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I had been having less success swing trading over the last couple of weeks, so I decided to take a break. My DTs were all back, so I decided to take a stab at day-trading — see if I could make some quick money on a Thursday.

AMD’s price action had shown strength during the couple of months prior to me getting to this chart, but had peaked in late March and pushed down from there. At the same time, the S&P that morning had gapped up to some resistance after being down the last couple of days, which looked to me like a retest and further weakness; so I looked for Shorts. Here are my notes from that morning:

Since I’m planning on day-trading today, I’m starting my analysis on the 2 Hour chart. With that in mind, I just came across AMD. It was strong for a few months, but peaked in late March and has been pushing down since then. Looking at more recent activity: yesterday, price gapped up but failed to hold on to the gains and mostly moved sideways throughout the day. This morning, price is pushing back down, and is stalling at the support area it created when it gapped up. If this can push through that area and fill the gap, this could be a great move. I’m going to look at lower time-frame charts for better entries.

Entry 1 – $85.41

Price pushed down fairly quickly and triggered me in to the trade; and very quickly reached 1R. I moved my stop to break even, and felt good about it. I was even able to move my stop in to profit a little bit.

Entry 2 – $84.85

I started looking at a couple of other charts, to see if there were other day trading opportunities, but nothing was moving very quickly anymore. I came back to AMD and it had gotten near my target, but was on a rally. Scared money don’t make money, and I was quite bearish this stock, so I took another shot to the short side at that resistance area. My attempt at legging-in.

Exit (both) – $85.23

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a retest — price continued to rally and pushed up for the next three days. Ultimately, I made a little bit on my first entry, but lost a lot on my second entry, for, overall, a losing day.

I don’t hate the idea of legging in, but I definitely need more practice. One big thing I need to remember is that I don’t need to re-run the numbers to figure out how many shares to take when legging in; I need to take the same as my original position size, precisely for this reason. If I am wrong about the leg-in, I don’t want to lose more than my original position like I did in this scenario. I will be better.

Other than that, I could also argue that I shouldn’t have legged in here at all. Price pushed down strong when it neared my target, and I should’ve seen that as an exhaustive/extended move.

Overall, I’m not terribly upset with this trade. Could I have recognized a couple things? Sure. But I followed my rules, I tried to act without fear/emotion, and I took a shot at a new strategy. All positives, that will lead to success. As they say, you learn more from your failures than successes.

Obviously these few losses in a row are a bit discouraging, but I have to take things a day at a time and keep working and keep figuring things out. On to the next one!

The post Trade | Stock | AMD | Short appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

This is another stock whose chart patterns and price action looked really good to me when I took it, and is disappointing that it didn’t work out. I took a longer-term approach, seeing how even taking trades on a 2-hour chart were often stopping me out the same day; so this trade was taken on the 4h chart.

I started my trading analysis on the 3 day chart. Price had recently made a new high but at the time I looked at this, price was sitting closer to the lows of the candle (which was a prior high). I dropped down to the 4h chart, and while the candles didn’t show a pullback “pattern”, price showed a pullback — as in, within that 4h candle, price had come down enough to retest that area.

Here are my notes from that morning:

This is the first thing I’m liking this morning. Looking at the 3 day chart, price peaked at the beginning of the month, had a week or so of a pullback, then pushed back up through those highs. Today, price gapped down a bit at the open, but reached a more recent support area and is pushing back up. Other than a candle from last week, nothing here looks extended, and I already ran the numbers — getting in at a push above yesterday’s highs, with my stop at the peak that it reached at the beginning of the month — R:R is quite nice. It’s a longer-term lookout, too, so I’m comfortable putting an order out there. I can always adjust it if the stock moves strangely.

The price of this had been very strong over the last few months as well, so I thought this would be a continuation of that strength; and while I did see some resistance near my entry, I figured if it broke that area, it was even more evidence of strong upward movement, and that it would continue to run to at least the next major resistance area.

Entry – $167.50

Things looked okay for the rest of the day after triggering the trade. Price didn’t push up as fast as I’d have liked, but it didn’t drop too quickly either. Price basically hovered around my entry until the market closed — at which point, price was sitting at my entry. I continued to feel good about the trade.

Exit – $166.02

The next morning, I got to the charts early, knowing I was in a trade; and pre-market, things didn’t look good. Price was down quite a bit, but was still above my stop. I was hopeful but getting worried. As the market open grew closer, price continued to fall; and when the market did open, price gapped right to my stop — stopping me out for a full loss right at the open.

Everything looked good here until it closed. If I had to nitpick and say there was a mistake that was made, it’s that the chart didn’t form a retest pattern per se. It may have on a lower time-frame chart, but it didn’t on the 4h. I just did it based on where the price was, not the candlesticks. Maybe I should be putting more stock (no pun intended) into the patterns and not just price action. Something to think about going forward. In the meantime, I just need to keep swimming and not get discouraged.

The post Loss | Stock | AAPL | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

This one actually hurt a little bit. It shouldn’t, and I’m moving past it, but I can’t lie. It stung. Equities were making a recovery and it looked like a great day for longs; and this had been pushing up for a while, recently breaking a strong resistance area. Here are my notes from before the trade:

This is the first thing jumping out to me this morning. Looking at the daily chart, this has been pushing up all year, and strong over the last 5 trading days. This morning, price broke a fairly major key level, and as of typing this, it’s pulling back and retesting that level. I’m going to pick a target and run numbers here and put an order out if they align.

Entry – $138.72

Exit – $136.17

Price made another push up shortly after I set my entry order, which triggered me in to the trade, then it hovered around that level for a bit. Slowly, it started to drop, but it was slow, didn’t seem to be a lot of actual selling pressure, so I left this alone.

Eventually, price reached another support level, and made a push back up — at the same time, the S&P was breaking the recent highs and making new highs. So, again, I remained optimistic. Unfortunately, though, price only pushed up a little, back to some resistance and pushed back down through the rest of the day. I thought I had my stop wide enough that the day would close before price dropped to my stop, but that wasn’t the case, and I was triggered out of the trade about 10 min. before the close.

Honestly, again, this one stung because I feel like I made very little, if any mistakes with this trade. Maybe I could argue that the move the few days prior to the breakout was extended, but it really doesn’t look that bad to me. That’s trading, right? It’s all probabilities. I just need to pick myself up and find the next opportunity.

The post Loss | Stock | CRWD | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

This is the first interesting thing I’m seeing today. Looking at the daily chart, price has been pushing up since the beginning of March, reached a peak about 4 trading days ago, and has pulled back from there. It reached some support (that was prior resistance) and today, has pushed up from that level. Right now, the candle that’s showing has a long lower shadow and almost no body.

On the 1h chart, price gapped up a bit and had a strong push, then pulled back during the next candle. The pullback is to a strong support level (again, on the 1h chart) and if it can break the day’s highs, there’s some gap to fill. Since I’m bullish overall right now, this pullback looks like the perfect opportunity to get in to. I’m going to set an entry on the break of the day’s highs if the R:R is there.

The market failed to hold on to any of the early gains, and failed to make another push up to/through the day’s highs. It actually, has started to drop and is down ~1/4% now (at 10:00am). So, I’m shifting my outlook because I didn’t really see any longs I liked anyway (shortly after setting my entry order in MSFT price continued to drop, taking out my would-be stop by a lot, so I cancelled the order).

Update: 11:13 — Equities began to rally, and pushed up to +.24% on the day — it appeared the strength came back. I had cancelled my MSFT order because it pushed down through my stop level, but coming back now, it only wicked below that — that candle closed above. With the market rallying, I decided to put the order back out there.

Entry – $285.17

Exit – $285.16

On the bright side, price was strong, so it made it to (the new, based on my actual entry) 1R, within the next few minutes, but that’s roughly as far as it made it; it pulled back from there and stopped me out at, basically, break even (a 1¢/share loss, again).

Ultimately, had it triggered correctly, it would’ve been a full loss, so I guess that’s something. But still, I can’t call this a good trade. I made a mistake with my entry, and happened to get lucky. That said, with a smaller risk size, the path to 1R was smaller, which is something I try to keep in mind, but it has to all be within the framework of my plan and the patterns I see.

Price did, as of this morning (4/13) push up through my initial entry and to my original 1R — and look like it might hit my target — but based on how I trade, and traded it yesterday, I’m not sure I would’ve caught it. I think I’m just going to completely put this one out of my mind, act as if it was a practice trade on a strategy that I “just want to see how it would work” and move on.

Just keep swimming.

The post  Break Even | Stock | MSFT | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

After a couple of corrective days — including one that lost me 2 trades, equities appeared to be recovering back to the up-side. I wasn’t having the best day the morning I took this trade, so I didn’t do a full analysis of equities — I glanced, then started looking for entries; and I didn’t do a pre-trade write-up of this, just a blurb once I was in the trade. Here’s that blurb:

I just put an order out in CSCO. I didn’t do a full write-up here about it.. I guess I’m feeling lazy this morning. Looking at the daily chart, price has been pushing up since Mid-October of last year, moved sideways for a lot of Q4-Q1, but has been pushing up again over the last couple of weeks. Price made a new high on the 1st, and has pulled back from there, and this morning gapped down to a strong support area (the highs of the sideways movement from before). With my bullish sentiment, and the gap that looks like it could be filled, I liked this trade. The R:R was there, too.

Entry – $51.25

Exit – $51.24

Price did push up, starting to fill the gap, but didn’t fully. It made it to 1R, so I was able to move my stop to break even, but from there, price dropped, eventually stopping me out for a technical (1¢ per share) loss.

I can’t see any glaring mistakes that I made with this trade, other than my half-assed analysis the morning of. Which, is a mistake. That said, just because I can’t see any real mistakes, doesn’t mean I’m patting myself on the back for this trade — it wasn’t a full loss, which is good, but I’m looking for winners.

I should probably not trade at all if I’m not feeling great the morning of, but that’s a conversation for another time and place. Largely, I need to make sure I’m going through all of my paces on every trade, so  that I’m making the best, most-informed decision I can make. That’s ultimately my goal: making the best, most informed decision I can possibly make, and this wasn’t that. Here’s to being better going forward.

The post Break Even | Stock | CSCO | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

ROKU – Long – This is interesting, so I want to talk about it. This hit a low at the end of last year, and pushed up strong through the first month+ of the year. There was a fairly deep pullback early-mid Feb. but then there was a HUGE spike over the next 3 days. From that spike (up to ~$76), price pulled back and through most of march stayed in a choppy range between roughly $60 and $68. This morning, price pushed up strong at the open, and took out the range highs, pushing above $68; but almost immediately has pulled back and is now sitting at the highs of that range.

Sheesh, there’s a LOT of chop here, and a lot of areas I could consider resistance where price could stall or I could put an entry order. But I don’t want to leave it alone, because it was such large break of a significant resistance area. Looking, again, at that prior spike in mid February, and it happened around earnings. There are more earnings at the end of this month, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the same thing. The only thing is, my trading style doesn’t really allow for me to hold for that long… That said, pricing in is a thing, so I want to get in early — I just don’t want to get stopped out at break even or, worse, a full exit, just before price shoots up.

I think I’m just going to take a longer-term bias on this, have a wider stop, a smaller position size, and remember that I’m thinking about earnings here and have that play in to how I manage this trade.

Entry – $67.02

Entry – $67.00
Target – $76.00
Stop – $65.50
R:R – 6.00

Exit – $65.52

Price rallied hard, enough to trigger me in to the trade and pushing up enough to make it 90% of the way to 1R. But, just as quickly — within the same candle, and under 10 minutes — dropped hard falling all the way to my stop-loss.

The move happened so fast, that I’m not sure I would’ve been able to move my stop in time, had I been actively managing it. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have moved my stop even if I’d been right on top of this. I took the trade on the 2h chart, expecting things to be slow-moving, so near 1R isn’t enough, according to my rules, to move my stop; so I probably would have ended up leaving it, resulting in the same outcome.

Really, the only thing I need to say about this trade is that I need to stay in my lane with my trades. I was looking at earnings, which I’ve never done before; and this was a ranging stock, rather than a trending one. I got a little overzealous, a little overconfident, and it bit me in the butt. The bright side being that I recognized I wasn’t in my lane, and took a smaller position size. Time to just keep swimming and looking for opportunities that I’m more confident will produce.

The post Loss | Stock | ROKU | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

I came across ABNB (AirBNB) in my screener, and liked what I saw. Here are my notes from this morning:

Entry – $121.58

Exit – $120.60

Price rallied enough to trigger me in to the trade, but less than 10 minutes later, dropped and stopped me out of the trade for a full loss.

I’m journaling this trade a few days later, and hindsight being what it is, I can see where I probably made a couple of mistakes here. Firstly, equities had been up very strong over the last 4 days, with a couple of gaps and no drops, so I should’ve been more prepared for a slowdown. Things were extended, but I must have gotten excited.

Secondly, my entry was largely arbitrary. Price retested a support area that was prior resistance, but was above that area when I looked at this — and not wanting to miss it, I “found” another entry. And, in order to maintain a solid R:R, I set my stop above that support-prior-resistance area (not that it mattered, because price pushed through that level, too, but still, I need to be more disciplined).

Ultimately, I rushed this trade. I was feeling extra confident, and because of it, I didn’t really take my time with my analysis, and tried to create something that wasn’t actually there. This trade also triggered a little after 9, which means I put the order in before that — which means I didn’t really let the market breathe before I started trading. Yet another mistake. If I’m looking to hold longer-term, I can’t keep letting myself put so much stock into the opening moves of the market. When I’m day-trading again, it’ll make sense to pay attention to the opening moves, but no so much for swing-trading.

So, here are the key takeaways: 1) take my time when doing my initial analysis. Don’t get too excited or cocky or overconfident — talk through everything I see. 2) When swing-trading, wait until at least 9:00am to start looking at equities and seeing how things are moving. I want a longer-term, smoother chart when swing trading, so I need to not focus on the chaos that is the open.

The post Loss | Stock | ABNB | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

I set an alert here last week to let me know when it reached a recent support level — it reached a strong resistance area, and I thought price would drop from there, and wanted to know when/if it got to ranges I wanted to trade. I got the alert yesterday, but it was right before the market closed, and I wasn’t at the computer. Looking today, and this morning, it’s already made another strong push down, and has stopped at a support area that was fairly strong resistance a few times in the past. On the daily chart, I see a small rally from that point, so I’m going to look for entries on the 2h chart.

Immediate update: I looked at the 2h chart, and even dropped down to the 15 min. chart, and this dropped too sharply, it looks extended to me. If price rebounds to around $101 – $102, I’ll look to short from there, but I don’t see a pattern here — at least not on the 2h chart. I’ll set another alert here and maybe revisit later

Update 9:16: I got the alert that price rallied, looking to enter a small short position here.

Entry – $100.49

Exit – $102.45

Price largely pushed up after triggering me in to the trade, but didn’t do so quite enough to stop me out of the trade the day of. I had faith in my analysis, so I left my order along, but the next morning, price gapped-up and stopped me out almost immediately at the open.

There was a strong support level that price had stalled at, and a good amount of room below that level, so from that perspective, this wasn’t a bad trade. Looking today, though, I’ve got a slightly different perspective. Really, only one, and it’s something I’ve called out in the past: I need to make sure that the security has shown trending signs in the direction I plan on trading. This was actually, based on my definitions, trending up when I took this trade, and while the most recent move was down, it hadn’t established a down trend.

I played this off of a long-range double-top, and really, the double-top bearish move had already happened — if it even was a double-top. The other “top” was from early February, which was a while ago — probably disqualified this. Also, looking at my analysis again, I thought this was extended initially, but within the hour price had rallied, I changed my mind, and started looking for entries. If I’m trying to trade longer-term, and hold overnight, I probably shouldn’t take trades in stocks making that wild of swings. At the very least, I should take a wider stop/target level, but, really, I should probably avoid it.

Hindsight being 20/20, I made a couple mistakes in this trade, and I need to clean them up. Losses happen, I’m going to learn and grow from this one and just keep swimming!

The post Loss | Stock | GOOGL | Short appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

I made a good trade on this last week, but it was in my practice trade accidentally. Looking at this today, price has been pulling back from a spike about 4 trading days ago, and today, is sitting on a support level that was resistance last week. When I “missed” this last week, it pushed too much for me to consider getting in, in my main account, but this pullback might offer a perfect retest to take another shot at. I’m going to look for entries here

Entry – $261.25

Exit – $268.00 & $270.00

The next morning, price gapped up strong, and pushed up enough to hit the take-profit that I had set for half of my shares. I had locked in profit, and still held some shares in case there was another push up. Since price had hit my target, it was being aggressive with my stop, so once a base formed on the hourly chart, I moved my stop to just below that. It didn’t take long, though, for price to drop enough to trigger my exit, but also in profit.

I wanted to practice using a take profit in a live account — which I did, and it worked beautifully, so that’s one positive with this trade. I guess, in hindsight, if the retest candle had pushed up enough to be the one to trigger me in to the trade, I might not be as happy with that move/it might not have worked out. But at the same time, if I had waited for confirmation and then either missed the trade because the subsequent candle moved too quickly, or it did trigger on that candle and still pushed higher, I’d be kicking myself, I think.

Going forward, I’m going to be mindful of what the most recent candle is doing when I’m putting in orders, but I’m not going to alter my trading too much because of it. Really, I do keep an eye on the bar’s countdown so I have an idea of how close lower-time-frame candles are their closing; so I’m satisfied. Overall, this was a solid trade and a good win.

The post Win | Stock | NVDA | Long appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

This was another stock trade I took in my practice account because 1) I wanted to practice using a limit order, and 2) I wanted to practice my new trading strategy where, based on the candlestick patterns, I’m getting in at levels I’d, in the past, place stops — to make larger profits and get faked out less. Here are my notes from that morning:

Entry – $183.50

Exit – $181.25

This looked like a mistake initially, as price pushed through my entry, nearly hitting my target, and hovering around that area for the rest of the day. Hard to imagine I wouldn’t have been one of the orders that got triggered during that sideways movement.

I wasn’t in this trade, though, and the next morning, price dropped strong, quickly reaching 1R. I moved my stop at that point, and then moved it to a resistance area in profit. I had that stop, as well as a stop at the target level, so I just left the trade as is. I’m sure I would have gotten stopped out if it was a live trade, so I don’t want to inflate this win too much.

Price slowly pushed up for the rest of the day, but not enough to trigger my stop. By Monday morning, though, it spiked and did trigger the exit. It was a win in the practice trade, but like I said, I don’t see how I wouldn’t have gotten stopped out at the level I set my stop-loss initially. Price wicked above it a couple of times, so I’m not sure why it didn’t close my practice trade. I still like my strategy of getting into retests sooner than later, but I’m not ready to use limit orders in a live account yet.

The post Win | Stock | TSLA | Short appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.