Trades
Date | Profit | Win Rate | PL Score** | Avg. Position Time | Trade Volume | Long | Short | 10x Volume Scale Success Criteria |
12/18 | ✅ Overall gain | 100% | 1.00 | 2.15 | 3 | - COIN → $0.08/share gain | - COIN → $0.18/share gain | 20% |
12/19 | ❌ Overall loss | 50% | 0.20 | 3.08 | 4 | - TSLA → $0.23/share gain | - NVDA → $1.35/share loss
- TSLA → $0.99/share loss | 20% |
12/20 | ✅ Overall gain | 80% | 0.31 | 2.80 | 5 | - COIN → $0.20/share loss
- GOOG → $0.08/share gain | - COIN → $0.26/share gain | 20% |
12/21 | ❌ Overall loss | 22% | 0.40 | 1.54 | 9 | - NVDA → $0.61/share loss
- COIN → $1.01/share loss | - COIN → $0.53/share loss
- TSLA → $0.22/share gain | 20% |
12/22 | ✅ Overall gain | 100% | 1.00 | 2.47 | 2 | - COIN → $0.49/share gain
- NVDA → $0.81/share gain | 20% |
** This is taking the average profit per trade relative to the average loss. So a $5K profit and a $5K loss is a 1.0 score. A $5K profit and a $2.5K loss is a 2.0 score and a $2.5K profit and a $5K loss is a 0.5 score.
U.S. stocks were set for a higher open on Thursday, recovering from a broad sell-off on Wall Street in the prior session as investors clung to hopes of borrowing costs easing next year, while chipmaker Micron advanced after delivering an upbeat forecast. The three main indexes ended the previous session lower, with the benchmark S&P 500 notching its worst day since late September following a recent rally that saw the index within a percentage of its record closing high hit in early 2022. Reaching a new closing high would confirm the benchmark index had been in a bull market since closing at the bear market floor in October 2022.
Investors also digested the Labor Department report, which showed claims for state unemployment benefits stood at 205,000 for the week ended Dec. 16, lower than estimates of 215,000 per economists polled by Reuters. This compares to claims of the revised 203,000 in the prior week.
Another report showed the final gross domestic product (GDP) estimate for the third quarter stood at 4.9%, compared with previous estimates of 5.2%.
"It's a mixed bag of macro data and points to weaker economic activity ahead," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities. "Markets are going high because yields are coming down, but yields are coming down because the market is expecting really weak economic activity next year and that the Fed will cut interest rates."
Yields on the benchmark 10-year U.S. treasury note moved lower to 3.8379% from multi-year highs it scaled in October.
Despite some push back from Federal Reserve officials, traders still expect a 79% chance of at least a 25 basis points rate cut in as early as March next year, and a near 100% chance of a rate cut in May, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Market Hypotheses
12/20 | Market will continue on a bullish trend till the end of the week
Reason
On a 6-month daily chart, we already broke through the $459.39 resistance zone and it has acted as a support zone for about a week. With the end of the year approaching within two weeks, I believe the market will continue to rally strong. This is also the market’s (almost) 2-year high, with the last time we reached this value for SPY on 01/13/22.
When looking at the 10-day, daily chart we have already broken through the smaller time frame resistance zone of $473.65. My hypothesis is that we will test this today and if it pierces through will treat this value as a support zone.
Result ✅
Was expecting the market to rally much more into the close of the year, but it seems there were large volume of selling orders which tapered the rally. Overall the market was still trending positively.
Sector Hypotheses
N/A
Trade Hypotheses
12/22 | COIN bullish past $170.21
Reason
N/A
Result ✅
This trade had proven to be worth taking, even though the RSI indicator was at 67.10 and closely approaching 70.
- Trade #1 → Buy at $170.21 and sell at $170.70 for a $0.49/share profit
- Exit → Limit order
- Position time → 3.05 minutes
12/22 | NVDA bullish past $491.70
Reason
N/A
Result ❌
While this trade was successful and I did lock in $0.81/share profit, overall the trade was trending against my entry for the rest of the day.
- Trade #1 → Buy at $491.70 and sell at $492.51 for a $0.81/share profit
- Exit → Market order
- Position time → 1.88 minutes
12/21 | COIN bullish past $167.30
Reason
Yesterday had a massive drop in the SPY as well as in COIN. Both the highs and lows make an interesting flag formation, it’s possible that
Result ❌
Technically there were two instances where an opportunity would have opened to enter the long position at $167.30, however the trade was mostly recovering from fairly large dips. There was an overall upward trajectory for the day in hindsight, however its recovery wasn’t made apparent until it picked up steam after 10:15a EST.
12/21 | TSLA bullish past $250.94
Reason
Leading up to 12/21, there has been a clear zone that has been tested, which is $250.94. On November 29, this was tested and reinforced as a resistance zone, but when the market took a bullish turn, this zone was tested from 12/14 to 12/18, a consolidation that had promise of being a breakout. This was a false breakout and instead trended back down to test the zone on 12/18 before reinforcing this as a support zone. My only worry is that on 12/20, price clearly broke past the support zone, bringing a flavor of resistance into question.
If you look at the daily chart for 12/20, my only reservation to going long is that there was a large volume play behind the dip.
However I’ve resulted to assuming this trade will be bullish based on the pre-market trading activity showing an upward trend, holding above the $250.94 mark. So long as I wait for a retracement to the $250.94 mark that then trends upwards for a few candles, I’ll enter a long position.
Result ✅
There were two major opportunities to enter a long position. Yet again, the price tested the $250.94 zone, but solidifying it as a support zone. WIth the market expected to continue a bullish rally until the end of the year, I would expect the same to continue with TSLA’s valuation.
However, I took the one trade in TSLA that violated my own hypothesis. Overall the market was fairly bullish, but at this period there was a major retracement in the SPY that convinced me to take a short position. If there was ever a time to take one, this is it, because I was able to pocket a $0.22/share profit from this position right down to the last minute before it began an upward rally for the next 2 hours, increasing as much aas $4.00/share.
12/20 | COIN bullish past $162.12
Reason
COIN has been riding the price increase of Bitcoin, on a meteoric rise. As of yesterday, the resistance zone is $162.12 which has been broken in the pre-market hours. Will wait for a retracement to this value to see if it holds — especially because the RSI is at 72.32.
Result ✅
While COIN didn’t retrace to the $162.12 mark, it did continue on a bullish trajectory that resulted in profits.
- Trade #1 → Buy at $165.14 and sell at $164.28 for a $0.86/share loss
- My exit was a stop loss. In hindsight, I should have kept a wider stop loss, as even $0.09 more would have kept me in the trade and resulted in a big profit.
- I will set stop losses now at at at least $1.50
- Trade #2 → Buy at $166.01 and sell at $166.46 for a $0.45/share profit
- While I had my stop loss in place, I should have set a larger exit. The previous high was $166.81 which the stock would have most likely broken past.
- Trade #3 → Sell short at $166.23 and buy to cover at $166.13 for a $0.10/share profit
- I was able to be patient with this trade as it was showing signs of an uptrend, but it was pure volatility. I honored my stop loss and once the stock showed signs of a down trend, I exited.
- I exited the trade too soon, there is no reason to exit to make a profit as soon as the trade goes my way — if anything this would validate your claim.
- Trade #4 → Sell short at $165.42 and buy to cover at $165.00 for a $0.42/share profit
- I exited this trade at the right time, however I had to randomly and quickly take a guess at where my limit order price would be. Instead, I should make an effort to learn to execute conditional orders.
12/20 | GOOG bullish past $138.71
Reason
GOOG is trading higher in the pre-market hours and it broke past yesterday’s dually-tested resistance zones of $138.71.
Result ✅
The stock never retraced to the entry amount I wanted, but it showed strong signs of growth in relation with SPY.
- Trade #1 → Buy at $141.27 and sell at $141.35 for a $0.08/share profit
- This trade turned a profit and while I held onto it for 6.2 minutes during its oscillations, I didn’t feel the ATR was big enough to warrant holding onto for too long. At the moment I felt confident in holding onto it because of the premarket activity and the strength of the market. I could have held on for longer and made more profits, but I think if anything this wasn’t an idea trade to enter into.
Trade Studies
12/21 | Don’t trade against your plan, that includes volume
Today I entered two positions that seemed like the right trade. Unfortunately, I decided I should just increase my position size by 10x (mind you I’ve reduced my position size by 100x to nail down more of the fundamentals). The issue became apparent once those two trades were losers and my loss for the day was 10x what it had been all week.
I immediately jumped into a revenge trading mindset — I took 100x the planned position size on my next trade, that proved detrimental, then did it again, and again. At the time I knew I was revenge trading, but I felt so sick with myself for having even put myself in this position. When I saw the trades going against me, I ignored the following lessons I have been learning all week:
- Enter a position then immediately set a stop loss
- Enter a trade with a hypothesis backed by strong reason
- Don’t just scramble looking for anything to trade
It’s crazy how fast we can just ignore everything we’ve learned. In hindsight, the market was still in a precarious position considering the massive dip towards the end of day yesterday. I knew I was not in the right mindset, because I was trading like a cowboy and using market orders rather than limit orders — chasing the trade rather than letting it come to me.
I’ll end the trading day today because I know I’m not in the right mindset. With that being said, there is a clear need to understand when I am ready to up my position 10x the size, and then what rubrics I should follow to then do the same another 10x. Here’s what I’m thinking:
Success criteria to advance trade volume by 10x, in the last, rolling 15d trading period (21 calendar days):
- At least 12 trading days have profits
- At least 10 trading days have a PL score ≥1.0
- I never exceed $2.00/share loss in that rolling period
- No more than 10 trades/day ever in that rolling period
- No more than 20% of aggregate trades are allowed to exit positions through market orders (the rest must be limit or stop loss orders)
12/19 | Don’t trade against the trend unless you have a very strong signal
NVDA, I went short, when my chart wasn’t up front and center, I didn’t look at the RSI indicator, and it was based solely off of intuition.
Same with the TSLA trade, I entered two short position when the market is trending upwards — this is my first mistake.
