Another one

[Otig]

Okay. I've been practicing Paper trading, don't touch my money at all. Talking about last trade, what I've just figured out, that DIS buy was right at the top of bearish divergence. I don't use any indicators like RSI or MACD because I saw that a lot of pro traders don't need them, but it's probably too early for me to ignore them, because it seems like they show divergences pretty often, even if the indicator will be wrong, at least it is better do not trade against it.

Just look at this obvious bearish divergence, and I bought right at the second top Going to use at least RSI now.


I read and watch a lot of videos with different traders, all of them have their own strategy, I feel like it will take time until I will figure out what works better for me. But I definitely know that just looking at the chart without any indicator, without reading news, without understanding simple fundamentals is not a good idea. Which is why I start over, I need to get confident with what I do, to understand the field, to make 10+ green days and only after that consider using real money, everything I did before was pretty much gambling with little of knowledge. I've opened so many things these days and willing to keep doing it.

Probably will try to make notes here, so my knowledge is not lost, + I will always be able to compare the way I think over the time.

For now my goal is to understand VIX, how to interpret and use it. I've read an advice from a "pro" that it's a bad idea to buy puts and calls when VIX side trending between 12-14. Have no idea what it means but going to figure it out. My assume is that the market is volatile during this range that is why it's risky to take any trade.

 

[Otig]

I like to read the stories of traders' development and success. It's madly motivating. When in some words you get to know yourself, your problems. You understand that you are not alone and each of us is going through such a difficult path. In fact, it seems to me that everybody at least once felt disappointed in trading and thought about stopping. And every time you're in search, you motivate yourself to learn and read to keep up with the market. I've heard a couple of times from people I know that trading is not serious thing. They need to see how much effort people put in order to invest their money correctly and earn stably. I like your approach. I am sure you'll have a great future. Good luck with everything.

Oh wow, didn't expect to see such a message, even though it looks like a sign of sheering after my red days but I appreciate you, thank you for those words! I can understand you because for example I don't have any friend who trade or even interested in this industry, for most of them it's gambling and they just wait until I will fail and give up. But I honestly don't care about their opinion, that is why most people live just ordinary life, because they don't try to leave their boundaries. The only problem I probably still have, since there are no good examples around and internet is full of scam, I kind of have this anxiety that it is not possible to make money trading, all of the gurus make money by selling courses. But I'm not the one who give up that easy so decided to find a way to get an answer. Payed a premium access of one trader and watch his online trading. This week he has been making green days every day and I know that it's not paper trading. So now I understand that it's possible, I just don't need to listen to anybody and trade as much as I can until I will get the result. Thank you again and wish you all the best, if still red turn it to green, if green already than grow it!

So I've been watching charts and trading, this week obviously I can see improvements. My biggest mistake was - I read a lot of books and articles, but didn't spend any time for analysis and trading. After only few days of analyse I started to see same patterns with big opened eyes like I know everything already. I also start to look at the market as a battle field where there are a lot of traps of "market makers", and when you will start to recognize them, you basically will be successful, I believe this is the only thing trader should understand. For some reason I don't believe that crowd rules the market, all of the "fake" moves are made to control the crowd, so okay crowd can affect the market, but only under "market maker's" manipulations. But of course I can be mistaken and we will see if I will change my mind in future.

I have a green day today, the market was pretty volatile and with different moods but I made profit by going long against bearish market and shorting by following the trend.

First stock is RH, it had good earnings yesterday + it went up against bearish market + ascending triangle ( I see a lot of them now in a market) + VOLUME! I've started to learn volume few days ago, and now can see how useful it is. I still don't understand some movements, for example how to understand the difference between exhaustion and strong trend continuation, but at least I can see how we can use it on pull backs. All the pull backs RH had today were with small volume, so I've jumped into the long trade right after the last red candle. The last trade was small and I wanted to keep it for a long time in case if the up trend will be the whole day, but sold it once it broke all high, which is still good.

12.5.19

RH

TSLA


AMD



Overall it was a good green day. I pay attention to Volume a lot right now, also any kind of triangles and few more patterns. Slowly I will try to analyse stocks within specific period of time, for example if yesterday was this move then today most likely we will see this trend, or this move, this pattern, this volume... I watch experienced guys and they predict it pretty accurate. The reason is simple, they spend a lot of time analyzing charts so during the time their eyes can catch something that newbies like me don't see, hence conclusion is simple - spend more time with charts and trading. I'm serious about it right now, every day count how many hours I spend with charts, and unfortunately so far not so good, which is the reason of my terrible trading skills, but I'll improve it.

 

[Otig]

I see how my skills improve, it's still baby steps but doesn't matter as soon as there is growth. I can easily jump out of the trade if I see it was a mistake, and I have a kind of setup already, even though it simple one, but that is how everything starts, you start to do it bad and improve it slowly. Mostly I trade break outs now cuz it's pretty simple, if it doesn't go the way I want I close the position right away but if it goes my direction rather than close the whole position after few cents like it was before, I start to sell it partially and move up my stop loss, with this strategy I earn much more and raise odds in my favor.

For now I look for :
1. Price action.
2. Critical levels (support\resistance)
3. Volume
4. Market sentiment
5. Look for H, cup or triangles patterns.

Oh wow, I didn't expect I watch so many things, wanted to put only volume and critical levels but realized that in fact I look for more things.

What I don't care much right now is:
1. RSI (I turn it on only when need to check double top or bottom in order to reveal divergence)
2. Moving averages, honestly it only distracts my at the moment. I have it on some charts but don't pay attention on it, don't feel that I need it now.
3. VWAP, I have it on every chart and sometimes I rely on as on a wall that can stop a stock, but don't pay attention that much as well.
4. Level 2. I tried to learn it few times, try to look into it while trading but so far honestly I have no idea how it can help me. Especially knowing it's very manipulated, it just takes away any motivation to learn it. The only thing I remembered that if you see a lot of orders without any spread, it's a good sign that the price will go to that way. But I'm still not good with level 2.

Trades.

NFLX


NVDA


ROKU


SHOP


TSLA


Up 0.3%

 

[Otig]

I've been trading pretty consistently, about 5 days are green already, but I would say luck takes more place here. I trade mostly break outs, but when too greedy and impatient can make stupid trades as well. Also, when market is bearish, I trade worse, I kind of get used to go long, with is not best idea to do when the whole market goes down, but I learn.
What I can see, my first trade usually pretty good cuz I'm focused on the best player, second one is usually still okay, but after that I start to be impatient and wanna trade more since have 2 wins already. Of course break outs after first hour are usually not that strong, so when I don't see that strong momentum, I sell and lose. Hence I feel like at the moment I need to be focused on 1-2 trades per day, but for example use options, where I can get good gain and just stop trading.

Also the thing is, as I've said, the real reason my first wins are profitable is because at the morning there are a lot of volume, hence momentum is crazy, you don't need to be that good trader just to jump into big wave until it starts to slow down. So I don't use anything except pure price action and volume. I still try to understand Level 2, but can't get it. And this knowledge is needed for trading when there is not that crazy momentum, when I need to trade by using my brain and different "hidden" signs that professionals see, I don't see anything. I still can't get why some traders look at Bids, others at Asks in Level 2, I can't even get how bid and ask work. Educational sources say bid is the price buyer ready to pay, ask is the price seller wanna to sell, spread between them is amount of money Market Maker makes because he stays in between both of them. So they say, if bid is 10.50 and ask is 10.55, buyer will pay for the stock 10.55, seller will get 10.50, and market maker gets 0.5. How is that??? When I buy a stock, I go to a bid column, click on 10.50 and I get filled with 10.50! Once I want to sell the stock, I click on ask 10.55 and I get my 10.55 if the price is still in that level. So I can't get this part at all.
Some traders also look at Times and Sales, I can't get it either, as I can understand it just shows last trades, what is the point of looking at them if it ALREADY happened? Chart's candles show us whether people buy or sell as well, that is why the price jumps, isn't it? So it we have candles that shows us all the actions, why do we need Times and Sales... Doesn't make any sense to me.
Also, I've read that it's essential to learn AX'es in Level 2, it's the biggest players in specific stocks, if we will remember them it will help us to make decisions cuz if a big guy who is responsible of the stock going to buy big amount of shares, we wanna follow him. My Level 2 doesn't show me any detailed information about any players, the only thing I see is Exchange, bid\ask price and amount of shares being processed. There are no names of these big guys, only name of Exchanges, but I believe this is not the same thing because under one Exchange trade a lot of different people\organizations so you never know who is behind it.

So yes, for now I have more questions than answers, I will try to be focused more on learning level 2 and bid/ask part, cuz for now I'm trading like blind puppy, when I see a small red candle after strong break out, I have no clue is it just consolidation candle that is a good sign after big move, or it's reversal candle that will turn around the trend.

Trades

AAPL

AMD

ROKU

MU

 

[Otig]

Still same situation, first trade is good, after that I'm overconfident and start to jump everywhere. I'm still green, started paper account with 25k about 1 week ago and now almost 29k but I know that I understand almost nothing so far, I just trade first brake outs and bullish market let me make money, without break outs I have no idea how to trade. On the other hand, I see a lot of good traders just trade first 30-60 minutes and they are done. One guy makes only 1-2 trades per day, and can make 10-30k with options, so he tries do not waste his energy and emotions for a lot of trades, only one good shot, I believe for me it's a good strategy right now as well, because I need a lot of experience for scalping or predicting patterns after first hours of trading, market becomes slower and more manipulative. Anyway, since I've started to work again in order to make money and invest them in trading, I will not have that much time to make big posts here, but I will probably post my trades every morning, so I can access forum at work and analyse in order to use work hours more effectively I've made everything perfect for myself, I live in California so I have two hours every morning to trade before job.

Trades.

AAPL

BYND

FB

IMGN

ROKU

 

[Otig]

Trades.

FB

TSLA

SHOP

VXX

 

[Otig]

First day trading real money after a long break. Just touching water, small sizes even though I trade options. Made about 7-8%, overall the trade was OKAY. I've lost FB and TSLA moves today, if I've seen them and traded my setup could make 20-25%. But I still can't complain, green is green. Now using real money I have much more motivation and desire to analyse today's stocks, in order to be better tomorrow and don't miss a good trade. Now I feel like I need at least +1 screen because 15 inch screen of my laptop is not enough, I can fit only 6 small charts while I need at least 9-12 to see all the needed stocks, because at the morning we should react fast and it's time consuming surfing different stocks.

Trade(12.23.19):

AAPL

 

[Otig]

Another up 8-9% real money.

12.24.19

ROKU

 

[Otig]

Up 16%. First trade was not bad at all, but I held my last contract for about 30 minutes and it wasn't that good because you basically react on every red move. I still did a good job for a newbie so shouldn't complain. I've changed my account to Cash, because PDT rule just doesn't let me trade every day. With Cash account we can trade 50% of our capital every day! So when I've seen that TSLA goes up and has a big chance to continue, I've decided to trade it since I had some extra cash power for today, and that trade was just terrible. I've already made money at the first trade so I didn't want to lose at the second one, every move down just were killing me, so I basically jumped out of the trade after about 10-20 seconds, such an idiot... Eventually both APPL and TSLA went up a lot and I could potentially make a lot of money but this is not a good way to think, need to do my homework and just trade better next time.
After all I can't complain, this is my third trade with real money, all of them are green and gains go up. But this is what concerns me, I start to think about money, I want to make more and don't wanna lose, even though the only thing I should think about is chart. But this is something I need to work on, and remember that we play possibility game, I need to be ready to have a red day and make sure the lose will be small.

12.16.19

AAPL

TSLA

 

[Otig]

Down 60%. For a long time I have not been losing, and here it comes. I've basically cut half of my budget today.
1. Traded more money than I should touch.
2. There was NO SETUP, the only reason I was trading is greed. Yesterday AMZN made a huge move, I've seen traders who made $50k+ and once found that move up today, just jumped into the trade like an idiot.
3. Traded a new stock for me, AMZN has its own character.
4. No risk management, was expecting it to go up, even though the market was on its way down. The exit point is terrible as well, I KNEW it's going to reverse in 1 minute, plus the price was almost at the support level, so I basically exited at the worst spot. But it doesn't matter, I should have not let it go that down anyway.

Basically there is nothing else I can say, for sure it's very stupid trade, and not because I've lost it, I understand that we can't win all the time, but the trade itself didn't have any reason to take it, NON. Greed played bad joke with me, which is good experience, such loses should show us that pressing just a button "buy" will not give us money, the market will take your money if you will trade recklessly.

The good part is I understand the reason I've lost, somebody should slap your face sometimes reminding that you should be strict with your strategy. If I traded my setups and stocks I'm familiar with, like AAPL for example, I would make money like always, because I see the pattern already, but since was that focused on AMZN...

The only bad part is that I've lost half of my capital and psychologically I will want to take them back faster but in fact I will make even less money now because of small position. Also, I will observe my psychology, I shouldn't be affected by this trade and don't need to be afraid of anything. It was stupid mistake - you paid for it, but keep trading your setup without fear and you will be fine.

I also need to spend some time learning bearish market, because if recession is coming, I need to be prepared for it. Every time market goes down, I don't trade because I'm not comfortable yet, my setup is mostly works with uptrend I belive.

Trade:

AMZN

 

[Otig]

Up 3%. After my big loss, I feel psychological pressure. Now I can understand why this game is more about emotions. But also the market is bearish, maybe it is even stronger reason why I don't feel comfortable trading, I just found my strategy for bull market recently, and now it seems like it converts into bearish, so I will start to be focused on bearish moves as well in order to be universal soldier.

Trade:

AAPL

 

[Otig]

Up about 28% today, made biggest amount of money during my short trading history. I had two trades, screenshots are pretty self explanatory, the only mistake I made in the describe part, I've traded 4 ROKU contracts, not 2, I even forgot about that, too tired these days cuz need to wake up early for trading and going to work after that. Not sure for how long I will be able to keep my body in a shape with such schedule, but at the moment it's needed. It's actually so funny, I talk to different people, look what they are doing, they complain a lot about their life, lack of time, no luck... but when you see how they spend every day, what they are focused on, what interests have. Everything become so clear, people simply don't have discipline and lazy. But anyway, this is another topic, I'm trading here. This is a long journey and I will probably not able to make a lot of money soon, but at least I see my progress, so just need to keep going.

Trades

TSLA

ROKU

 

[Otig]

Down 10-15%. Was up on first trade, second trade wasn't even my mistake, even though the setup wasn't the best one, but once I bought the stock, the whole market dropped in 5-7 seconds, it happens sometimes for some reason, just quick move that destroy a lot of accounts I guess. So I've cut my loses, was down about 8% and decided to trade one more time, that trade was completely stupid one, no setup, blindly traded with HOPE, which is not accepted. The result is obvious. Also, if I waited 10-15 more minutes, I would have GREAT trades with my setup, I wouldn't miss them and made probably my biggest earnings because ROKU and FB moved up a lot without any pullbacks today. But I'm still an idiot at the moment, can't hold myself when it's needed. This weekend I will work on it, I need to program myself to avoid trading just for trading.

The good part is, all the loses I have is only because I don't wait my setup, so once I will fix it and will wait my "fish", I should be fine.

Keep going!

Trade:

FB

AMD

AAPL

 

[Otig]

I'm about 0% today, little bit up, but I just can't believe I make same mistake day after day, I still gamble and lose trades because of FOMO. I'm even embarrassed to post my trades because I understand how stupid they are, after all learning time, once the market open I just become such an idiot and forget about everything. It's not like I forget about everything, but I can't hold myself do not trading first 5-10 minutes, I basically think that if I lose this first huge move I will not have any other opportunities to trade. So what happens, I jump right before pullback, I lose money, and only after that pull back I can see my setups but it's too late already because I can trade only 1-2 times per day! I've lost at least two moves with my setup that I would trade 100% and I would make a lot of $$$. But I can't trade them because I basically lost my attempt for stupid gambling. I just can't understand how is it possible that I do this mistake day after day, how stupid should I be to just not be able to realize this is the only thing that:
1. Lose my money
2. Doesn't allow to trade my setups due to limited amount of trades per day I have.\

The solution is simple: JUST DON'T TRADE FIRST 5-10 MINUTES, DO NOT JUMP INTO THE WAVE BECAUSE IT'S TOO LATE ALREADY, GIVE A STOCK TO HAVE A PULL BACK, AND ONLY AFTER THAT START TO TRADE. Easy like that. I just lose so many setups day after day.... I should get rid of desire to trade no matter what. It is better to make only 1 good trade per week, that gamble every day!

It's okay, let me blow up my account(s) maybe after that I will start to understand something. I guess what happens to me right now, I'm training my muscle, it takes time to build yourself that is why they say in order to make money in a market it should take some time, because we should master a new psychological skill. The good part it, I really see setups and I see why I lose my trades. Because when I didn't have any setup and couldn't understand what's going on in the market, I was upset and didn't have desire to trade at all, it was complete gambling for me. Now I see the picture, I just need to work on myself.

I will probably post another post tomorrow with the same complain that I didn't hold myself again, so let's see what's going to happen I can't believe I can't control myself... Maybe it's because I sleep 3 hours and wake up at 6:00 am, my brain still doesn't work, I don't know.

Anyway, as I've said I'm up maybe 1-2%, here are my trades that I'm embarrassed about.

AAPL

ROKU

One more thing, the reason I'm so angry with ROKU and I'm sure about the trade where I couldn't anticipate, that blue line is an important critical level that ROKU respected for 1+ month, so I knew if it will break it, we will have a good move. If you ask me why would you then sell it just before break out? Because basically this is how we trade, you don't want to hold a stock under critical resistance, it can bounce heavily. We jump into the trade only after break out. PLUS! I was psychologically broken already, after my first stupid trade, so I couldn't analyse properly already.

This is actually one more thing, I feel that at the beginning I watch TOO many stocks, once the market opens I look into 6+ different charts, which is probably a mistake while I'm still newbie, cuz in fact I can't analyse properly any of them.

 

[Otig]

Today is difficult market for me, everything just turned around at one point and went down. Was less FOMO, had few not bad trades so overall I'm okay. I've found out a good strategy, I don't need to buy the most expensive contract I have for my budget, because in that case I can trade only once. I've just started to buy cheaper ones so I can trade more! Less risk, more trades. Slowly I progress Today down about 4-5%.

Trades :

AAPL

FB

 

[Otig]

Down 7%

AAPL

BABA

BYND

FB

 

[Otig]

Up 3.5%.

Trades.

AAPL

AMD

ROKU

 

[Otig]

Up 3%

Trades:

AAPL

BYND

NVDA

FB

 

[Otig]

Up 4%. Had stupid trades, can't hold anything, very emotional because was tired of having red days, so now I'm too careful, sell pretty fast and sometime don't even allow a price go to my mental stop.

BIDU was yolo trade, I used another account on cellphone so I don't even count it, just lucky money with a stupid trade, I just expected it to go up during the day because it had GAP up at the morning, so once the market got slower I bought my CAALs. But I didn't include BIDU's profits here, because it would be around 10%.

Trades.

BYND

C

BA

BIDU

 

[Otig]

Down 2%. I don't like my trades at all, I just play casino with risk management at the moment. I don't predict anything, I don't understand LVL 2, nothing... The only thing I look for is volume, SPY and breakdowns, but all of those breakdowns are too manipulated, I can clearly see how big guys push the price at a specific point and people are caught into the trap there, me included. I need to learn how to read chart, to understand traps, orders, patterns, big guys' plans... Nothing at the moment, I just jump into a simple trade and expect it either go up or down. And also everything is against me, one I buy CALL after breakout the contract price is high already, spread also gets against me, + in most cases they will drop a stock to a stop loss area just to drop retailers. If you will lower stop loss, you will eventually lose more money because it's hard to tell in with cases it's just fake movement and in which it will go down. So for making money you got to have a huge move up in order Risk Reward can be at least 2:1, which doesn't happen all the time. So I try to look for something else except breakouts, at the areas where there are so many manipulations. Or I need to learn lvl 2 and have more practice in trading to understand chart. Because for now I have no idea how to identify strong move.

AAPL

TSLA

BABA

NFLX

ROKU


Actually now looking into my trades I see mistakes NFLX was a bad entry, I just decided to try to jump into the trade before breakout in order to make more money cuz option contracts raise a lot after only one good move. BABA, I held it too long, could make some money... ROKU was greedy entry, I should have wait until that candle is closed, that's what I always do. Hm, okay.