Day 35 of the $100k Challenge -$592.46 plus Live Trading on $CLVS

Daily Recap to Today’s Trades

All right. Time for a midday market recap. Unfortunately, today is a red day recap. But considering things, it’s really not that bad. I’m down $592 and 46 cents. Finishing the day red on day 35 of the $100,000 challenge, but I’m up … was up about $10,000 between Tuesday and Wednesday so to give back $592 today is really not a big deal. I genuinely don’t care. The only thing I’m annoyed about is that the $724 loss I have on $MBOT was a 100% hotkey error.

Something that hasn’t happened to me in a while, but what I was doing this morning pre-market, I was testing out the fancy stock trading platform. We updated a new version. I just wanted to make sure the hotkeys were working. I went and opened up speed trader and then went back to fancy stock traders, pressed Control 1, thinking I was going to be buying 1,000 shares in fancy stock traders and I bought 2500 pre-market with my live account. Unfortunately, I got in at 798 pre-market and like right here on this pop and then it dropped down here to 777. And I sold on this candle here. I got filled at 776, 75, and 57. That’s an annoying way to start the day, but it’s just one of these things you can’t really do much. I mean you can try to be more careful, but it’s the first time that’s happened to me. I think it’s happened to me … I think that’s the first time I’ve ever accidentally placed an order when I completely wasn’t thinking I was on that screen. Oh well. That cost me $700.

Starting the Day in the Red

I started the day in the hole, but even with that I wasn’t really that worried about it. I just figured, “Yeah, I’ll bounce back. Whatever. 700 bucks, I’ll get it back on the next trade.” So, I got into $RNVA. That was my first trade today. What I liked about it was that it was a recent reverse split. Today was the first day after the reverse split. It was the 30 to 1 reverse split. Before the reverse split, it was a 30 billion float, which means after it’s about a 1 million share float. I thought this had some good potential. We’ve seen some reverse split stocks get pretty parabolic. I thought this one was worth taking a stab at. I got in it with about 13,000 shares at five … sorry, at 250 and 258. I got my average right around 257. We popped up to a high of 275. I was like, “All right, this looks good. $3. That’s kind of where we’re headed, $3.” Then it suddenly pulled back down. On this one, I did the same thing that I did yesterday. I said, “Okay, this just went red on me. I went from being up 15 cents to being down 15 cents. I’m going to try to get out, break even.”

With 13,000 shares, I lost 600 bucks, $695, which is six cents. It’s like, that’s kind of as close to break even as I could get on this one with big size. It just wasn’t … I just didn’t follow through and it wasn’t easy, really because we had some big sellers that were stacked up here in the 60’s. It was worth a try, but it just didn’t work and then, of course, it pulled back pretty sharply here. $RNVA, no go. $MBOT, obviously, the error there. Then the last one I took a stab on for momentum was $NVFY. For those of you watching on Facebook, there’s my P and L today. Down $592. Only 427 before commissions, but commissions are there. I’ll open tomorrow just around 76,600. Plus or minus. Something like that.

Anyways, $NVFY, some pretty good momentum this morning, but I was kind of iffy about it. I really wasn’t confident. It kind of popped up and pulled back. I think I was feeling this was because $RNVA really didn’t work. By the time I was looking at it, it was 10:52 and I was like, “I already missed a bunch of the move. I think today is just not going to be a good day.” At that point I was down $1500 on the day. I was like, “This is just not feeling like my day.” You kind of have to take that cue from the market. If you’re having a day where you look at your P and L and you’re red on three out of the four names or whatever it is, then maybe you should not even be trading. Just throw in the towel. But anyways, I took two trades on $NVFY. I took one trade right here for the first five minute candle to make a new high. Got in at 230. Popped up to a high of 233. I got back out at 230. Exactly break even. Zero profit on it. Obviously, I lost on commissions, but zero profit on it. 5,000 shares. 5,000 in, 5,000 out.

Then I got back in up here for the first five minute candle to make a new high. 5,000 shares at 262. We popped up to 268. I was like, “Okay. That’s good. Now we got to get over 270.” High a day is 275. Three dollars is kind of the next spot on the horizon and we came back down. I stopped at with two cents profit on 5,000 shares. Well, I guess 1.9 cents or something like that because I made 90 bucks. Just under two cents of profit. Again, we just didn’t get the follow through. At that point, I was sort of like, “All right. Maybe I’m done for the day. I’m not feeling it. Today is just not my day.” Then I saw $CLVS on the low a day reversal scanner. This scanner right here. I actually have a recording of this trade for those of you who watch this on YouTube, I’ll cut into the recording in just one second.

But $CLVS basically just a standard reversal set up. When would we look for? At least five consecutive red candles and when I take a one minute entry, at least ten consecutive one minutes candles that are each red. At the very bottom here, this was my entry selling through the high. Took 1,000 shares and I was able to recoup $900, which is good. Closing the day down 592 is certainly better than down 1500 and this was a really nice solid reversal trade. For those of you watching on YouTube, we’ll cut in right now. For those of you on Facebook, you’ll have to watch the YouTube video later.

All right. Hope you guys enjoyed that video. That was me live trading, for those of you who just watched it. Anyone, of course, who is watching this live, go on YouTube, you’ll see it later. But in any case, solid trade on $CLVS. Low pressure, it wasn’t hard. Just got in and rode that momentum. First candle to make a new high, but remember I got in a little early in anticipation of that break by taking an entry at the whole dollar. Entry at 58, stop at low of day. Target the 20 moving average. Very simple trade and ended up being a nice winner.

Now, on this one, I felt confident taking a one minute entry because we had those consecutive red one minute candles. I had someone message me a little bit earlier. Let me see. Where is it? He said, “Take a look at EPC.” Let’s see. EPC. Obviously, a nice extension here. You’ve got two, four, six, eight consecutive red candles on the five minute chart. That’s solid. But, we look at the one minute chart and on the one minute chart the entry is not as clear. Now, you could have taken the first one minute candle to make a new high, which would have been right here at 65. You pop up to a high of 93 and then drop back down as you break low of day, you got to stop out. You got to bail on that. Consolidates and then all of a sudden, it pops up again here. Even though it did this nice reversal, it didn’t give you the predictable entry. You had one minute candle to make a new high here and a second one here and then it went back to low of day and then all of a sudden squeezed up.

On this one, I may have taken the first stab and then slapped out. But I wouldn’t have taken the second one because when it fools me the first time, I just say, “I’m done with it. Now, I’m going to focus on the five minute chart.” But by the time you have five minute confirmation, your entry would have been $78 and now you’re buying at the top of this green candle. That’s too extended. You can’t manage your risk on that and you’re already practically at the 20 moving average, which is your first profit target. They’re not always clean. Just like momentum trades, just like the bull flags, you get the false break outs, the false bounces and then they go back to the lows. But generally, if you’re using these scanners and you trade them enough, as long as you’ve got accuracy at 55, 65%, you’re right more than you’re wrong. The winners are bigger than the losses. It’s a profitable strategy.

Let’s see. Now … Commissions are right here. The ECN fees. Those are where they’re adding up on each of those trades. That’s what’s getting me. The combined commission plus ECN fees is $155 or $159 plus or minus. All right. Let’s see. Yeah, we were also looking at $FLSR, first solar today. This one, I was considering short when we had this kind of move right here. Then I decided that the 20 moving average was too close. I was like, “You know what? I could short this here, but the 20 moving average is my first target and we’re already practically there, so then we consolidate sideways.” And then I was thinking, “Oh, I could go long, but I’m not sure about it.” In hindsight that would have been probably the right move to buy the first pull back. I just wasn’t totally sure on it. Higher price stock and I wasn’t feeling the momentum today.

Mike took an awesome trade on Tesla this morning. Let’s see. Where was that? Can back this up. Tesla was so smooth this morning with these nice, just sharp pull back. Move up. Sharp pull back. Move up. Sharp pull back. Let’s see. He shorted this at, right pretty much out of the gates at 264 on the move up to the 20 moving average right here. And so he was short at 264 and then look at this move from 264 all the way down to 258. That’s six points. That’s a really, really nice short. Very nice trade on that. Bounced back up. Crossed over the 20. Second pull back. Definitely some opportunities today, but not as many for small cap traders. There was $HMNY spiked up for a moment. That one didn’t’ seem to get much follow through. I didn’t like the daily chart. $KBSF spiked up for a moment. Spreads were really big. Just not an easy one to trade. Overall, it just felt like today was kind of a rest day. I think I traded in a pretty smart way today. If I didn’t have that loss, I’d be up 250 bucks. That would be fine.

Don’t Lose Your Focus!

Being up 250 or down 500, when I’m up $68,000 on the month is kind of irrelevant. The important thing is is that I can minimize the draw down. When I’m having a slow day that I keep those losses as small as possible. That way I can just have the big push up and the slight pull back and then back to the up ramp. I don’t want to have those days where I give back $10,000 or $15,000. Although, it’s happened already this year and I’m sure it’ll happen again. I want to do everything possible to minimize that. Today was one of those days where I responded to the market and said, “You know what? Today is not a good day to be aggressive. I’m just going to trade less.” If I see an A quality setup, I’ll jump in it. But if I don’t, then that’s just the way the day is going to be. Here we are, the end of day 35, closing slightly red. But I’ll bounce back tomorrow, hopefully finish the week strong. But at the same time, be mindful of the fact that I’ve been on a pretty good hot streak here. The last red day I had was actually last Wednesday. I guess it’s only a one, two, three day hot streak. But in those three days I made … Let’s see. 6,000 on Thursday, 2600 on Tuesday and 8,000 on Wednesday. 14, 15, $16,000? That’s not too bad.

All right. Anyways, I hope you guys trade smart this afternoon if you’re going to keep trading. Make sure you check out the video on YouTube. I’ll post that just in a few minutes. And you can leave comments on YouTube and questions. I’ll answer them on YouTube or on Facebook and I’ll answer them there as well. Okay, guys. I’ll see you all first thing tomorrow morning.

All right and remember Mike is doing warrior procession at 4:00 PM, so you guys will be able to catch up with him. I’m going to … I recorded this midday recap and I’m going to upload it to Youtube.