Winter Snow Storm & Finishing The Week +$11,612.50

What’s up, everyone? All right. So another episode of Driving With Ross. We’re wrapping up the week here. This week has been a little bit trick. I had my biggest red day of the year so far down $7,300. Any time I have a day that deep in the red, it definitely requires a few minutes of self reflection, a few minutes of kind of looking over the strategy. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? Was this just a bad day?

In truth, I actually wasn’t as upset yesterday as I was on the day before when I lost $800 in my IRA. I was actually more upset about losing $800 in the IRA than $7,000 in my main account. The reason is because my IRA only has $10,000. So that $800 loss, for me, just feels a lot more painful. It’s a small account. I’m really trying to make slow and steady progress and having that type of set back is just super frustrating. I’m also limited to only three trades per week. So I blow one of the trades on a loss and I’ve only got two more to make it up.

So realistically, the next trade is just going to get me back to break even. Then maybe the trade after that puts me up into the green, but it just kind of stacks the cards against me. So that was actually more frustrating than anything else. I was really upset about that loss. Losing $7,500 yesterday or $7,300, whatever it was not as big of deal. I think that’s because I’m still well into the green in that account on the week. Still green on the week. Still in really good shape on the year. So it’s just kind of like this is what happens when you are aggressive.

I remember three, four, five years ago a $7,500 loss would have been pretty devastating. I would’ve felt like, “Oh my God. This is time to throw in the towel.” It would’ve been really painful. But now since my biggest green day in the last two months was a $40,000 day, losing $7,500 just isn’t as big of deal. It kind of … You know what I was saying a little bit yesterday is that lets kind of look at my best day and my worst day of the last six months. Best day was $40,000 in the green. Worst day was $15,000 in the red. Everything in between is just noise. It’s nothing to get bent out of shape about. It’s nothing to be really super excited about. It’s just noise. A green day I’m up $8,000. That’s great. Fine. It’s no reason to celebrate. A red day I’m down $5,000, $8,000. Whatever. It’s not a big deal. It’s no reason to get bent out of shape.

It’s easier said than done because, of course, I can’t help but feel like when I have a day when I make $8,000. Well, yeah, that’s just what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to come here every day and make money. So when I have a day where I lose money, I’m doing something wrong. So my emotional kind of range it’s either normal, I’m doing good, or I’m disappointed because I had a bad day. So I have to really try to correct myself and say, “Look, yeah, you lost $7,300 or you lost $800 in your IRA. It’s not a big deal. This is just the noise. This is the stuff in between.” This is the hard part about this job though is every single day it comes down to did you win or did you lose? Did you make money? Did you lose money? Any day where you lost money there’s just that feeling of I screwed up.

Getting to a point where you’re okay with being in the red is a huge turning point. It’s really empowering. So for me being red $7,300 and yesterday and really just being like okay with it. Yeah, it’s no big deal. That’s a big thing. So for you guys, even if the numbers are smaller. You’re red $730 and you’re okay with it, that’s a big deal. That’s what I want you guys to really kind of strive for is being okay with being in the red. Being okay with loss because once you’re okay with it, once you’re embracing it and you’re like, “Yeah, this isn’t a big deal,” it really empowers you. It frees you to just focus on being the best trader you can be. You’re no longer obsessed with trying to minimize the losses or hold on to losing trades because you’re afraid to lock it up and make it real. It’s definitely a big step. I really encourage you guys to kind of be okay with losing.

One of the things that I’ve sort of tried to encourage new traders to do, especially in the simulator, is set automatic stops of 10 cents on every trade. What’s going to happen is you’re going to get stopped out a lot. You’re going to lose 10 cents. But you’re going to realize it’s no big deal. You kind of have to go through this process of conditioning yourself to be okay with those small loses because the reality is if I can cap every single once of my loses to only 10 cents, oh my God, I mean, it would be a total game changer. That’s not realistic for me when I trade with 15,000, 17,000 shares just due to slippage. But if you can get yourself in the habit of being really comfortable with taking small loses, it kind of breaks down that emotional barrier, that emotional fear and anger that can come with losing money trading.

All right. So with all that said, let’s get into today’s midday market recap and break down the trades from this morning.

All right everyone. So we’re going to break down our trades from this morning. Finishing the week here with a green day, which is how I love to finish the week. So let’s see. I’ll bring up my broker layout here. So finishing with $2,650.33. Not a bad way to finish the week. Green is absolutely good. Only two stocks that I traded this morning. One was a good size winner, $3,100 on BSPM. Then a $477 loser on OHGI. Again, no trades in my IRA today. This week, unfortunately, I only took one trade in the IRA and it was a loser. So just didn’t really see anything that I felt confident enough to jump into in the IRA. Well, except for the one that was a loser, but that’s okay. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll just be back at that first thing on Monday morning. Hopefully we’ll see some good opportunities early in the week. So that account is just kind of idling right now.

But my main account here, trying to get a little bit of redemption, a little bit of a bounce back. Obviously I was red yesterday and I was red on Wednesday. So two red days in a row. Really my only goal today was to try to close the day green. I mean, I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I didn’t want to set the goal that I would make up all of the loses from yesterday. That’s called trying to get revenge on the market. The market will always remind you that it’s stronger than you. Always. So you have to just take smart trades. I took some smart trades today and came out of the market with profit. However, yesterday losing $7,300 and losing $4,000 the day before certainly has put me a little bit in the red for the last three days. So total profit in the last … Well, total profit on the week here is over $11,000, which is terrific. $11,612. I’m totally happy with that. That’s a really great week. But my average for the last three days is obviously not terrific since I had two red days. What it means now is that my daily average … Today is the 23rd day of 2018 and I’m averaging $4,877 per day for a total profit of $112,000 on the year. Currently I’m red about $5,000 on the month of February.

So I started January in the red. I started January with a $4,500 red day and I finished January with well over $100,000 in profit. So I’m not going to get myself bent out of shape here that I’ve ruined the month because we’ve got a lot of time for a rebound. So hopefully we’ll see good opportunities early next week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and I can start getting myself a little bit more into the driver’s seat. But at the same time, if the market does start to slow down and get a little choppier, I need to be willing to just take the $2,000 days and not try to keep swinging for the fences and trying to aim for $8,000 or $10,000 day. Because $2,000 a day is good money, especially if $2,000 a day is the best I can do during a slow market because I know when the market does pick back up, it’ll go back to those big days.

That’s one of the hardest things is you get used to doing $8,000 or $9,000 a day. So a day where you’re only making $2,600 feels like it’s not a lot in terms of profit. But the reality is this is a great day. $2,600 is very good.

So let’s look at BSPM. BSPM was the first stock I traded this morning. I actually tried to take 10,000 shares at 93. 393. I didn’t get filled. So as soon as the bell rang, this started surging up. I was watching it to break yesterday’s high because I knew if it broke yesterday’s high, which was 392, that it would probably test 420, which was the high from Wednesday. If it broke 420, we had room up to 597. So that was what I was looking at as the potential on the day. So it started to spike up, I tried to jump in at 93. But I didn’t want to chase it. So I got filled only 1,400 shares. Then I canceled these orders and added just about 2,500 at 4.98. Then this I’ll show you in a second. That was a trade a few minutes later.

So I started with about 3,500 shares at 394. So it pops up to a high of 410. I said, “Okay. I’m going to wait now for the first pull back before adding full size.” We get the pull back right here and I add at 4.05, 4.06 for the first one minute candle to make a new high. Right? First one minute candle, make a new high. I add at six and nine and 10. I’m selling at 17 and at 20 and at seven and at 15. So right through there by this time in the day I was up $1,800. $1,800 right there. So now I’m saying, “Okay. Good. That’s great. $2,000 in the first four minutes is terrific. Now I’m looking to get back in.” I got back in at 418 for the high day break. We got a break here up to a high of 438. I was selling at 4.23 and sold the rest at $4 as it dropped back down. Didn’t end up really being that big of a winner. I guess that was right in this area. I just sort of started feeling like it was getting choppy and it wasn’t really holding up very well. You can see even right now with $10 million shares of volume, it’s only up 24% on the day. It’s kind of been a little bit of a struggle.

So I ended up getting back in BSPM at 4.29 and 4.30, which was right through here on this pull back. So I added back right in here and sold at 4 … Let’s see. At 4.49, 4.46. I added at 4.46 and then I sold more at 4.49 and 4.45 and 4.37, 4.44. So total profit $3,127 on that name. Not bad. But not the easiest one to trade. So it ended up pulling back here and consolidating. I said, “Yeah. Maybe it’s worth watching over 4.35.” What ended up happening is it all of a sudden curled up. Let’s see, where was it. Started to curl up right here up to 4.35. It broke over that level and it squeezed in one candle all the way up to 4.70. I have looked away from the computer for like five minutes. I look back and it was halted. It then resumes from the halt all the way back down at 4.30, which is really unusual. Typically when stocks halt going up, they open higher. This one opened way down here at 4.30. Then it just rolled over.

So that’s the choppiness of the stock today. It’s not been very easy to trade. It hasn’t been really giving up 15, 20, 30 cent windows. It’s been more like five to 10 cent windows. So the only way to profit was for me to take 10,000, 15,000 shares and try to get those small gains.

So FTR spiking up a little bit here as you can see up to 9.

So today, generally speaking, was just not a very easy day for me. My one loss on OHGI. I got in it at 2.50. I saw it squeezing up here and I thought it looked good. Volume was coming in. Daily chart at that point was looking pretty good. I got in at 2.50 with 6,000 shares and stopped out for a eight cent loss. $480 in the red.

Then that was it. Really nothing else. We haven’t had any other good opportunities today. So I’m feeling good that I’m closing the day green, which was my kind of minimum goal. $2,600 is really not a bad day, especially for a Friday after a couple of chopping days. So I think my game plan will be come back on Monday morning. Hopefully we see some really good opportunities. I’m able to start to get myself into the green for the month of February, and build up those profits.

Last year, February was my best month of the year until I broke the February gains in November. So I do think that February has a lot of potential. This has just been a little bit of a choppy start the last couple days. It’s probably been in part because of the sell of in the crypto markets. I mean, I think we’ve definitely seen a lot of sympathy in the regular stock market because of what’s going on in the crypto market. So that’s kind of something that I’m definitely mindful of.

I’ll show you. Let’s see. Here’s crypto watch. I mean, it’s red all across the board pretty much. BitCoin is down 8% today. We’re at $8,500. It’s just not been … Since from $19,000 down here, consolidation, and breaking down even more. So this is not probably helping small caps because this is certainly showing weakness. I’m just kind of waiting for the crypto markets to turn around a little bit. We had a little bit of curl here and then on January 4th, and then we’ve just dipped down some more. Ethereum has been holding up better than BitCoin, but a bit of drop here as well. So I think that that’s weighing a bit on the small cap markets, especially with so many small caps in the last couple months coming out with news about going into Blockchain or going into developing Blockchain technology or going into crypto mining and stuff like that. With the crypt market down 50%, that’s not going to be super, super good for those types of small caps. That’s something to be mindful of.

We also certainly have the issue with the overall market, S&P 500 down … Dow Jones is down 330 points today. We’re in a little bit of a pull back here. I’m not really concerned about the sky falling because we had such a massive move up. This is regular to be expected profit taking. But it certainly is also a factor. So last couple of days market dipping down a bit from a high of 286 down here towards 278. A little bit of a pull back. Not really what we love to see for long term holding. But at the same time it’s most likely a pull back, consolidation, and then a curl back up. What we like to see on these pull backs is that they get bought up, right? So the pull backs back here, especially in this area, at the time it was like, “Oh. I don’t know.” These were some big red days. Look how big those red candles are. Big red candles. But the pull back got bought up and we’ve certainly squeezed up since then.

That’s what you kind of have to think of this as is a buying opportunity, a little bit of a pull back in the market. If we get down, even if we came all the way down to the 200 moving average, which would be a really massive pull back, it’s still relatively speaking wouldn’t be outrageous, especially if that happened over the course of a couple of weeks. We kind of had this consolidation somewhere in here.  At this point, I’m not too worried about it. I’m just kind of going to keep an eye on what the overall market does and hope that on Monday we have some better opportunities for small caps. But if we do end up having to deal with a little bit of a choppy market here for the next couple weeks or whatever it might be, I think the game plan will be just to try to be focused on taking those small profits when we get them. Grabbing the 10, 15 cents. Keeping tight stops and just try to keep having these $1,000, $2,000 days because this is a great way to just kind of grind through the choppy market.

All right. So that’s about it for me. I hope you guys have a great weekend. I’m going to upload 2017 year in a review over the weekend. So you guys will be able to find that on YouTube either Saturday or Sunday. I will see all of you back here on Monday morning.

All right. Have a great weekend everybody.

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