February has been a big month for me in terms of process improvement and profits. I picked up some big winners with SPCE long, CZZ short, XPEL short, and TTWO short however I missed a lot of runners as well. February has also been a crazy month towards the end with this current crash in the markets. Amazingly, I managed to switch my bias early and profit off the dip by shorting CZZ, XPEL, and TTWO. Of course there were a lot of losers as well and my strike rate this month was 35% with a 3.35 W:L ratio.
In terms of process improvements, I've changed some of my trading rules to eliminate some of my short comings I noticed last week. For the past month I had been stalking trades on ZM, PAAS, SSRM, and NUGT, however I missed them all. The main reason for this was that all these stock broke out pass my acceptable entry zone right at market open. I had a rule which states "Do not take any trades within the first hour." I only had this rule because that was what one of the professional traders I follow does. I took a deeper dive into my past performance and noticed some of my bigger winners occurred when allowing entries within this time. This makes sense because if a stock is going to breakout, they usually do it right in the morning. I eliminated this rule and I was actually able to catch XPEL short later in the week.
Another improvement I made to my process was introducing Anchored VWAP and the High Volume Node (HVN). Anchored VWAP is best used by Brian Shannon to find sentiment and I now use Anchored VWAP on SPY, QQQ, and IWM for market analysis. The second tool I now use deals with Volume Price Profile, which I have been using for awhile, however after looking through some of my recent trades, I noticed most of my losers had high volume nodes right above the entry. These high volume nodes become areas of resistance which is something I do not want to see when entering a setup. I introduced a new rule to ensure there are no significant HVN between the entry and my target when taking on new trades.
My main goal next month is to simply improve my strike rate. I believe my entry and exit methodologies are acceptable, however I took a lot of unnecessary trades that could have been avoided by simply following market timing rules or using HVN to find nearby resistance. With this current dip, I don't think I will be taking on too many new trades at the beginning of the month until direction, up or down, is confirmed.
In terms of process improvements, I've changed some of my trading rules to eliminate some of my short comings I noticed last week. For the past month I had been stalking trades on ZM, PAAS, SSRM, and NUGT, however I missed them all. The main reason for this was that all these stock broke out pass my acceptable entry zone right at market open. I had a rule which states "Do not take any trades within the first hour." I only had this rule because that was what one of the professional traders I follow does. I took a deeper dive into my past performance and noticed some of my bigger winners occurred when allowing entries within this time. This makes sense because if a stock is going to breakout, they usually do it right in the morning. I eliminated this rule and I was actually able to catch XPEL short later in the week.
Another improvement I made to my process was introducing Anchored VWAP and the High Volume Node (HVN). Anchored VWAP is best used by Brian Shannon to find sentiment and I now use Anchored VWAP on SPY, QQQ, and IWM for market analysis. The second tool I now use deals with Volume Price Profile, which I have been using for awhile, however after looking through some of my recent trades, I noticed most of my losers had high volume nodes right above the entry. These high volume nodes become areas of resistance which is something I do not want to see when entering a setup. I introduced a new rule to ensure there are no significant HVN between the entry and my target when taking on new trades.
My main goal next month is to simply improve my strike rate. I believe my entry and exit methodologies are acceptable, however I took a lot of unnecessary trades that could have been avoided by simply following market timing rules or using HVN to find nearby resistance. With this current dip, I don't think I will be taking on too many new trades at the beginning of the month until direction, up or down, is confirmed.