Swing Lessons from AMD/NVDA

Been in a motivation slump lately.. struggling to get caught up with my lessons

From what I can remember that happened in February/March:

1)  I bought AMD power hour for an anticipated spike the next morning to sell into.  Plan worked but I wasn't watching the position/youtube and watched it get past my stop loss>>breakeven>>refused to get out so I swung in long knowing that I've chased the stock wayy too high on the daily and will probably be red for a week or so.

Lesson:  Stick to your plan,   I kept changing the plan since I refused to accept leaving profits on the table/breakeven/get out for a loss.

2)  I  didn't stick to my trailing stop loss and left 500$+ on the table since I thought I could just swing it even longer since an even longer-term plan is still intact.  Went back to sleep and finally just took profits when it got too low.

3)  I bought 50 NVDA at 101, added 50 at 104 with a price target of 110-111.  I chased another 50 at 109 when it AM spiked from 107-109 to sell into the next morning at 110.  Next morning came and it hit pre-market 110 before starting to range between 109-110.  I should've downsized that add that was a chase but didn't because i wanted more than just 110 and that my stop will be 109.

Damn thing broke below my mental stoploss at 109 and I still didn't downsize.. Changed my stoploss to 108..

Damn thing hit my NEW mental stoploss below 108 and I "hoped" it'll go back up refusing to accept the fact that I was wrong and the chase is a loss.  Changed my stoploss to 107.. see a pattern?

DAMN thing broke 107 and I FINALLY admitted to myself that I need to cut losses ASAP to prevent losing all my unrealized gains.  I locked in only 40% of my total unrealized gains when I hit my initial target of 110.  500$ because of greed>>unwilling to accept I was wrong until the threat of losing ALL my gains emotionally hit me..

Crappy post but I need to put something in from my Swings for future reference...

BRUTAL DAY, AMD, NVDA

I'm still alive.. Passed my Fitness test so I will be regularly posting once again and get back into daytrading.  I delved into swing trading big cap companies whose industry i'm somewhat familiar with i've been watching for a few months now.

Begin rant:
BRUTAL FCKIN' DAY.. I did not stick to my mental trailing stops.. Did not stick to the initial plan, adding to the initial plan might be good if the original plan is still in play but once the initial play is broken, I found myself rationalizing a plan gone dead.  Made the same mistakes YET AGAIN from last time... the cues were there, and i failed to listen to them and worse--i came up reasons against them.

My AMD Position is still in play and will hold through ER (I know, scary =.=) until Naples in 3Q is released.

NVDA I bought in at 100 seeing a reversal making new higher highs last week.  This play I know is only for a short swing, maybe a week or so but prior to ER in may for sure.  First profit target is 110-111$ range is what I told myself last week.  I re-added on a higher dip when I noticed it spikes after/pre-market and dips down 30mins-1hr into open and ramps up for the rest of the day.  It's done this for a few days already and againts the overall market trend so I knew NVDA will be even stronger when the market does go green.  I knew I was chasing hard when I added NVDA at 109 at the top of a spike when it moved up 3$ yesterday.  It's moved up too much too soon and is going parabolic right into 110-111$ resistance level.  I told myself the whole night at work that I WILL get out of the add at 109.50 or break even because I was uncomfortable with it.  The whole market bled at open... SOX, DJIA, SPY .. NVDA was holding steady at 109-109.5 range but the market kept bleeding even more... I felt that NVDA will just hold like it has for the past few days but I ended up rationalizing my add that even if it goes red on me.. I will just forget the mental trailing stop and "hope" it'll find a new trend for the leg up back to 120$ in the coming weeks--but that's just it.. I had a plan-- i reached the end of the plan but i scrapped it due to either not wanting to be wrong or just greed... still not sure which one.  I closed my platform and just didn't look at it.. I saw it break 108.5 and I knew I had to get out at 108 but i ignored it.. it broke 108 and I KNEW i had to get out since that means more than 3/4 of people yesterday is now under water.. By the time I marketed out.. It was already at 107.

 I want to get back in but I just don't see a good entry point other than 104$ or reasons for a good entry at the current price.. Screw it.. I need to be patient and wait for the trade to come back to me instead of me getting in with alot of risk and wanting it to go against me.

I should've just downsized the add and it's possible I might've sold at the bottom again due to being emotional.  Yet again It still hasn't kicked in emotionally that it's not about how much you can make that should be my focus but how much risk am I taking and how to limit my losses that should be the primary goal.  Gave away 1/2 the unrealized gains.. but it's more of the fact that my actions still doesn't show that I've learned from the past.. Charting the emotional patterns and realizing where I start getting emotional will be the goal for this weekend.  If I can pinpoint where it is on slow moving stocks--it'll help me much more when I start daytrading volatility and help me from catastrophic losses like AKAO/PULM.

Buy the dips, sell the pops have been the less risk than buying the spikes/breakouts.  I knew I was getting FOMO yesterday--and I let it get to me...

End rant:

I'll clean this post up this weekend cuz it's almst time for me to go to bed, I will re-edit this post this weekend to include a re-assessment of my AMD Swing from last month.

AMD ver 2.0, HTGM, ZAIS, EYEG

Life is like an Endless Waltz.... - Mariemaia Khushrenada

FFFCCCKKKK !!!!! 

A few weeks back, I took a day trade and turned it into a swing trade... Then during the profit-taking.. I was sleepy and was dozing in and out during the market session til I realized I left 80cents on the table on 400shares which woke me up.

I started a small swing yesterday chasing a bit to anticipate the reviews but for some odd reason I doubled up into a full size with the 2nd half being a daytrade anticipating a gap-up.  After my 14hr drive from Houston>St. Louis.. I was RACKED OUT.... As I had predicted in my last post, since I had two different plans, I ended up confusing the shit out of myself.. To make it worse, I was sleepy yet again.. I actually woke up for the open, saw the reviews on AMD going bad for the gaming crowd and that NVDA was tanking taking down it's sector as usual.. I KNEW I needed to downsize or get my full size out for a small loss and re buy in once AMD finds support/get a better entry for a multi-month swing in the next few weeks... but nope, sleepy me just went back to sleep.  If I had my initial starter, I would've had no problem swinging since my risk had already been set--but now i'm in heavy on my daytrading portion and did not cut losses.. it's very similar to how i got stuck last month.. FML !!!! The swing setup is still intact but the risk downside is massive.. So not worth the risk/reward, but i'll play this on the side to start learning longer-term plays.






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MUST READ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watching Arick Russell + Stephen Dux webinars... I noticed something they've been trading which I have been learning from Ross.  Ross/Arick will trade pullbacks on momo stocks on the 1m/5m candles to make a new high.  Stephen dux was explaining something on a new lesson of his and Inoticed that it's the same chart pattern, but he actually described it based on the the emotions that is being put into the stock.. WHY exactly are these pullbacks making new highs?? Where are all these buyers coming from?? I could never figure out exactly why but That's when I noticed, the price action is currently consolidating near VWAP.  Amateur shorts will get trapped by the VWAP and it will then become a trigger point on the chart for shorts to cover IF it breaks those points, to add to injury, longs will pile onto those shorts covering and initiate a massive squeeze..



**** Buying the first green candle to make a new high after 2-4 red pullback candles ****
**** Risk is set using the low of the last candle ****


HTGM

I started to use more timeframes on top of the 1m/5m when I started to notice that the pattern works beyond the 1m/5m timeframe last month.. In this case, the 1m/5m DOES NOT LOOK CLEAN AT ALL.. but dux started in 2.56 with 10k shares and added 20k more shares at 2.79 first candle to make a new high.. He did it with only his intuition/hunch, but I prefer to see a quantifiable reason behind it and on the 15m chart we can see the pullback pattern.  (I'm shitty drawing trendlines so I prefer to see a pattern)

ZAIS

This one isn't as clean but the same thing appears on the 15m/30m chart this time.. Notice where the price action drops below the VWAP trapping shorts in...

EYEG

I thought the 1h Chart looked a lil' funky, but within those candles.. I felt something was hiding in there..

I went ahead and reset the timeframe to 45mins.  and like magic, it appeared...

Growing up under my dad who is successful in insurance and bonds.  I've always had a knack for actuarial science.  I'm super curious about this pattern because this is quantifiable but very complex to code with my limited skill in coding.  I really foresee a future for me in quant trading. But in the meantime, I need to master my trading emotions first and build up a nice profit cushion before I start testing quants.  I have a feeling that those who can't trade become analysts.. And I want to be a trader..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Indicators

I KNOW my chart looks like shiet atm with so many indicators, but that's the reason I joined WT PRO.  I've fallen in love with the equations various indicators have and in the search of the holy grail, i've fck'd myself over.  I told myself that there are a TON of successful traders that uses no indicators at all and only rely on price action.  Through WarriorTrading, I can easily grasp how Ross is reading the price and what is going through his mind.  After I do more tests with Bollinger bands/Fibonacci, I will eventually wean myself off the indicators and just rely on Price action and maybe an indicator or two.

Due to work, I will most likely be able to trade only on thurs/fridays.  And even then, just small size for now since i'm still getting used to DAS and eventually size up once i'm comfortable and not distracted by work.

Books to read for March/April:

The Disciplined Trader

One Good Trade

Momo Traders

Ross's book

December - January really was my first month of actual focused trading and it turned out very well.. Avg'd making 900/wk and losses were around 300/wk for 3 weeks.  But work flipped my trading world upside down and it's tough to trade except on fridays when i'm off.  I'm currently trying to go from Active Duty to guard--hopefully I can get my package through by april.

It's been almost 7 weeks since i've traded a go-to-setup.  Because of my undisciplined experimental trades on TBIO in Jan and the 2 failed experimental gap and go scalps at the beginning of Feb.  I've been too scared to trade and just been papertrading.  My stats shows that the bulk of my losses have not come from the market or executions of strategies but from stupid mistakes/emotional trading.   Impatience, Stress and distractions from work are the biggest factors for me not trading with real cash right now, It seems like i've been missing out on all these plays but I trust that in the long-term--Sitting on the sidelines for now and learning to control my undisciplined trades/impatience will benefit me much more for the years to come... 

This is a marathon and not a sprint !!