BYD, LCAV

Today seemed to be a pretty chill day on in the markets despite the morning sell off...

Couple of things that I need to work on are patience and developing a position management scheme for quick vertical moves...

I jumped the gun on the following BYD trade and didn't wait for the hammer to setup. I was extremely impatient as I waited for the 30-min setup and then jumped in before the candle ended.


LCAV setup very nicely on the 30-min and i knew that if it was able to break the $46 level then we could have a big move up. So I entered early to catch a rise to $46...a little bit anticipatory, but justified...I was planning to enter the other half of my position on the move past $46.05, but later when it got close it surged quickly past so I didn't want to chase. After the move faded on bar 9 I moved stop up past breakeven to prevent loss, but the move down was hard and the position was closed $.10 lower than my entry.

January Review

% Return for January: 4.3%

Grades for January-

Average Grade: 40.6% (4.87 out of 12 points)

Entry (out of a possible 3 points): 1.22

Sizing: 1.57

X-style: 0.65

Position Management: 1.43

Best Day for January: +842.50

Worst Day for January: -526.00

Average gain per winning trade: 1.98R

Average loss per losing trade: -0.79R

Total # Trades: 56

Average per trade: .15R

Net Profit Distribution-

!!!!!Excellent!!!!! +1k or more: 0

####Good#### +500 to +1k: 4

((((Average)))) +100 to +500: 11

))))Poor(((( -200 to +100: 37

****Terrible**** -200 or less: 3


The Good: I am really starting to get a feel for X-type trades after endless hours of watching gappers day after day.

Even though the grades don't have much to show in a positive light, I believe that my position sizing and stop setting has improved greatly. Moving over to 15-min. and now 30-min. charts has really given me the time to calculate stop points more clearly. This has helped to develop a sense of almost being able to instantaneously know proper size to enter with. Because many of these gappers have momentum behind them setups can occur within a matter of seconds of a new bar forming. These are the times that sizing correctly can make the difference between staying in a trade or getting whipped out.

Also, taking profits at fib extensions and also after reaching the 1 point from entry has helped make exiting almost easy.

The Bad:
Overtrading and scalping...Towards the end of the month I starting taking notice of my excitement to trade each day...almost like a gambler walking into a casino...feeling the adrenaline kick in before each opening bell...then my office started having meetings about the time of the open that lasted anywhere from 15-45 minutes thus destroying the chances of entering opening bar breakouts. This created a pent up desire to trade trade trade...

I would rush back to my desk and madly start setting up my watch list with gappers and jump on whatever I thought I saw as an X-style setup...Having the extra adrenaline made me jump in with too large of size many times and I'd get whipped out real quickly...Then some afternoons I would think hey I could get my losses back with some quick scalps...maybe take a dime or two off of XLE or some Nas tech name...

Here are some things i'd like to work on in February-

• Taming the desire to trade. As I continue to get more familiar with X-style trades, I will patiently stalk PERFECT SETUPS.
• Continue to work on my watch list setup. As there are continual changes in my gappers list, I need to refresh the list that I am watching to keep the opportunities fresh.
• I am going to dedicate the next month to getting my trading grades up. I truly believe that if I trade by MY RULES then I can easily replace income from work and not have to close my trading account to pay for wedding "stuff".