to fully adjust to the changing market outlook. I also had just gotten up from a short sleep the night before.
My relative performance spread idea resulted in a loss. The short SPY component was unnecessary as the China-US plan to meet for trade negotiations was a significant enough development to warrent positive price action on SPY. I exited this spread because of suprising negative performance of the components that stood to benefit the most from a trade agreement. Later in the day, however, these components really came on strong and if I held, I would be showing a nice profit in spite of the short SPY component and looking good for next week. Perhaps in future relative performance ideas like this, I can either do a partial hedged position instead of fully hedged and/or enter into this trade in several transactions instead of all in one single transaction, also known as scaling in for price discovery purposes.
My last trade of the week was a Long VXX trade. Although this trade met my most of my underlying daytrading entry criteria, I attempted to chase this trade, had platform issues, and when finally reestablished connectivity, executed a trade at a even more unfavorable than what I would been filled at if my platform did not go down. At least my trade size was smaller than usual as partial compensation for chasing. I was to add on to this position, approaching the standard size, but wisely waited this time as there appeared to be a large order at the ask. If I was in top form, I could have exited the trade at that point and possibly reentered at more favorable prices later on. VXX later decisively broke through my mental stop and was not filled. I entered a limit order .05 lower and was not filled. Finally, after entering a marketable limit order, I got filled 2.5 cents lower yet. All told, I lost and additional 7.5 cents by not having a hard stop in.
A little later on Friday, my read on the ES finally turned bullish and thought it was likely to test the high of the day. Instead of taking appropiate action on this idea, I looked for a reason to go short! I was looking for a short scalp on SPY for when or if the ES made new highs on frenzied tick action. At least my subjective “frenzied” tick action criteria was not met, saving me from another losing trade. I need to work on my discipline and my biases. Big time. I believe my trading methodologies are fairly sound and very acurately identify the appropiate side of the market to be on. The practictioner is what’s holding me back! Do I have to promise to publically kiss the photos of politicians I do not favor in order to add additional incentives, beyond making money, before consistently following my goddamn rules and trading plan?
Starting next week, I will be incorporating more option trades. I will be looking at calendar spreads, butterfly spreads, long options, and possibly short strangles.
@destriero and @ElOchoCinco are geniuses! Options done right can return ridiculous risk to reward ratios or high percentage of profitable trades. Trading skill here is still critical, however. Will go into specific option trade ideas during the next trading session.
I will now base my trade times on the US Eastern Time Zone.
My allowable single trade stop levels will remain at $59.40 until my account value reaches $34,188. I do have the ability to double my risk allowance on trades I designate as “high confidence”. My maximum allowable daily and weekly loss levels are currently at $178.20 and $534.60, respectively. After reaching $34,188, my allowable risk tolerance doubles.
