I was unable to capitalize on several trades today. This is mainly because I had taken a couple of small losses early and was fearful of more. I even wrote down the stock I really liked today and it ran and ran without me. There were plenty of lessons learned today.
Trades Taken Today
I entered APT early in the trading day based on a call made in my trading chat room. I agreed with the move but wasn’t as confident since it wasn’t the move above the opening price. It didn’t carry much momentum on the initial push so I was fortunate to get out early before it made it’s move down. The positive side of this loss was the fact that I didn’t feel comfortable with it working and made the decision to exit the trade early. In my old days, I would have let that stock run all the way down and hit the stop loss.
Stock – APT
Share Size – 300
Entry Price – $14.07
Exit Price – $14.06/$13.94
Total Gain – ($26.84)
I was taking the American Airlines (AAL) trade based on the break of the opening high. This time I stuck to my entry which was that high of the day. In yesterday’s move, I jumped in a little early. This time around I jumped in on time. I did have some good reasoning but it didn’t pan out. Break the high of the opening candle price, high of the day, and the pre-market high was only .20 above. It wasn’t a terrible idea, it just didn’t get the follow-through. Positive note. I noticed it wasn’t working with momentum and moved my stop up around 10 cents. This saved it from being an $80 loss.
Stock – AAL
Share Size – 300
Entry Price – $10.90
Exit Price – $10.76
Total Gain – ($43.00)
Included on my list was Altimmune (ALT). It had gapped up some but looking back, the gap was quite minor. I decided to take the opening candle price break to the north side. This coincided with the break of the half number at $3.50. The stock did move in my favor around .03 but it pulled back pretty quick. This was another defensive play and I got out early with a small loss.
Stock – ALT
Share Size – 400
Entry Price – $3.51
Exit Price – $3.45
Total Gain – ($24.00)
The most frustrating play of the day was Novavax (NVAX). This was on the top of my list as the one to watch. It was setting up great in the premarket. It so happens that the price didn’t move up at the opening and pulled back around .60. I took my eye off of it and traded the stocks mentioned above. I came back to NVAX several minutes later.
I was watching for the break of the whole number 17. I didn’t get a super clean fill since it hoped. It was in my favor however and I sold 100 shares in profit. I then moved my stop to just above breakeven. Realizing I had taken three losses in a row, I was worried about taking a 4th. This was a big mistake. It never came back to my original entry idea but did touch my stop. It then proceeded to take off to the high of the day which was $18.25. There were a lot of things working on this one and I missed it. I didn’t follow my process.
Stock – NVAX
Share Size – 300
Entry Price – $17.07
Exit Price – $17.20/17.07
Total Gain – $13.00
The total potential gain on this trade without any pain was $375. Although I would have scaled out along the way, to only get $13 is very said. I gained only 3% on this entry.
The other setup I really liked was AG MTG Invest Trust (MITT). This was moving up with the rest of the real estate sector. The chat group was looking at a different stock in the group but I decided to watch this one. Notice in the image below how the price broker $3.00 and didn’t touch that price again until almost two hours later. The first initial move was for .30 and then the followthrough move was all the way to .48. So, why did I only get $6.50? I know. I was not confident after I lost my other trades. I played way to defensive when the green light was given. Work in progress.
Stock – MITT
Share Size – 400
Entry Price – $3.03
Exit Price – $3.08/3.03
Total Gain – $6.50
The total potential gain in this trade was $180. This is if I had held the whole thing until this price. I took another 3%.
Afternoon Trade
I found this on my biggest percentage scanner list. It moved up to $10.72 at the high. It was a break of the $10.50. It had some big sellers at this level but once it got through it was a fairly clean break to the upside.
Stock – PCG
Share Size – 300
Entry Price – $10.51
Exit Price – $10.57/$10.62/$10.56
Total Gain – $22.00
The total potential was $66 on this trade. I was able to take 33% which is better than the other two winners today.
Trades Missed Today
Once again I missed another great setup on Tilray (TLRY). Why did I miss this one again? Just like all of the other green trades today, I was fearful of losing. It wasn’t the amount I was going to lose, It was just the fear of losing in general. Look how TLRY broke the opening high around 10:00AM. After that break it had the whole number $7.00 which took off to the north side eventually reaching $7.55. CLEAN.
Positive Takeaway – I learned today but overall I should have had a green day even with my three losers in a row. I need to avoid letting those small losses deter me from taking the top setups in my playbook. I’ll look for some solid trades again tomorrow.
Total Profit on the Day = -52.34
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