Trading Journal Apr 2019

Its been 3 months since I have updated my trade journal, and a lot have happened during this period. Overall my account have not been doing well, and my trading strategy has changed quite a bit too.

Let's have a quick summary of what I have done for the past 3 months:

• Attempt to day trade earnings report, but did not set a trading plan and let my 2.5R profit eroded to 0.2R. Subsequent attempts were terrible with max losses. And I made a mistake of letting my emotions took over and lost another 5R on a position (WB). 
• Broke the rule and held over earnings and led to a loss of 2R (instead of 1R; CROX).
• Trying to take advantage of my 3 day trades/week to enter a larger position when swing trading (and then let my broker liquidate excess shares at the end of the day till it falls within my margin limit). I notice that when i do this, most of my account margin will be used up and I would not be able to take anymore positions. The additional profit is little, with losses kept the same, and opportunity cost of not being able to take more positions. 
• Move on from swing trading stock purely based on technicals to swing trading/trend following stocks that I am more familiar with (BA, BIDU). I admit that my trading plan from here are not as clear anymore, as I am no longer setting profit targets and will take profit when I see my profits declining (which is rather subjective/emotional). However, I still keep to my stop loss of 1R although I did not set a stop loss anymore as well. Not much progress from here, but I realised that again I could not take more positions than I wanted (max of 2-4). And because I have using up most of my margin, interests rates were rather high each month (~0.25R). This led me want to have the same exposure to the market but not using up as much of my margin.
• The above point let me to options. As of now, I am still swing trading (but more of stock that I am familiar with) but using options instead. I would buy simple call/put options with expiry more than 30 days, with IV <40%. 
• Attempted futures options trading (/NG, /GC, /6B). My thoughts on futures is that the trend is much clearer at times than stocks, and it is 24/5 (something which I prefer). So far I have rather good profits with it, but still trying to improve my trading plan better.
• Attempting "wheel" strategy with AMD, a stock that I thought would have potential and would'nt mind holding as well (more on that next time).

Overall, I have learnt lots during the past 3 months: not to be emotional... better manage your loss... hope I could apply these successfully to my options trading. I am also not happy with my performance thus far. For now, I am aiming to get 5% a month, and I am left with 7 months this year to recover my 20+% of losses.

From now on, I will try to post reflections of my trades for the month. Let us learn together, and if you have any advice, tips or suggestions, please feel free to leave it in the comments below!

Trading Journal Jan 2019

Trading Journal - Jan 2019

• Be more reactive to price action
• Do not go against the general trend

Real Money Department

My main lesson learnt for this month is that I have reacted too slowly to price action. While SPY have been rising for the entire month, I kept on waiting for an opportunity to short believing that a double bottom will occur. I even went on to take a short on 16 Jan on a bearish pinbar. In retrospect, the "bearish pinbar" wasn't even as ideal. I only covered the losing short and opened a long position on SPY during the last day of Jan.

Similarly, based on my belief, I continued taking short position on other stocks. Going against the general market sentiment the entire month. Needless to say, this is a rather bad month for me with a loss in my portfolio.

Going forward, I am trying to react faster to price action. However, I also understand that this would result in me being more susceptible to "background noises" and going in the wrong direction. But we'll see how this play out. As for now, I will be long on the SPY, and getting ready to exit on resistance of 280, and short if any bearish momentum appears.

Paper Money Department

This is just a reflection of my real money, and even magnified. I ended the month with over -20R. Losing on many trades that showed the proper set-up and even confirmation candles (some even for 3 days). But as i enter, the direction reversed. 

Trading Journal Dec 2018

Paper Money Department

After 3-4 months of paper trading, I finally managed profit, and squeezed into the top of the leaderboard. This is a combination of good luck (S&P 500 declined for 10-straight days!) and the lesson accumulated thus far. There are still many lessons to be learnt though.

Stochastics and Bollinger Bands

Initially I was starting to feel that stochastics are a more reliable indicator than the 3 that I am currently using now (PSAR, MACD, FI). But after checking out the stats of my trading journal, it seems that I am having a false impression and this isn't really true. I am, however, still interested in (and am going to) learning how to use this indicator to its potential. And in the broader picture, my goal is to read more and master technical analysis.

Maximising Profits?

After last month's experiences, R:R was set to 1.5R. After 2 successful trades at 1.5R each, and knowing that more (2R) could be achieved, I started to have a R:R ratio of 2 again. Moreover, with the S&P 500 heavy decline, I shifted down my profit target further, but still did not managed to capture the max possible profit. Instead, EXPE did not managed to hit target and retraced, resulting in a lower profit achieved.

Therefore, the question is post is: Is there a way to ensure maximize profits without risking much of your unrealized profits? Is it worth it, or should we just stick with the pre-defined 1.5R/2R? After all, getting the "max" profit is equivalent to timing the bottom of the market... I will continue to experiment this.

Real Money Department

Things on the other hand haven't been so well. In an attempt to get more profits, I risked most of my unrealised profits, from a total of 2k to a mere 200. I really kicked myself hard on this one...

Nonetheless, my portfolio now (in 100% cash):

Initial Capital	Current Capital	P/L %
20000	20566	2.83

Readings

• The Intelligent Investor (Completed)
• Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard - Mark Minervini (Chapter 5)

Trading Journal Nov-18

Nov 2018 Update

It has been 3 month since my trading journey began. I am slowly getting used to the routine of scanning for trades, monitoring existing trades and reading news daily. However there is still much more I need to learn and discover as I move along.

Managing Stop Loss

Over the months, the percentage of winning trades have been increasing (even though losses still more than win). In Nov, I was at an unrealized profit of 12R at one point in time. However the market turned over the last 2 weeks and my profits was quickly replaced with losses instead. Perhaps I should quickly shift up my stop loss to 0R to protect myself when the price has moved enough.

Small R:R

I realize that a risk:return (R:R) of 2 is a bit too large and hard to hit. Many a times the price action swings in my favour and retracts before my 2R is reached, often making me think that if I had my profit target closer, I could gotten out before it retracts and the time could be used to invest in another trade. Therefore I am trying to lower my R:R to perhaps 1.5. Lets use December to test this out and see how it goes.

Usefulness of Indicators

Fundamentals are not really helping for short term trades. Ideally you short on company with bad fundamentals, and long for those with good ones. However, I find that breaking this rule does not impact my results much (for short term trades).

The indicators I primarily rely on are the parabolic SAR, force index and the MACD. However, these are often too laggy. I am starting to find them unreliable and sometimes paid less attention to them. On the other hand, I am looking into the stochastic and bollinger bands. I am seeing certain patterns regarding the bands itself and the price candles. More observations will be required to lay a conclusion though. 

Lesson to Self:

• "If you cut loss fast, you need to take profit fast, otherwise you will never make money"

Currently Reading: 

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham; Jason Zweig - Chapter 9

If you have any comments or recommendations, feel free to let me know via the comments! I am also open to discussion to any of the listed points above. Lets learn together!

September 2018 Paper Trades

Sep 2018 Paper Trading Journal

Recently attended a beginner course on stock trading and investment, and it is now time to take action on what I have learnt. I will be updating this post along the month whenever I make new trades, and will post screenshots of the charts as well as analysis. Feel free to point out any advice/suggestions/opinions that you might have in the comments below =)

4 Sep Updates:

Long CME (breakout from consolidation) and EFSC (dip on uptrend).

CME

EFSC

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