Good Friday, So my first week back in PDT jail has come to a close. It has been hard, with success, lots of lessons, and much more time for studying. I'm glad that the markets are closed today and I can just focus on studying. 

First trades of the week were on $IRNC. This stock came up on my watchlist on Tuesday because of positive news catalyst, and big % gain. It's pattern intraday on Tuesday pointed to an intrady breakout. It had big volume, a solid news catalyst of 7 patents being granted, and was holding higher highs. I made a plan to buy and sell based on simple RMS strategy. I had a day trade available so I knew I could enter the position once and exit it once in the day.

When it broke out above the  morning high, I waited for it to prove that it wasn't going to dip below the previous high at .0217. I was risking off the support levels from previous intraday high around .0215. I didn't really know what was potential on the upside, but I did know that the stock had a poor history of holding its gains. Furthermore the CEO J.D. McGraw had previously run an oil company that had gone bankrupt so I was very skeptical of this company.

I entered the trade at the bottom of a green 1 minute candle that had bottomed out above the previous red candle. At 12:47 pm est. I purchased 50,000 shares at .0223 for $1115. My risk being just below previous highs at .0215 gave me a $40 risk level or 3.5% loss on investment. I saw the strength this stock was showing in volume and based on the catalyst I gave my self a simple r/r of 1:5. Reward levels were placed at .0263 or $200 gain for a 17.93% gain. At 1:30pm roughly 45 minutes after entering the trade my reward levels were reached. The stock was also beginning to show increasing signs of weakness and volume was drying up. I placed my order and it was executed without trouble. 

For the next 2 hours the stock dipped and consolidated above the intraday high (Support/risk) level that I had originally set. When the stock perked above the new intraday high, close to where I had sold my previous position, I decided to plan an overnight trade if the stock  could hold around its 2nd intraday high into the close.

2nd trade on $IRNC into the close of Tuesday. This stock had proven itself to have strength and volume and to be setting higher highs. It had already set 8 new high of the day peaks.

In hindsight, I see my mistakes in trading this stock, by not establishing breakout lines, and support lines. When I think of Mark Crooks webinars in live trading, or in Tim Lento's weekly wrap-up, their charts are aways covered in intraday, multi-day, and multi-week/month/year support and resistance lines. I am not saying that I disregard these levels altogether, but I am admitting that I think I can look at these charts and make mental notes or alarms at b/o or support/ resistance levels and that I will know what I was thinking earlier. This is flawed thinking on my part. Because of the quantity of noise inherently included in the days trading there is no way that I can accurately memorize all the support/ resistance and b/o levels on every chart. The simple act of using one platform for all of my chart research, for creating alarms, and for analyzing technical data means that I can add my own data, and have this data available at my fingertips. By not doing this intraday, I am admitting to my own laziness and lack of discipline in trading. By doing it at the end of the week when I am wrapping up my weeks lessons, I am admitting to myself how important these key levels are.

It is all well and fine to digress and embrace the hidden lessons at the end of the week but in order for me to become a consistently successful trader, I need to use the tools that I have at my fingertips everyday. The wonderful thing about realizing what tools I want to be using to help me become a better trader, is that I am probably not the only one that wants to use these tools. This means that someone has probably come up with an automated chart study that will quickly and accurately give me the data I want when I am looking at a chart. What tool/ study is this? Well I found that if I tweaked the price channel study, and actually added 2 different studies to a chart, one to modify the high price, and one to indicate the low price, I could easily identify where my intraday breakout lines should be, as well and support and resistance lines. It doesn't do all the work, but it does offer a place to start from. Any ways, I will get back to this post in a bit, but wanted to finish that thought.

As I was saying I entered my 2nd trade on $IRNC planning on holding it overnight. I was keeping my position size the same, but my risk level was now greater because the price I entered the trade at left me with a clear $130 potential loss, where support had been holding throughout the day. So my question to myself in hindsight is, okay, you see where you are entering at, you now know where support/ risk is at. Do you maintain your 1:5 R/R or do you modify your reward, based on the risk?

So I didn't modify my reward based on my risk, I just rolled over my reward $ value from the previous trade, and kind of went into the next day a little blind as to the potential loss or profit on this new trade. This is okay. I realize that this is a pattern for me. I have a very hard time focusing on staying in my R/R when I am making a trade. It is almost as if my anxiety blinds me, and allows me to break every rule. I am trading scared, actually I feel like I am trading scared shitless. This is a recipe for disaster. How can I accommodate my anxiety, put my fundamental of trading into place, and trade like a machine? I guess this is the start of a huge journey for me. One that will challenge the very molecular level at which my mind operates on. 

SO to finish up the trade, the morning comes around, the stock gaps up a little and panics down to the risk level, and then starts a steady climb up. It is crazy when I look at the 5 minute chart for this stock. It shows me selling into the middle of a huge green candle. LOL. I stuck with my plan, when it hit my $200 profit mark a 17.5% gain on the trade, I exited. safe and sound. hitting a single. Had I held the stock for another 7 minutes, while it was still strong I could have exited at .036 for $425 profits or a solid 30% trade. So I realize my mistake. When a stock is running, and you are making profits, let it blow through your target reward and be ready to sell when it starts to slow up. Patience for the gainers, no patience for the losers. Also being under PDT doesn't allow one to enter and exit a stock as freely as you would want. The stock would continue on to make higher highs and finally reach its peak at .0635 at the close of the day. I left $1600 on the table a potential profit of 130%. I am not bitter, I understand why I held fast and close to my rule. I have been a rule breaker. Not because I am a bad boy, but because trading isn't easy. It isn't a walk in the park. The very fundamentals get me so shaken up when I am about to enter into a trade, or trying to cut a trade, that my thinking and functioning get all scrambled up. The cure, the solution. Practice! Practice! Practice! STUDY STUDY STUDY. I'm okay with that. I am managing the release of endorphins when it is time to execute a trade. I will get better at it.

So as this is a weekly wrap-up, I should touch on my other trades, where I traded like a sheep and gotten eaten by the wolves for doing so. I bought KBLB on Thursday morning, Tims webinar on it gave me so much confidence in the stock that I just blindly tried hitting the buy button as quick as I could thrusday morning. I didn't know what my risk level actually was, I kind of know what the profit expectation was. I was a planning on making this trade, as I had been watching it steadily on Wednesday, but didn't want to just jump in because of tims trade alert. So what do I realize from this trade, which by the way is still open, I am down .01 on 2500o shares. Not exactly inline with my previous r/r, but inline with what was projected as a potential .15-.17 target sell price. What causes morning panics. stockholders selling off their overnight positions. the price drops because the buyers don't want to pay the asking price, the price the sellers are at, so the prices start to get discounted to bring in other buyers and here the price moves down. When the price willing to be paid by the buyers matches that of the sellers, the price levels off, and when the buyers are more aggressive than sellers, meaning they are willing to pay the ask, the price goes up. Simple right. well, try to get that from a chart with bouncing lines, and level 2 information ticking away. I get it, it takes practice, It takes looking at what I did objectively, not with a right or wrong mindset, just as a here is what happened, here is the data that we should have been processing, here is what that data means, and here is how we should react to it.

so $KBLB was fading rapidly, the volume was there, but because the price was going down, and level 2 showed more sellers than buyers, I should have been patient and waited for the sellers to dry up, and the buyers strength to come in. Instead I already knew what was going to happen, This company was going to make mad designer fabrics, and they had a quote from a billon dollar company CEO. Was I ever sold. I had to ignore the data right in from of my eyes, because I knew this panic was going to turn around at any moment and this stock was going to go through the roof. LOL.... I exaggerate a little, but maybe only a little. I wasn't patient with my entry. I bought while the stock was selling off, I didn't wait for it to bottom, and turn around and show of strength. I am so afraid of missing out. FOMO is real! that I blindly bought the stock, and was immediately underwater, where I stayed the entire day. not such a good feeling. I'm not going to be to hard on myself. I will live to trade another day. I am holding $KBLB into the opening next week, where maybe the volume will be. It held its previous days gains. So here is to swinging the position. A pattern that I began with, before I knew anything, and what brought me to Tim Sykes. I realized I was playing a pattern, I realized I knew nothing about what I was doing. I liked the process, et viola! I am here learning. listening, feeling, practicing and studying. 

Final trade of the week was on $PRPO. I again was a sheep being led by our teacher Mark Crook. When he exited his position, I didn't, and lost $65 bucks waiting, holding and hoping. lesson learned. don't be a sheep, and when the stock isn't going your way get out fast. cut your losses even quicker. cut them for a potential gain. I had profits for a minute, but the stock wasn't going anywhere. If it isn't going to break through the ceiling than get out. It can surely find the basement real easy.

Happy studying everyone.

sorry for the book