ElecEquity's Active Trading Journal

E

ElecEquity

I've been a full-time prop trader for over 3 years. I began this thread to become more accountable for my trading results. I've been a member of ET for over 4+ years, but I created a new handle to remain anonymous. This thread will focus on my intraday and overnight swing trades. I trade frequently intraday and sometimes I hold swing trades overnight. During this process of sharing I hope to learn from others and hopefully others will learn from me as well (you will definitely learn what not to do from time to time).

I trade intraday using intraday/daily charts, reading level I & II & the NYSE Open Book, the tape and news-related plays. I rarely trade pre-market and sometimes I trade earnings post-market. I trade stocks that are moving either because of technicals or because of pre-/post-market news and intraday news.

Intraday approach
- Fade cascading/high-fliers
- Buy breakouts in strong stocks / Short breakdowns in weak stocks (as decided by my filters)

Overnight swing trades (relatively new to this arena -- (ultimately want this to become my primary activity)
- generally trade w/prevailing overall market trend (mostly longs)
- rarely short overnight (unless it's a large cap stock)
- holding period: 1-7 days

My goals are: (1) raise my position size intraday and in overnights; (2) stick to my exit rules in fades/momentum plays (3) become more consistent; (4) increase my daily P&L; (5) cut out "forced" trades that cost me money

I will share my key winners/losers post-market everyday and give my entry/exit prices and share size for overnight positions (if any at all). I welcome all feedback and comments. Let's see where this goes!
 
I thought I'd provide a little more background:

In consistency:
- need to remain committed to abiding to my exits on winners and losers on a daily basis -- from time-to-time I vary my reasons for exits based on fear (of losing money or giving back profits)---regardless of the outcome, breaking rules ultimately has cost me money over the years in the form of leaving profits on the table and taking larger losers than necessary
- need to also be consistent in my daily routine for preparing to trade

I won't usually give intraday updates...but its slow today due to the Fed announcement Thus far...down -$776.38 on the day w/ 35,800 shares traded.

Biggest loser is COP...violated an exit rule and sort of an entry rule. Got long b/c of strong breakout on daily. Shouldn't have exited on the pullback from my entry, but I did, and it cost me. Had I held my position (avg entry price was 69.05) as of now (currently trading at 69.44) I 'd be up about $1k in the position. But, despite the bullishness thus far today, my indicators show the market's uptrend is in danger and I either shouldn't have taken the position or I should've taken smaller size in the first place.

I'm expecting some volatility after the Fed announcement in TLT, TBT, and the precious metals. Besides that, the oil&gas stocks have shown some strength today and USO has been very strong despite the strong build in crude that was well above expectations.

Hoping to get back to flat and make some money today. Good luck to all.
 
Todays result: (-$386.98)

- not too bad finish; after FOMC my P&L dropped down to (-$1600)
- managed to fight my way back post-market trading QCOM earnings

Total shares traded: 95,200

Top winners
QCOM +$1163.00
BA + 152.62
EMR + 100.00

pretty sad day...only 3 winners above $100.00

Top losers
COP -$380.00 (should've been a big winner or shouldn't have entered at all)
VXX -$378.00
GDX -$297.50 (really should've with this trade post-FED..it was my plan; was in from 54.50, exited after losing twice and didn't give it a chance the third time; missed a really smooth ride up into the close and would've netted about $1400 on this trade)
VLO -$188.00
GWW -$170.50
MPEL -$130.00

For future reference, I'll post winners and losers greater than $100. Hopefully as the year progresses I'll be moving the minimum post up quite a bit. Thanks.
 
It would be great to those who are following if you could post the entry and exit prices along with the rationale for your trades. This is what PropTraderMTL does and it really clarifies the situation and thought process for those interested.
Cheers.
 
Quote from jj90:

It would be great to those who are following if you could post the entry and exit prices along with the rationale for your trades. This is what PropTraderMTL does and it really clarifies the situation and thought process for those interested.
Cheers.
More...

Okay I'll do that today. Thanks for the tip.
 
- Down day again today... but still only -$384.71
- 203,600 shares traded

Top Winners
- QCOM - $1132.97 - bought at the open a few times after it continued to bounce off of the 54 level...scalped it 3 times...l
- AMZN - $487.00 - bought 167.21s after hours earnings (100 shares) sold 172.08s (fade play)
- SLE - $283.00 - got short once it started falling (been in a buyout talks but instead I guess they're splitting the company)
- VXX - $161.00 - started buying this when SPY reached highs at the end of the day; never got much follow-thru on the downside for SPY, so I exited for a few cent profit

Top Losers
- MSFT - ($647.00) - lost in this when the news came out. Tried to get long when it came back down, but it didn't work out
- CRUS - ($569.50) - really dumb trade...was long earlier in the day from 20.08 at the breakout around 12:45 (central time) and exited for no reason on the long and took a small profit. Looked at it at the end of the day and kicked myself and decided to self-sabatoge myself (stupid mental sort of revenge trading) and I shorted the stock and lost. These are the dumb trades I have to cut out. I should've stuck with my long but I got out for no reason at all. The trend was strong.
- CAT - ($300.80) - was long premarket...earnings were good..but it sold off hard so I exited. I was looking to hold this overnight, but again I'm skittish holding longs because the market seems overbought. Hope I don't miss too much more of a rally.
- SLB - ($456.75) - tried to play a general market selloff and pick the bottom. It bounced off the 85.72 level and I kept buying too far away from support and getting killed in the middle. Market Move trades are trades that I no longer want to continue to execute. The short at 86.68s would've been a much better trade and my risk would've been much more easier defined on the ride down.

Had two other losers above 100 but the trades weren't bad trades.
______________________________________________________

Key things I'm focusing on in my trading:
(1) My key problem with breakout trading (relatively new to me---used to do nothing but fade) is that I try to protect profits too much and I try to avoid losers. I also want to exit at the top on longs, and at the bottom on shorts --- never going to happen. My job is to get the fat part of the trend and move on.

Therefore, my solution is to commit to the 10-EMA as an exit for winners on my 3-min chart. In the future, I'll try to post more entries and exits on my trades so anyone following can be sure that I'm being honest and accountable for my actions. CRUS was a trade I should've made a killing on as a long (the dumb short at the end of the day is a result of being a fader my entire career and a revenge trade of sorts).

(2) I'm no longer trading market moves in regards to fading stocks. Picking bottoms and tops is for the birds. I've done it for 4 years, had some good years doing it, but all in all, I don't wanna be 35 years old still buying as a stock falls or shorting as a stock rises. Too much blood pressure risk there for me. Plus the big money is made in the trend moves. Picking up quarters in front of steam rollers is not for me. (However I will continue to play capitulation fades at the open where I can identify a seller unloading a position/buyer intiating a position in the first 15 or so minutes of the day.)

So ultimately, I want to concentrate 90% of my action on catching trend moves in strong stocks. I have filters setup that identify these opportunities and I've given these filters primary real estate on my main screen. If you intraday trend trade, I welcome all suggestions. Thanks.
 
+ $1262.27 today - 155,200 shares traded

- traded okay today; was a little skittish with my new approach to trend trading; found myself heavily long in the morning and saw the breakdown and started looking for shorts.

- learned that I need to not give back .50 cent profits in my winners -- in order to be sure that doesn't happen, when I'm in 10+ positions I will have to sort them by %pullback

- noticed that I didn't wait for the 3-minute bar to close above the MA before exiting my winners (and losers) --- this made me cut a few winners short (especially F)

- was hesitant taking all of the signals b/c I was trying to protect profits after having 2 down days in a row...cost me a lot of money in missed opportunities

Biggest Winners
F - $500.00 (shorted 17.52s at the open and I hit an exhaustion fade and got long 16.01s -- in the future, that exhaustion fade as well as the breakdown, I could take 10s of thousands shares in something so thick as F)

RAX - $353.00 - bought 34.81s near the open and covered 35.60s on the pop up immediately -- sort of broke a rule here but wanted to get green from the outset -- especially the first day trading a new strategy

BHI - $327.21 - got short at 68.98s -- should've held longer.

HON - $288.67 - bought 56.68s at the open & sold 56.80s; got short 55.60s later and covered 55.04s -- once I get out of taking a standard 500 shares, I'll easily be in a couple thousand shares in a stock this thick

Had a few other winners above 100.00...no big deal

Biggest losers
CLR - (-$120.00) of course I didn't take the first signal I got to get long around 60.70s and would've made money; I did however take the later signal at 2:30 (est) which turned out to be a loser

RTEC - (-$116.78) mostly was a keystroke error

no big losers, just a lot of small ones.
 
Quote from NoDoji:
Rules for trade management to take full advantage of your edge and rules for risk management that, combined with your average win rate, provide a positive money management edge (for example: trend-following strategies - 50% win rate, 2:1 reward:risk ratio; reversion to mean strategies - 90% win rate, 1:4 reward:risk ratio).

Once you’ve done your research, and put together your business plan, you should feel confident that you will be profitable as long as you follow your plan. Thinking about profit/loss trade by trade will be detrimental and probably drive you to drink. You’ll start picking and choosing trades instead of trading all valid setups per your plan, you’ll take profits too soon and mess up your R:R ratio; you may start to stray from your plan altogether.

A good business that provides products or services to customers will be most profitable when it provides what customers want at a reasonable price and treats all potential customers with respect. If the business treats certain prospects with indifference because the customer "appears" unqualified, it could lose large profitable sales.

Similarly, a good trading entrepreneur will provide his/her trading account with every valid opportunity to turn a profit. A setup may appear unqualified (“this thing’s been running up all day, it can’t possibly go higher so I’m not going to trade this pending breakout”), yet turn out to be the most profitable opportunity of the day (in fact, this happened to me just today).

Losing trades are simply a cost of doing business and are meaningless within the bigger picture of your trading plan having demonstrated a statistical edge of profitability over time.

If you‘ve done your research, developed a business plan, and tested the business plan, then you’ll think of losing trades much like a business thinks of paying its vendors for inventory; no one likes to pay bills, but you work to get the best price while maintaining quality, meaning you limit losses (costs) and during times when your customers (the market) are bidding/offering for what you have with irrational exuberance, you take as much additional profit as possible.
More...

I'm reposting this post from NoDoji in another thread into my own journal because it's such a great statement. I cut a few things out...but the entire statement is so very true.
 
This week,

I'm looking for the market to follow-thru on the downside or follow-thru on the upside to get some idea about market direction.

If we're going to selloff, I expect to see heavy distribution within the next few days. The market has held a heavy bid every time we've tried to selloff...so if we don't see distribution and soon, we could very well go sideways for the time being.

- If the employment #'s on Friday disappoint, we could very well receive that distribution that day on Friday.
- If Mubarek in Egypt gives up or loses his presidential position (I don't expect this to happen) that will definitely drive uncertainty in the region and I'd expect a selloff behind that news.

I've been looking for a retracement for the past 2 weeks, but the bids have kept coming. To be clear, I don't mean a selloff in regard to a downtrending market, just a normal healthy correction within a healthy uptrend. Thanks.

We'll see. Good luck to all.
 
Been flat over the past few days. Lost a total of about -$240.

Really have been focusing upon taking my breakout trades and remaining disciplined. I think yesterday was my tipping point when I exited my XOM trade for the wrong reasons and missed a huge opp to make some really good money.

Thereafter, I turned my P&L off and just focused on taking trades and exiting when it broke the MA.

Today, I've been doing that and will provide an update on the day after the close.
 
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