Not likely that I’ll be to do trade journals as thoroughly as I used to for some time, but must make effort to note trades in some capacity. It helps that today—& almost every day I’ve traded this month—I’ve been green, albeit in a very small capacity. I’m trading shares, I’m trading based off my newfound ‘strategy’ whereby I look to sectors with strength or weakness, then look for stocks within those sectors that are driving them in that direction.
Today was a good day in that I caught a healthy, quick move off the open, solidified some profits, then continued the day trading other ideas with the cushion that I’d established in the morning. I took multiple trades & kept all of them green, & stayed protective on all of my trades. I’m happy with this performance. This is the method that works for me, for my personality, and I must work to scale this method—my method—in order to sustain my progression.
My analysis was sound on SPY but I didn’t capitalize & it was an easy play. I was preoccupied trading V, which ended up being a win, but SPY was another great play, & more over one I had more thoroughly planned. Should have been in it earlier. Ended up capitalizing on move a bit later, but in a more dangerous zone, though it did work out in my favor.
V Trade: Saw that this stock had had strength the day prior, saw that stock MA in same sector (IT) had strong earnings pm and was trending up, concluded that there was enough correlation between the two to justify some convergence. Put V chart on as one of my multi watch charts. Charted a level at 220 that I assumed to be likely resistance. Saw stock open, push above this level & do so with perceived strength. Entered long 5 shares at around 221.5 & the stock moved in my favor, pretty quickly I scaled out 1 share, locking in maybe a dollar, then another, then another, and a final one at what I assumed would be the near peak of the move close to 225. Left one share as a ‘runner’ with a OCO order to close at 226 or 222. Ended up closing out at 222.
For my other trades, I was mostly right about the direction of the moves on short time frames, and did well to lock in profits almost immediately, never putting myself in a position to take full losses, but also allowing (with runners) time & room for a small portion of my position to work out, for or against me. My analysis is decent most of the time. If I can continue to capitalize on the smaller moves, as I did today, and to protect my capital, there is no reason why I can’t continue to execute performance like this & scale. On the time frames that I traded, these plays would even have been possible with options. Scale from single shares, to tens of shares. From tens to hundreds, then when you are sure of yourself, from hundreds to options.