This was just bad and irresponsible. I tried to do something I’ve thought about, but have never really practiced, and, really, goes against most of my rules. This spiked on the daily chart over the last week or so, but I can’t say that it was in a definite uptrend. That said, it was on a bit of a pullback over the last couple of days, so I thought that would be a good point to enter if it pushed back up. Also, I’ve been trying to fade opening moves, and since this opened down, I thought it would be a good catalyst to push back up throughout the morning.
I looked down at the 3 min. chart, and price had made a rally, pulled back a considerable amount, then pushed up again. It was on yet another retest when I looked to put an order in here. I wanted to get in around 8:15, but price had pushed through that a bit by the time I put the order in, so I set a limit order (another mistake) to get in if price corrected some more.
Entry – $8.16
Target – $8.27
Stop – $8.11
R:R – 2.2
Entry – $8.16
Unfortunately, the limit order triggered pretty quickly at, yes, a “better” price, but during a movement in the opposite direction — I didn’t wait for/allow for a confirmation back to the upside before I tried getting into the trade.
Granted, I do see a lot of professional traders doing that, but A) that’s their edge and B) they’re making hundreds of trades per day — if I were doing that, I could take 3 – 4 shots on the same stock in the same direction if my conviction is there (not saying it would be necessarily for this one, but for dip-buying in general), and this wouldn’t have been as big of a mistake. But since I’m limited in the amount I can trade, I have to be more patient and wait for better setups and confirmations.
I tried to pull the trigger on a couple of different stocks this morning, too, but wasn’t able to due to my account limitations, but I monitored them and would’ve had at least one break-even trade, if not a winner. Without actually trading, though, it’s impossible to say what “could’ve” or “would’ve” happened.
Exit – $8.11
Ultimately, the only trade I made today was a mistake, but it wasn’t that big of a mistake and I know not to do that in the future. Now that I’m thinking about it, too, there was a stock (Uber, I think) that I wanted to fade the initial down move, and when I looked at the chart was basing, and I thought about putting in an order on it breaking to the up-side. BUT I remembered how I’d done that a couple of times in the past (trying to take trades in the opposite direction of the immediate trend on a base, instead of a retest or reversal move) and they didn’t work out for me, so I told myself not to make that mistake.
I looked at Uber later, and sure enough, it made another fairly strong move down off of that base. I could’ve shorted it, but the point of this is that I am learning and recognizing and while I did lose a trade today, I’m still vested in a lot of areas and I can see the progress and the growth. Just Keep Swimming!