Small Cap Stocks Day Trading Journey ($25,000 Challenge)

[alexwinkler]

Hey guys, I’m fairly new to this forum but over the few months I’ve been a user I’ve noticed several “Journey” threads and I had the perfect idea for one myself.

New video recapping this whole entire thread (came out 11/13/2019)

Why

In the first few years I was pretty secretive about my trading. I think that was more of an insecurity with myself. I wasn’t ready yet for everyone to judge each of my trades because I wasn’t yet sure about my trading. Today I know 100% what my strategy is and I don’t think my strategy will become saturated. I’ve learned the hardest part about trading is mastering yourself and the patterns and scanners is just a small part of what makes a trader successful. By sharing my trades and journey with you guys I hope to grow my trading network/circle because trading is a very “You against You” game and it’s easy to turn into a hermit. If there was one thing I wish I started earlier when trading it would be to network amongst fellow traders so now that’s one of my main focuses beyond my P/L. Plus I’ll feel more responsibility into sticking with this journey as you guys will hold me responsible. Anyway, I look to learn just as much from you guys as hopefully, I can introduce to you.

Background

Basically, in 2013 I took my trading a bit more serious and for the next 2 years I was making most of my income from equities small-cap trading. However, at the same time, I was busy with my brother starting a Saas company. So around 2015 - 2017 the company really became my main focus and trading basically came to a full halt. Around the end of 2017, our company started offering BTC as a payment method for our clients and because of that I needed to buy BTC every week in order to payout our clients. As you might have guessed my suppressed trading side came back in full swing and I started day/swing trading crypto. I’ve been able to make steady profits with it (I shared all of it on my trading channel) but overall the crypto market doesn’t favor day trading (market moves slow intraday, super high fees, no opening/closing bell vol) therefore I always considered diving back into equities trading. Now, I have more time since I don’t deal with the day to day of my company and I’m fully liquid as the market is relatively high.

Plan

I want to start slow since I’m rusty with my equities small caps day trading strategy. I checked my TD account which had $1245.05 sitting in it and thought screw it, let’s just start with this amount and trade it past the $25k PTD rule. Which means I only get 3 sniper trades per week. The good news is that TD now offers $0 commission trades (although OTC stocks still have a fee & I often trade OTC). Just like with crypto trading I like to “pay myself” every month, it’s a good habit to get into but since this account is small I will limit removing funds from the account until we are past $10k at which point I’d like to start paying myself anywhere from 25-50% of my monthly profits.

Strategy

Small-cap momentum trader, I’m looking at stocks that are moving and trading morning dips/panics and rarely afternoon runners as I usually only trade the first 1 hour of the market open. I live by support and resistance levels and rather trade a breakout bounce back at support than a blind breakout buy. Low float is key and ideally, 24/hr $vol no less than $250k. I use TD Ameritrade's Think or Swim (TOS) platform and love it. Use OTCMarkets.com & Finviz.com a lot. I'm also in a discord group with several trading buddies that I met both in real life and online.

Screener includes:
% change = 1% - Max% (Sorted by Ascending)
Volume = 50k - Max
Market Cap = $2Mil - Max
Last Price = $.01 - $10
Shares = 200k - 200m (a bit large I know)
After hours (since close) = 4%+ price move

Process

I’ll be documenting everything on my Trade Journal Spreadsheet (In case you want to copy it go to TradeJournal.co for a raw google sheet template). If you are interested to stay up to date on everything I do follow this thread as I’ll post my watchlist and trading recaps here. Also, add me on Twitter.com/MrAlexWinkler where I’ll post more about this journey!

Quick Links

Track All My Trades On Trade Journal
YouTube
Twitter

 

[alexwinkler]

A lot of biotechs are running but I'm not the biggest fan of those.

Potential Buys

• XELA potential dip buy @1.3
• TTNP Second Green Day, dangerous reverse splits
• AEMD FDA approval for "study"
• SNNA FDA approval for "laser hair treatment device"

Former runners

• DCGD is forming a pennant on the daily now w/ dying vol
• BILZF, big support @ 1.25
• CLSI .025 big support

 

[alexwinkler]

The first 3 trades

I actually started this challenge before I considered to make it a forum thread so consider this a partial "catch-up" post. Also remember to checkout the first of the "Quick Links" (Track All My Trades On Trade Journal) to see the full recap of each trade.

That will look something like this:

Overall fun second Monday of this journey/challenge to $25k. Nice little dip buy with near perfect entry and exit, unforunutelly It wasn't a full entry with SNNA and I almost shit myself because right when TOS made the trade entry ding sound, the post man rung the door bell, mind you this trade only last less than 6 mintues.

 

[alexwinkler]

Since I'm under the PTD rule I'm really looking to snipe. Only perfect setups and ideally over double digit returns. biotechs seem to be the hot sector at the moment.

Potential Buys

• DYSL looking to see if it can break major resistance @ $2
  • Overlooked at first the tiny Vol here (even for my small account)
• XBIO lots of dilution but needs to stay over a dollar to avoid delisting
• XELA potential dip buy @1.3
• TTNP Second Green Day, dangerous reverse splits
• AEMD FDA approval for "study"
• SNNA FDA approval for "laser hair treatment device"

Former runners

• DCGD is forming a pennant on the daily now w/ dying vol
• BILZF, big support @ 1.25
• CLSI .025 big support

I'll post a pick of my TOS scanner once the market's open, until then it doesn't show anything.

 

[alexwinkler]

4th trade of the month, be sure to checkout the Opening & Closing comments

 

[alexwinkler]

Good morning everyone! Only got 1 trade left for the week (man that's depressing).. got to make it count. One thing to consider is that a trade does NOT go towards to PTD rule if I sell it the next day. So an overnight rally may be the best bet but it's not my favorite setup. However it can lead to solid gains on early runners, especially with gap ups.

Reviewing past picks and the screener from yesterday. Will edit the stocks below until the market opens.

Potential Buys

• CLSI going exponential, would love to enter on a pullback if holding highs, no ceiling on this one
• COWPP - big green day, held it's highs
• XBIO lots of dilution but needs to stay over a dollar to avoid delisting
• XELA potential dip buy @1.3
• TTNP Second Green Day, dangerous reverse splits
• AEMD FDA approval for "study"
• SNNA FDA approval for "laser hair treatment device"

Former runners

• DCGD is forming a pennant on the daily now w/ dying vol
• BILZF, big support @ 1.25
• CLSI .025 big support

 

[alexwinkler]

Entered CLSI overnight, don't have the best entry $.09357, looking to sell into more rally. We are keeping bullish momentum and making moves to the upside. I'm looking for an exponential run on this one, so ideally a break past the .117, need .08 to hold tomorrow otherwise I'm out. Small position overall.

 

[alexwinkler]

Good morning everyone! A lot of focus today will be around the CLSI trade. I like how it's held it's highs but I don't like how it crashed so hard from .11, it wasn't able to make new highs but that's understandable after a massive rally and we bounced off .8 support, so right now this is a breakout bounce play just with a bit early entry..

Reviewing past picks and the screener from yesterday. Will edit the stocks below until the market opens.

Potential Buys

• CLSI going exponential, would love to enter on a pullback if holding highs, no ceiling on this one
• COWPP - big green day, held it's highs
• XBIO lots of dilution but needs to stay over a dollar to avoid delisting
• XELA potential dip buy @1.3
• TTNP Second Green Day, dangerous reverse splits
• AEMD FDA approval for "study"
• SNNA FDA approval for "laser hair treatment device"

Former runners

• DCGD is forming a pennant on the daily now w/ dying vol
• BILZF, big support @ 1.25
• CLSI .025 big support

 

[alexwinkler]

Hello T2W'ers! Don't mean to post this review so late but I was slammed working on my new video yesterday night (Is Whole Life Insurance Worth It) and it totally slimmed my mind.

Unfortunately, we didn't get that pop up yesterday on CLSI (actually quite the opposite) and I needed to cut my losses which was a bit bigger of a loss than I wanted due to slippage. This trade really should have not happened the way it did and I most definitively should have not held it overnight.

The original trade I wanted to make on CLSI actually played out perfectly (the dip buy right before, but I didn't act because the PTD 3 trades limit orders messed with my head. Therefor to counter this a bit and give me more freedom is I'm depositing an extra $1k into my TD broker but into a separate account. This will give me 6 day trades per week which is closer to how much I used to use per week and will allow me not to overthink a trade because of the PTD rule.

 

[alexwinkler]

Good morning everyone! Hope you had an awesome weekend, let's see what this trading week has in store. I'm going to be focusing a lot lot more on my clean morning panics with a bigger focus on major support lines being reached. That last play with CLSI was really not okay. Should have been profitable trade (easily) just let external factors mess with my head.

Top 3 Plays

• BILZF big support @ 1.65, lot's of Social Media hype
• ACNV big support .008, bounced Friday but was weak
• SES big friday gap up, huge vol, looking to break 6. 4.4 - 3.8 support zones for morning dips

 

[alexwinkler]

Good morning traders! Yesterday was a wild rally with SES. Unfortunately I missed my early morning entry. Right now in 2 overnight trades with BILZF and ACNV. BILZF am looking for a break past 1.8 and ACNV was expecting a bigger bounce but never happened. Got too aggressive on a fairly illiquid stock with a big spread.

Days like yesterday happen where the one thing you don't buy is the thing that ends up rallying. Never fun but no need to stress, there will always be another opportunity.

Will update today's watch list as I see changes but for now need to exit my current 2 trades.

 

[alexwinkler]

Morning morning! Btw guys if you have not checked out my crypto trading it's mostly what I am doing everyday. Checkout my channel to learn more. Now back to equities! No trades yesterday, closest I got was my BILZF trade being executed at 1.75 but I didn't get filled. I want to be a bit more quick with my exits and stops. In crypto prices are drawn out much longer and tend to much more slowly since there is no opening and closing bells (think of all day is mid-day). This has made me a bit looser of a equities trader I've noticed, which is not good, and I want to tighten up my strategy.

Really focus on those 5-10% moves, take profits quick, and cut losses as soon as my trading thesis is no longer valid. Nothing I don't know just needed to reinforce it after not trading equities for a few years.

.

 

[alexwinkler]

Hello traders! Today I got some little less awesome news, my ACNV finally closed yesterday. It took a while and a LOT of chasing. This really sums up why I wanted to start October, my first month back trading small cap equites after several years with only $1k. I lost about 55% on this trade simply because I couldn't get filled, I should have forced the exit on the first day for probably a 20-30% loss by selling into the bed but I didn't do that. Anyway good lesson but I think I'll need to refund the amount lost in this trade so I can get back to $1k position sizes. Any less that that and I don't take it seriously.

Anyway like I said yesterday focusing on my one main setup the morning dip is really where I want to put my energy. If bounces are weak I need to get out quick. None of my trades should last more than a few minutes. Any other patterns like the gun pattern are a bit different but I will only take those if it's a perfect setup (plus I rarely trade afternoons).

For now this basically counts as a blown account. Kinda funny that this happened but also kinda embarrassed as I know I'm better than that. Shouldn't happen, period. I also don't think I would have ever done a trade like this when I was trading with $10k position sizes the risk then was just much greater but with a small account I don't internalize the risks as much. That and the PCT rule lingering over my head really influenced several decisions on this trade that ultimately lead to this situation.

Either way no excuses and it wont happen again.

 

[alexwinkler]

Morning Morning! Would be nice to post a profitable trade soon here but yesterday I had another small position killa and got stopped out. Not my week? I know these kinda streaks exist and they don't really bum me out too much after trading so long but I must say this is not really how I imagined starting this first month small cap trading. I know we'll get back on track and I just got to keep doing what I'm good at. We'll look back to this first month soon enough and chuckle.

Till then here are the latest updates from yesterday

 

[alexwinkler]

ASMB is a runner I'm looking at. Second big green day yesterday NASDAQ stock that is having an early extended trading morning panic. Big support around 13.5, would love to find a bounce in that area.

FRAN another runner and NASDAQ stock broke out of an horizontal channel / ascending triangle. Watchout though as this one recently had a 1:12 reverse split and dilution may be strong. Possible major morning panic back to the 18-19 zone before a continuation or failed bounce.

 

[alexwinkler]

Morning traders. You guys probably will start to think I'm stoned. Had another loss yesterday.. but I'm absolutely not hinged from my goal. I know I'll get back on the horse. This has happened before it's just unfortunate that it's happened early on when I start a public new journey.

Weekly Recap

Thinking about adding a section to the Google Sheets Trade Journal where I show my account value so we can see the grow (or right now the "decline") of the account and the deposits/withdrawals I make. Since I always like to "pay myself" a % each month from all my ventures. Cash flow is king and that sets my ventures up in a more sustainable way. Lmk if you'd be interested to see that I think I would be so I'll probably do it.

I've reviewed all my trades and I must say my biggest mistake is just entering too early. The bad streak realy started when I missed a perfect entry due to trying to avoid using up one of my 3 trades. That made me rush my next trade somehow and also the one after made me hold to long because if I went overnight I wouldn't loose one of my day trades. It's a backwards thinking and I can't let this depict my trading.

That's why I now have 2 accounts with roughly $1k in each. That gives me 6 day trades. If I see a good setup I'll trade it no matter what. If I run out of trades by Wednesday so be it. If a trade doesn't go my way I'm out right away. I ideally want to be in and out very quickly. I'll always start off the day with my 1-3 favorite stocks with limit orders ready to go. Mainly because I'm fairly good at calling out moves but then have been messing up on execution (getting too aggressive / not waiting long enough)

Have a great weekend everyone!

P.S. Hope you have been enjoying these recaps and also the new review layout. 3 pics (intraday, zoomed out, trade doc)

 

[alexwinkler]

Happy Monday Traders!

MDR fairly heavy float NYSE but big support above 2.4, 1:3 Reverse split in Mid May. Huge amount of dilution, strong chance of a failed breakout here and a morning panic to last major support zone.

GATA fairly high float OTC that's seeing some support come in around .025 where the was a breakout bounce not to long ago. If we hold here we could see this breakout in the near future past .05 and .075

 

[alexwinkler]

Fun day, finally also had a profitable trade + got some video of it. Enjoy guys!

 

[alexwinkler]

Another Day Another Trade? Doesn't matter just because we can trade doesn't me we will. I need to only trade the best setups especially after the disaster start of the month.

BIMI has a lot of eyes on it. Ever since that big partnership deal. I would like to see some support again under $5 before joining this one. 1M float is wild and must be a big factor behind that massive run up.

PETS up big yesterday on earnings. Not something I'd usually trade but would love an entry if we had the price dip down the low $24.

 

[alexwinkler]

Wrapped up today with another 7% win. Got it on video again as well. Lmk if you find these videos helpful!