Into the Black: Trading Journal Day 7
Into The Black
Earnings season is always a little interesting. I just picked up NTGR yesterday and it gapped up significantly. With my stops adjusted up to preserve profits, I closed out with solid profits when the move lost momentum.
And here we start to see the joys of this strategy. We're only up to 11 closed trades and while the win ratio is still bad because of the initial sampling bias (losing trades close out more quickly), we are already net positive overall!
Trade Journal
I have many more 'paper' entries, but these are the few that happened in an actual trading account. I will talk more about my strategy as time goes on.
Today I Bought
BAX @ 84.93
TROW @ 114.26
Today I Shorted
BA @ 346.74
Today I Closed
NTGR @ 32.36
CHRW @ 83.98
Open Trades
While everything else about an open trade is established at entry, the ‘stop loss’ order will be adjusted periodically over the life of a trade. The idea is to move the stops at key price points and let the profitable trades keep running.
I updated the stops on my open BAX and TROW trades when I put on additional size in both.
| Ticker | Entry | Direction | Size* | Date | Stop Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPM | 25.5141 | Long | 8.43% | 7/17/2019 | 26.30 |
| CLVS | 12.45 | Short | 2.75% | 7/17/2019 | 12.11 |
| GWPH | 161.88 | Short | 4.88% | 7/17/2019 | 169.89 |
| WPM | 25.99 | Long | 8.32% | 7/18/2019 | 26.30 |
| BAX | 82.94 | Long | 14.10% | 7/18/2019 | 83.18 |
| ALNY | 75.44 | Long | 6.04% | 7/18/2019 | 71.71 |
| CLVS | 11.66 | Short | 2.80% | 7/18/2019 | 12.11 |
| PEP | 130.33 | Short | 14.34% | 7/22/2019 | 133.03 |
| EWW | 42.12 | Short | 10.95% | 7/22/2019 | 43.29 |
| CC | 18.61 | Short | 2.45% | 7/23/2019 | 20.19 |
| TROW | 112.14 | Long | 8.84% | 7/24/2019 | 111.30 |
| DUK | 87.44 | Short | 10.92% | 7/24/2019 | 89.29 |
| NUVA | 59.41 | Long | 6.64% | 7/24/2019 | 57.35 |
| MGA | 50.66 | Long | 7.32% | 7/24/2019 | 48.93 |
| AAPL | 208.71 | Long | 9.60% | 7/24/2019 | 203.36 |
| CMI | 174.92 | Long | 9.20% | 7/24/2019 | 169.97 |
| SWKS | 86.95 | Long | 6.86% | 7/24/2019 | 83.85 |
| BAX | 84.93 | Long | 10.53% | 7/25/2019 | 83.18 |
| BA | 346.74 | Short | 5.86% | 7/25/2019 | 359.25 |
| TROW | 114.26 | Long | 8.37% | 7/25/2019 | 111.30 |
Total Long 104.25%
Total Short 54.95%
Approximate position sizes are given as a percentage of trading account. Position sizing is based on perceived risk; effective Risk Management is critical to my strategy. Use of leverage is intended, so % of portfolio will sometimes exceed 100%
Closed Trades
| Ticker | Gain/Loss | Size | Portfolio % | Days Held | Opened | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSX | -2.72% | 10.52% | -0.29% | 0 | 7/17/2019 | 7/17/2019 |
| EBAY | -2.54% | 11.97% | -0.30% | 0 | 7/18/2019 | 7/18/2019 |
| ADM | -2.52% | 12.69% | -0.32% | 1 | 7/18/2019 | 7/19/2019 |
| CSX | -3.90% | 8.36% | -0.33% | 1 | 7/18/2019 | 7/19/2019 |
| THRM | -5.28% | 7.68% | -0.41% | 1 | 7/18/2019 | 7/19/2019 |
| PCAR | -1.25% | 10.31% | -0.13% | 5 | 7/18/2019 | 7/23/2019 |
| PCAR | -3.32% | 11.45% | -0.38% | 0 | 7/23/2019 | 7/23/2019 |
| EPR | -2.55% | 12.42% | -0.32% | 1 | 7/22/2019 | 7/23/2019 |
| EW | 8.51% | 11.75% | 1.00% | 2 | 7/22/2019 | 7/24/2019 |
| EW | -2.47% | 10.02% | -0.25% | 0 | 7/24/2019 | 7/24/2019 |
| NTGR | 18.02% | 6.49% | 1.17% | 1 | 7/24/2019 | 7/25/2019 |
| NTGR | 13.90% | 6.72% | 0.93% | 1 | 7/24/2019 | 7/25/2019 |
| CHRW | -2.88% | 8.52% | -0.25% | 1 | 7/24/2019 | 7/25/2019 |
Wins: 3 trades, 3.10% total gain
Losses: 10 trades, -2.96% total loss
Win Ratio: 23.08% of total trades
Net Gain: 0.14%
Gain/Loss given as percentage on notional value of trade, with size a percentage of trading account. G/L x Size = % change of account value based on trade outcome. Days Held shows as 0 when a position was opened and closed in the same day (day trade).
Evaluating all position outcomes from Closed Trades, over a large enough sample, could support an approximate calculation of total portfolio return. Actual results may vary.
This is my trading journal. Results are published for entertainment purposes. This is not financial advice. This is not legal advice. This is not even advice.
If you try out Robinhood using my referral link, you could get some free stock.
What do you think on shorting? If it goes bad, you can lose a lot of money. Where do you short as well?
I prefer not to disclose the name of my primary broker because it's not an arrangement that would be available to most people. Most retail brokerage accounts allow shorting if you have at least $2000 in a margin account, though. I was very surprised to find that Robinhood does not.
I'm very disciplined about putting my stop orders in place immediately after entering a position. There is still a risk of a massive overnight gap above my stop orders, but usually there is enough awareness in the market to pull the stock out of any downtrend that I might have a short position in, and often enough to get me into a long position first (like the two earnings 'surprises' I already caught this week).
I will write about shorts more in the future though, because they have interesting behavior. I need to look up who it was again, but... one of the best performing 'short focused' hedge funds has a 20+ year record with average annual returns exceeding 20%. They select shorts using deep analysis, and they net hedge everything against the market index.
Their average annual return on the short side of the portfolio was less than 1%. In effect, when the market is going great, their shorts lose money (but not as much as they make on the index) and they underperform. When the market tanks, their shorts crash harder and they end up with net positive returns (massive outperformance). It's weird and counter-intuitive.
I try to trade the price action without too much market bias, but I will dig in over time to see how individual positions do relative to trend. (In effect, can I improve my performance by never shorting if I have a long signal on the index, and vice versa?)
Thanks being awesome NBC holder! Your 5.00 NBC earned you 2% team-cn upvotes！
This post had received 5.00% upvote from @steemitportugal account!
Vote for @steemitportugal to Witness. Your vote is very important to us!
Visit our WebSite www.steemitportugal.com (tutorials,news...)
Thank you very much.
Click here to vote
Delegation for daily voting: 10SP-25SP-50SP-100SP-250SP-500SP-1000SP
Hi @josephsavage!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.361 which ranks you at #2583 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 8 places in the last three days (old rank 2591).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 135 contributions, your post is ranked at #90.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server