Crushing the Small Caps on my 10th Green Day +$962.17

 

 

Alright guys, so time for our mid day market recap. We’ll go over the trades from this morning. Today is my 10th consecutive green day. So far right now, we’ve only got five trading days for the month of July because we had one day off last week. So, fifth green day of July. I’m up, must be, around 10,000 on the month so far, which is definitely an awesome way to start the month. It’s much better start to the month than I had last month.

I’m excited about that. Definitely enjoying this momentum but today was a little bit choppy. Today was not as clean. It was probably the most difficult day out of any day in the last 10 days. As a result, I over traded a little bit. I took five trades, which is a little more than usual, and it was on five different stocks.

So, I kind of kept- I took a trade, it didn’t work and then, I went to a different stock. Didn’t work, I went to a different one, different one, a different one. Usually, I try not to do that but today on my second trade, I went into the red by … Well, let’s see. What was it? My second trade? Yeah, I think it was my second trade where I went into the red by $600 or whatever it was.

So, that kind of, all of a sudden, now put me in this … Well, put me red on the day. Put me in a position where I had to dig myself out of the hole. So, since I knew this was going to potentially be my 10th consecutive green day, I really wanted to get myself out. So, I got a little more aggressive looking for that next opportunity, which is not always the right thing to do. I mean, it’s not but my accuracy today was still decent. I took five trades and I’m green on four out of the five. So, it just happens that the one loss I took was a $666 loss. So, a little bit further in the red than I’d like.

So, those of you watching on Facebook, you can see my PNL here. These are the names that I traded. SGBX down $666. ZN up $11. Kool, up $64. On that one I was up, I think I was up like $500 on it and didn’t take it. CDNA, I was up a good amount on that, didn’t take the profit but made 373. Then, Yuma, Y-U-M-A, almost $1,200. So, that was the one that got me out of the red and into the green.

So, let’s go over each of those trades starting with ZN. My first trade of the morning. Now, this morning on my watch list, I had … There wasn’t a lot I was really excited about because our gap scanner didn’t show anything that looked fantastic. We had ROKA gaping up, a bit of light volume. This one just wasn’t really playing. No, I didn’t call out Yuma after it was done. I called it out with an entry at 150. I was in at 147. So, I said as soon as I got in that that was where I was in. Then, it went up, you can see here just to jump ahead, up to a high of 170. So, it’s not like I … I said I got in back here down at 146. I mean, it was within seconds of getting in.

So, maybe some confusion on that there but, in any case, so for the trade on Yuma, since we’re looking at this one now, this popped up here to a high of 54 and on this candle right here, this is where I jumped in because I saw it squeezing and I thought, “Okay, this one has potential to squeeze into a circuit breaker. If it does squeeze into a circuit breaker, it could go higher.” But no resists on the daily until 288. So, when I saw that, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to jump in this for the break of the half dollar, with a stop down here at 40.”

So, 10 cent stop. It popped up to 59. There was a 10,000 share seller at 59. We pulled back for a moment. Then, we popped up over that level to 170. So, nice 20 cents off my entry. That gave me $1,100. So, decent on that. Really, just overall, pretty easy trade. Finally, got an easy trade.

But, going back to the first trade of the day on ZN. This one we had, and also just to recap on pre market. There just wasn’t a lot pre market. ZN was maybe on watch for continuation but I was a little bit iffy about it. You can see that as soon as the bell rang, it pops up from $6, all the way up to 6.44. Now, I got in right at this one minute consolidation. You can see here at 6.35, I actually got filled a little high at 6.39. My order got filled on the high side, so I was in basically at 6.40.

It pops up to a high of 44, it drops down to 28. It comes back up to 44. I end up stopping out, basically break even on that one. You can see here, it quickly sold off. Dropped all the way down to 5.80. Pops back up, consolidation. Here it hits a high of 53. Again, not clean. Drops back down. So, this one for me was not easy to trade and I … Whatever. It was just not easy. It was just choppy, all over the place. So, no follow through on that. Nothing easy, only $11. Basically, got in, was down $600 on it with 5,000 shares. It pops back up and I was happy to get out, basically break even because it just, it wasn’t clean.

So, that was that. Next one after that was my trade on SGBX. On this one, again it starts popping up and I looked at it and I was like, “Okay, breaking over 520 on the daily chart is critical because this is a recent IPO break out and sometimes these can squeeze because they have absolutely no resistance being a recent IPO.” So, I jumped in this one at 550, for the half dollar break. This was as soon as it popped up. That’s where it hit my scanner.

So, I jump in at 550, stop is 540. It goes up a little higher, I double at 570. New average is 563 with, I think, it was 3,500 shares or something like that. It goes up to a high of 585. So, I was up like $700. I didn’t take the profit. I mean, it just spiked up, I was kind of looking for that bigger move. It ended up dropping back down to 63. First, candle to make a new high pops up to 75 and I was like, “Okay, I’m up 12 cents. I’m really wanting to see this go back to 85, back to high of day.” Then, it flushed out on this candle and I stopped out losing about 20 cents per share, something like that. What was my share size on this one? Yeah, it was 3,800 shares. I got a particle fill. So, I lost 18 cents per share, roughly.

That was kind of the one that- I mean, that was the one to put me in the red today and it’s actually the biggest loss that I’ve had in …. Let’s see. Three weeks. So, it’s a fairly good size loss, $600. I mean, it’s not small. So, a little disappointing there. It just didn’t hold that level.

So then I was like, “Okay, now I’m looking for my next trade.” But, also mindful of the fact that I don’t want to go down below $1,000 in the red, you know? If this is just not going to be a good day, maybe I should stop. ZN was bad. SGBX didn’t hold up so, I started thinking, “Well, what do I do? Do I take the next trade?” CDNA pops up. Let’s see. On my high of day scanner.

I look at this one and I think, “Okay, this is one of those low priced stocks but it has lots of room up to the 200 moving average.” And I saw it was certainly squeezing up. So, I jumped in this one at the break of …Let’s see. It was right here, around 84. Let’s see, 83. It pops up to a high of … I was looking- When I got in this I was thinking, “Okay, it has potential to hit $2, $2.18 resistance.” So, I was getting in this one a little high. It pops up to 85, it pulls back. First candle to make a new high here was over 81. It squeezes up to 90. I started selling on the ask because I was seeing some resistance. So I was like, “I better start selling out of this.” I had big size, so I was like, “I need to lighten up.”

Think I had 12,500 shares, so I was like, “I know I need to start reducing size on this.” Or did I have 15,000? Let’s see, 25, 25, 25, 25. Because all of my orders I go in 2,500 share blocks. So, I sized up on this one thinking we had potential to go higher. Ended up stopping out but, on this one, with profit. So, I only made like two cents per share stopping out at 86 versus my 8035 entry. But, with size, I was able to make some money. It wasn’t the best trade. A little disappointing there. It was just heavy. It just didn’t open up. A lot of traders must have been shorting this one or something.

Then, alright, so that put me down … At that point I was down about 280 on the day. So, still in the red but working my way out. I was like, “Okay, $280. I can do this. Let’s look for $280.” That’s not usually a good way to trade because reality is, being up or down $200 doesn’t matter but because I’m on this 9, 10 day consecutive hot streak, I want to keep it going. So, I was a little bit more aggressive to look for that next green trade.

So, CDNA, then we had Kool. So, K-O-O-L. This one, I jumped in pretty quickly at 66 with 5,000 shares. On this one, I was looking for the break over the VWAP. My entry was 66 on this green candle. It pops all the way up to 84. So, on that one, 5,000 shares I was up $1,000. That’s why it’s so depressing I’m only up $64 on it. I was up over $1,000. We get a one minute micro pull back right here and I added 2,500 shares at 78. So, now I had 7,500 shares with my new average was 71. So, 7,500 shares with a 71 average. It pops up to 84. Then, look what happens on this candle, from 81 all the way back down to 58 and then, to 53.

I had to stop out. I mean, I had to. On that one, I should have just taken the profit. I shouldn’t have added. I mean, hindsight is 20/20. I added because I thought this had potential on this red degree move to get up to $4. Of course, if it had gotten to $4, I would have just said that was a solid trade but, because it ended up dropping, I feel like I shouldn’t have added to it. I should have just taken the money off the table.

Now, I definitely was being more aggressive today. I was more willing to trade setups that I wasn’t as confident in because I was red. If I had been green, if I had hit $1,000 in the first 10 minutes, I wouldn’t have been as aggressive today because I already would have had my daily goal. But, when you don’t have your daily goal you have a tendency, or at least I do, to keep kind of looking for that next trade. That’s why I ended up taking five different trades today because I just kept looking for that next trade.

I finally got it on Yuma. Now, I have the benefit of years of experience, pretty good accuracy and pretty good intuition so, when I am in this mindset of being more aggressive, I usually, statistically, still have a good chance of winning. Even if I’m reducing my quality standard a little bit for A quality perfect, down to B quality. Realistically, today, if I had just stuck with A quality set ups, I don’t think I would have taken any trades because there really weren’t any perfect setups today and that’s true sometimes, there aren’t perfect setups.

Today, I kind of took a subpar setup right out of the gates on ZN, didn’t work. Another one on SGBX, I feel into the red. Then, I felt like I needed to kind of get myself back out of the red, so I started taking some stabs at lower quality setups. Like I said, on Kool, or not Kool. Let’s see. Kool, I was green on right away. CDNA, I was actually green on right away so, yeah. But, these first two trades, as soon as i got in I was red on them and they just didn’t work out for me.

You have to be a little careful getting aggressive on B quality setups because that can increase your likelihood of having a bigger red day. Going red minus 800, minus 1,000, minus 1,500. So, you have to have that presence of mind to know whether you have the skill level to be aggressive on lower quality setups or maybe, a little bit more of a complex setup. So, I’m trying to think of a good analogy but, that’s really what it is. If you’re a real beginner, then it’s definitely better to stick with A quality setups because even those, at times, might be hard to identify and you may not trade as well.

Once you become a little bit more advance, you have more years of training under belt, longer track record of consistency, you’re usually going to start feeling a little more comfortable branching out if you need to. Today was a day where I felt like I needed to branch out a little bit to try to capture profit out of the market, on a day where otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gotten anything. But, I obviously was also close to closing the day red on this because of that one trade.

Last trade on Yuma, already went over this. We got this squeeze right off the high of day scanner and ended up being a nice decent trade. So, I was a little overly aggressive on Yuma, CNDA, and maybe on Kool. Kool was a good setup for the break of the view app. Yuma, getting in at the half dollar, it was already up 50% so, that was buying a stock that was pretty high but I thought it had the potential to squeeze into a circuit breaker halt, which is the same thing we saw on Friday on ZN, which gave me a $1,000 winner on Friday. So, that was educated intuition to jump in there at that place. CNDA, Yuma, again, they were both buying stocks a little on the high side. CNDA maybe a little bit worse but kind of looking to see if we would get that squeeze at any point into your circuit breaker halt or over a half dollar or a whole dollar.

I think, of the trades I was looking at, those were worth taking but again, if I had had a really good day, hit my $1,000 goal in the first 30 minutes, I wouldn’t be as aggressive. I mean, that’s just kind of logical. If you have a great start to the day, you don’t need to be as aggressive. You don’t need to take more risks but, when you’re having a day when you’re trying to get yourself out of the hole, sometimes you’re out to do that.

Statistically, if you go into the red and you’re a beginner trader, your best bet for getting out of the hole is waiting for the next A quality setup, waiting maybe even for the next day and just being okay with closing today red. Once you’ve added some of the more complex strategies to your tool belt, you understand how to trade around circuit breaker halts, how to trade the low price stocks, how to trade stocks around half dollars and whole dollars, you might be inclined to take a slightly more aggressive trade knowing that, “Look, if it doesn’t work, I’ll end up hitting my max loss today and that’s it.” But, I wasn’t at my max loss so, I had some room to continue to work.

So, I think today was a fine day. Would have been just nice if I’d had a better start to the day because ZN was obviously a false start and then, SGBX put me right into the red. Goal tomorrow would be that hopefully we see a good opportunity right out of the gates and I don’t start the day in the red, but sometimes, this happens.

But, having said that, I think this is the first day I’ve started the day in the red in … Let’s see. It’s the first day in about 10, 11, 12, 14 days. 14 trading days so, like 3 weeks. Mid June was the last time I had a day like that. Anyways, that’s about it for today. 10th consecutive green day. 126th day of the year. $962.17. I’ll take it. It’s a little below $1,000. Commissions are on the higher side today but that’s a decent start to the week and we’ll be back at it first thing tomorrow morning.

Okay, so that’s it for now. I’ll see you guys in the morning!