Entry – 96.73

It took a little bit of time, but close to an hour after setting my orders, price pushed up and triggered my entry in to the trade.

Exit – 96.646

This is so frustrating. Price was strong for a few hours after my entry got triggered, reaching about 8 pips in profit. It made a small pullback from there, and things still looked good. I was done working for the day, and had already had a trailing stop set so I wasn’t looking at the chart; but in the afternoon, I got a notification that my stop loss had been triggered.

I opened the chart to see what happened, and the pullback wasn’t that deep. With a trailing stop set, slippage came in and my stop was triggered despite price not really ever dropping down that low. Hell, the candle that this trade closed on didn’t even wick down to my closing price…

Even worse, a couple hours after triggering my exit, price pushed back up into profit; ultimately getting within 9 pips of my take-profit. This should’ve been a win. If I didn’t use a trailing stop, and I actively managed this trade, I would have at the very least broken even, I think. I don’t love using the trailing stop, but sometimes I’m not going to be at the computer, so I have to.

And, truthfully, there’s nothing that says it was definitely the trailing stop that was the reason I was stopped out early. If I had been adjusting my stop manually, that still could have happened. Who knows. I just know that I want to actively manage my trades more often, and use a trailing stop as a last resort.

Again, back when I was at my most successful with the prop firm, I didn’t use trailing stops, I just checked the charts periodically (even overnight sometimes), so maybe I get back to that practice.

Either way, it wasn’t a full loss, and my analysis and direction were good, so I can’t be too upset about the trade itself, I’m just upset about the result. Moving on.

Thanks for reading! Has slippage ever ruined a trade for you? Let me know about it in the comments. And stay tuned for more Forex market trades and analysis!

The post Dreaded Slippage | AUD/JPY Long Forex Trade | November 7, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

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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.

Despite this being a strong resistance level, there is a chance that prices could stall here and pullback, as seen prior. However, the market has been generally strong since mid-March, and the pullback earlier this month was relatively shallow, rallying at a strong support level. While it’s impossible to predict what the market will do, based on the current situation, looking for long positions seems to be the most comfortable option this morning.

MSFT – Long – This is the first interesting thing I’m seeing today. Looking at the daily chart’s patterns, 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).

While I was going through my screener earlier, I came across SCHW (Charles Schwab), but ignored it because it had been so weak for so long. Looking for Shorts, now, I came back to it. On the daily chart, this is showing a near-perfect retest of a resistance area that was prior support, and was pushing down from there. There’s a lot of room, with not a lot of chop, to the next support area, so I like this to the downside. The only wrinkle is: Since I was initially bullish, but am taking a bearish trade, I’m only taking 1/2 a position size. We’ll see how this plays out.

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 (and while I had another trade out there, it was largely inversely correlated with the S&P), I decided to put the order back out there. Unfortunately, though, I forgot to adjust the entry from a “Limit” to a “Stop” so it triggered immediately. Hopefully I was right and I still end up winning this trade.. If I do, I’ll have to call it luck and I don’t think I should take much from it…

While I was going through my screener earlier, I came across SCHW (Charles Schwab), but ignored it because it had been so weak for so long. Looking for Shorts, now, I came back to it. On the daily chart, this is showing a near-perfect retest of a resistance area that was prior support, and was pushing down from there. There’s a lot of room, with not a lot of chop, to the next support area, so I like this to the downside. The only wrinkle is: Since I was initially bullish, but am taking a bearish trade, I’m only taking 1/2 a position size. We’ll see how this plays out.

The post Stock Market Analysis | April 12, 2023 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.

At the open, prices started off on a positive note, with some chop near the current price back in February. Despite this, things are looking strong overall, with futures also showing promise. Even if there is a slight pullback this morning, I remain optimistic that there will be further strength in the near future, potentially providing entry points for trading opportunities.

I’m going to start perusing stocks, now, and will add my individual stocks’ chart pattern analyses below as I come across them.

Stocks

NVDA – Long – This has been very strong. I had a solid trade in this last week, and today might provide another opportunity to get in. Price has made another push up since I exited my trade, reached ~$280, and stalled out around there. This morning, price opened at roughly that price, but is pulling back some. This pullback, on the 2h chart, is at a support area that was resistance last week, and I think I’m going to take another shot at the break of that level again. If the numbers are there.

I ran the numbers here, and there’s a strong resistance area going back several months, at that $280 area. R:R back to that level wasn’t there, but truthfully, I’m taking this trade with the expectation that this will push through that level. With that in mind, I looked at the next resistance area and had a decent R:R. It’s not amazing, so I took a smaller position size, but it looks very strong, so I want to take a shot.

META – Long – This has been pushing up steadily since last November, and really didn’t slow down much with the market at the beginning of this year. Price has been pushing up quite strong since the beginning of March, and made a new high this morning. From the high at the open, though, price has largely been pulling back since the open, which might be a great place to get in. I don’t see a pattern per-se on the 2h chart — and, technically, at this point, I might even consider that a reversal candle (spinning top), so, actually, I’ll hold off here.

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.

ABNB – Long – this is another interesting one, and I think it might be worth it — especially if the market is in fact rallying. This had been pushing up strong since the beginning of the year, but peaked shortly after earnings mid-February. It pulled back from there, but since mid-March, this has made a new swing high, a higher low, and a subsequent higher high. It’s pulled back again today, but it’s yet another higher low, and looks like a good opportunity to get in. I’ve already run the numbers and like them, and since I have 2 other orders out, too, I’m also going to take a slightly smaller position size with  this one. Cheers. I, also, think I’m going to stop here since that will put me at 3 entry orders on the day, and I don’t want to be overwhelmed if all 3+ trigger.

The post Stock Market Analysis | April 4, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.