How are we supposed to trade this?

Directionless market creates directionless trading

UWM Strategy

So I planned on risking about 0.50 to make 1.75-2.0 on this area in UWM. It's at 28.95 and if price moves down to 28-27.50 area I stand to benefit from a decent swing trade.

Some Gap Studies

I made a big mistake today by holding this BP long for too long! I flipped it and shorted and took out almost a half a point, the other mistake I made with it was that my position size was just right (200) and that would have yielded a higher profit.

I am keeping my eye on GDI and I missed a stock where I couldn't get a bid: SLH

Action Oriented

Good traders are action oriented. They don't really have time to post trades they've done and analyze everything. They are more concerned about getting ready for that next move. But this photo journal does help me. I just can't believe that I haven't gotten up to a share size that would make for a decent living.

I got some really bad advice this week and completely screwed up my ongoing plans for what I wanted to do this week as a trader, and frankly how I was going to finish up the month. Some people have no morals and will try to milk you for every dime you have.

Fading the Gap

Thursday

I took some hits. I was trading during the light volume sessions without having a plan in mind for how I should be prepared for a range bound session. The bottom line is that I came back today. My strategies are getting to be more calculated.

Friday

The same problem.

Monday

Its 1:30 I don't know if covering some of those shorts was a bad idea. I really could've gotten more out of the GG short, I got less than 50% of the move!






Wrap Up of Thursday/Friday up until Monday (Today)

ASH

Tuesday June 15th

New Lesson Learned

UVV Universal

Thursday 6/10

IBN

indian bank

Bear Party? not so fast

Ok

So I've been talking to traders on the state of the market, and now it seems that the bears could be in for a surprise. The institutional money could be coming to work, and bearishness is at extreme highs, I'd rather not short at this point, but who knows how much longer the slide will continue.

when the bigger investors are talking up stocks, I'd listen.. (credits to bloomberg)


“It could be a buying opportunity,” said Wayne Lin, a money manager at Baltimore-based Legg Mason Inc., which manages $685 billion. “Stocks are at good value. Earnings are growing fairly strongly. Economic fundamentals are still strong, especially for the U.S., making it possible that the risks are overblown.”

Deceptive USD/CAD trade

To me it seemed that taking the USD/CAD short was a good idea because the trend could have supported a short. I was dead wrong. I got in at probably the worst time. Even though my first entry was decent, I was in the money, my second was 2x the size, and that was the problem, rather than getting out when I was slightly behind, I held it through all the pain!

Now, I am stuck with holding this thing into possibly NFP tomorrow morning, I plan on resting up.

Some ideas:

USD strength - buy dollars vs. the yen, and euro

USD weakness - likely a shift in risk appetite I want to buy AUD, keep the CAD position and look into increasing my position in AUD/JPY

The most important part of this plan for tomorrow is that I: WAIT!! and get in at a good time, it could be up to 1/2 hr or 45 mins - I won't be aggressive

6/2

I will be short. Today I learned the hard lesson of not putting in a trailing stop. I couldn't monitor my GBP/AUD short. I consider it an "F" trade because I only captured 100 pips, where the length of the move was near 300. I won't be too harsh, because my broker will eventually show me the mechanics of putting this move in.

As for now, I am paying attention to the movements in the GBP and USD.

-Damian

Good Riddance Ego

From Ruth Roosevelt

Not putting in stops. The ego doesn't want to be proven wrong.
· Hesitating before putting on a trade. The ego wants reassurance before it begins.
· Overtrading. The ego wants to prove itself big time.
· Getting stuck in a trade. The ego has intertwined itself with a trade and is holding on for dear life. It cannot cut out. The ego doesn't want to be wrong.
· Adding to a losing trade. The ego digs its hole deeper in a massive effort to crawl out.
· Grabbing a profit too soon. The ego wants a pat on the back.

Ok so I gave this person credit for making a good analysis on how damaging this could be. I cut a winner somewhat short to validate my ego today! I have routed this habit of adding to losers from my trading over the past 2 sessions, and it worked out well yesterday. I actually improved from having taking the sting of having my stop loss triggered on some losing trades yesterday.

Overtrading

Yesterday I overtraded. I promise to keep my round trips lower than 12. I feel that I should be trading enough to be profitable again. The issue I had was that I wasn't willing to cover when my open p/l was greater than my losses on some of the trades that went sour. It seems that just that alone would have made the day a good one. So improvement for me meant learning how to cut down on that huge volume when I wasn't on the right side of the trade for 2/3 of the day.