[#1, LONG, JPM ENTRY: 256.06 @ 10:00:26, STOP: DISCRETION, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: 265.22 @ 09:31:23]
A suggestion and a suggestion only, don't take this as gospel. But take on a bit more risk. Go for smaller cap stocks and lower priced stocks, eg priced under $20 and a cap less than a billion. Look if possible for speculative stocks with a good underlying story. So they may not actually be making a profit. On a technical level, avoid stocks with too much volatility. You can recognize these as stocks with lots of long tails, either daily, weekly, monthly. So you want swing volatility but not daily volatility.
You make very interesting points. I have a couple days off next week so I am going to go back test stocks. The hard thing is, is that they are not homogeneous so every stock probably acts differently. I will note what you said since it does logically make sense to me. Also I have been looking at natural gas but I don't see anything I like. I am unsure why. I have a lot of work to do. So I appreciate the discussion that happens in my journal. Edit: I think I am more risk adverse right now since I am in an unknown environment. I know SP500 stocks are less volatile so until I have the experience of smaller cap stocks I feel unease buying into them.
Lol yeah it does feel nice but the uneasy feeling of the next trade is really the problem. I need to start doing backtesting fast. The wins I have always go over my head, the losses are the ones that make me brood. I have also been thinking more of stop limit orders, due to my day job it might be pretty good for chasing stocks as they rise, but then again I have to somehow get used to it. I have also been thinking of what you said and I agree. I think RKLB may have some heavy sellers, so I am waiting for them to be cleared up. Hopefully my stop doesn't get hit though. Which means there is probably way more selling than buying. Honestly stocks with multiple attempts upwards maybe be no bueno. But I will have to do research on that. I suspect stocks with only 1 selloff may fair better.
Oops forgot to answer your question. I didn't really have a plan but it didn't look so strong yesterday and today. Also the SP500 didn't look so well in my eyes so I just sold in the morning.
Something to consider is just selling part of your position. Leaving part at breakeven or a little better.
Trading is like art, it's a personal thing, it has to fit you, it is only for you, you can only see and appreciate what YOU want, it needs to be moulded to your needs. Natural gas is volatile, it's a bit like gold, it goes along its own path and finding lasting correlations is difficult if not impossible. But there are some immutable laws in trading which seem to crossover into all sectors. Discovering for yourself what those laws are is the 64,000 dollar question. Markets are machine/algo driven, so they run on repetitive rules, not rocksolid 100% guaranteed because other influences do upset the rythm. I'm not going to divulge the rules I'm aware of, because ET is a bit like a pig pen and I'm not about to throw too many pearls into it. However start with: "What and when not to trade", and work backward from there. That in itself will save you many dollars going down the drain.
Actually now that I have been thinking more there is gap risk which is a characteristic of the stock and there is gap risk appetite. In this case gap risk appetite is the thing that is causing me trouble. But this is a function of % of capital allocated to a single stock. Therefore by increasing the number of stocks you hold or by allocating a lower amount of capital you can reduce the uneasiness, which is what I am aiming to do. I don't know my gap risk appetite for myself though. Really though I should try to predict both and factor in the gap risk into my gap risk appetite. Which will in turn make it a function of gap risk and % allocation per trade. Just some random thoughts after I ate food.
I think for now I will stick with loading and unloading the full amount. Until I find some consistency and then I will play around with this. But I have to reduce the # of variables and change things slowly so I can figure out what needs to be done to approach profitability. But I will keep it in mind. Thank you for the guidance. I will do my best to make it out alive .