12/2/2020 – Retrospective

Unfortunately today is a red day for me. So much going on, but the source of my problem is still that I’m giving some plays just too much “room”…even on starter size. I’ll dive into the details for each trade, but ultimately I have one MAJOR thing to work on and that’s cutting my losers faster. Fortunately I’ve for the most part been avoiding getting nailed on size, but I did let $PLUG get away from me a little bit too much on half a position size and I ended up giving back about 2 days worth of work. While that doesn’t sound bad in the grand scheme of things, my goal is to only be giving back half a day with a MAX of a full days worth of work. Keeping that in check is what has brought me this far, and I need to make sure that I’m keeping that at the core of who I am as a trader.

The setups that I flourish on are setups where you won’t “miss” the trade, so I’m not sure why I am getting to a point where I just want my trades to win. I think it comes from just wanting to “win” too much. I’ll have to find a balance between the desire to win and the ability to discern a bad setup.

I swear this trading thing can be a trip. The more I dig in the more I realize that this is really a battle of you vs yourself. The market absolutely does NOT care who you are or what you think, so what you have to do as a trader is figure out your strengths and weakness and then start to find ways to exploit the strengths while taming the weakness.

To be fully transparent (probably with myself because…well who really reads all of this…lol) Sometimes I wish I had somebody local that I could just sit down with and hash all of this out with. I completely get the allure of trading at a prop shop as you have like minded individuals that are looking to push each other and grow. Not saying that I want to end up at one, but I get it. Trading can be a lonely place that can put you deep into a state of introspection and sometimes you just need somebody to look over at you, tell you you’re good and then reaffirm that you can do it. Kind of weird to share that, but hey it is what it is.

Ok enough of the sappy self loathing, and onto the trades.

NAOV

• 

I didn’t trade this one grate as I was mentally just trying to cope with what I let happen on the $PLUG trade, which you’ll see below. The goal that I had was the 1.23 area for a cover, but after taking a bit of a whooping on $PLUG, i juts threw a stop in and said if i hits it hits I’m out….of course the thing closed in the low 1’s as I expect, so frustrating to see that as I had the right idea. This goes to show the power of trade selection. $PLUG was not a better setup than $NAOV for me this morning, so why I put more focus there than here…..beats me. Something that I have o address though. I think I will need to start categorizing the trades and placing grades on the setups before I start trading. The tools are all there, I just need to implement it. If the trade doesn’t have a grade (which will have set criteria), then I will not trade it…period.

NIO

I tried some small here, and just bailed on it. This is an example of where I should’ve cut the entire position much earlier. It wasn’t a major hit by any means given the size, but it was still moreof a loss than it had to be. Since I have m target areas I’m going to start giving myself a set threshold around there and probably looking to set auto stop on entry near there. If the trade is what I want the trend will continue and I can always add back in. I can always add back in…I can always add back in……I can always add back in (need to repeat it to myself to make it stick).

PLUG

Made a mess of this one…pretty frustrated at myself. First I let the words of someone else turn my attention to this name and because of who it was I instantly gave it more weight that I should have. Lesson learned there. Secondly i started in and sized down when things weren’t working. That was fine, but I should’ve again sized down waaayy before to wait for the next proper setup. Now once I got to that level I added in like I should have, but my error wasn’t that add near 23.78…it was the lack of COVER at 23.21. Instead of covering I ended up adding in more size (decent size) without confirmation. This was a CLEAR frontside move, so I should’ve been COVERING there. No excuses…I made the wrong decision and got taken to the woodshed because of it. I have to do a much better job of understanding the front side of the move vs the back. I clearly tried to play this like a backside move, and it CLEARLY wasn’t that. I was trying to make the trade be something that it wasn’t and I got the results that I deserved for not respecting what it was. Lesson learned and now to take this lesson on to the next trade. Front side shorts must be followed up by front side covers…0 exception to the rule. The doggone price did EXACTLY what I wanted it to…i just traded it the inverse of what I should have (adding size when I should’ve been covering). Little things like that make ALLLLLL the difference. I hate that I have to see it in hindsight like this, but I guess that’s the purpose of this blog, which is to take the blinders off and face myself in public which provides some accountability.

Many lessons learned all the way around and I’m just looking to grow and get better. #NEXT!!!!!!