Watching price action L2 and various entry points $DXTR

Nasty image, right? A MicroCutter is a medical device made by Dextera Surgical (DXTR). Today I found this stock just after market open in one of my scanners: small caps under $10/share with volume.

Here’s what I did:

1. I didn’t have a trading plan set up when I saw this potential trade. I looked at the chart and saw it looked good so I took my first small position with a limit order for 500 shares at .3499. It didn’t get filled because price action was rising so I sat for a while and just watched it. I said, “don’t chase, Lola!” I see this is becoming a bad habit so I waited. I said to myself…ok, it’s not getting filled. I’ll get in at the next pullback around .359.
2. I started watching the L2 action and it started to make more sense as I could see the bid and ask competing and it was clear that there was pressure to take the stock price higher because the bid kept going up. I saw an opportunity. So I made a CONSCIOUS decision to enter 1000 shares at .3565 about 15 minutes into watching this thing continue to climb. EMA was up and watching the L2 action I was still seeing strong pressure to push price up.
3. At 10:09 am on a dip, my .3499 limit order got filled. Now I’m in for 1500 shares.
4. Watching the price action continue to rise, and seeing BIG orders in the 10s and 100s of thousands of shares come in, I wonder what is going on. I check on a few sites and see that there is an announcement that TOMORROW, Thursday 8/24, the president and CEO of the $DXTR is making an announcement at an investor conference. I go in for a bigger position: 3000 shares at .355.
5. I now have a 4500 share position in $DXTR and I’m going to chill and hold here and wait for the news tomorrow.
6. My exit point will be .295, yesterday’s low.
7. Volume on this is huge right now, nearly 8M shares.
8. Other good news: revenue was up last quarter, the best performance on revenue in the last year. Ladenburg Thalmann initiated a buy rating on 08/16/17. The Southern California Investor Conference, where the CEO is presenting tomorrow,  “is the premier investor conference highlighting growth companies from the region.”
9. Although I didn’t have a cogent trade plan in place when I entered this stock, I have one now and I am holding through tomorrow’s news, 8:30 am PST which means 11:30 am here on the East Coast. If I can make several cents a share on this trade, at a 4500 position, I could make upwards of $1,000 by tomorrow. Still paper trading.
10. My psychological state stayed pretty steady during this trade. Although I did jump in despite initially resisting the urge to chase, I think it was a measured entry all things considered because it is based on strong price action and news. Ok, granted, this is not actual news yet, it is SPECULATION that something positive will be announced. But still, I’d rather risk losing a few hundred dollars from my paper trade account than lose the opportunity to take action from start to finish on a stock that I found myself (didn’t copy anyone else’s watch list or price scanners).

Takeaways:

1. Watching price action at L2 gave me a real sense of the momentum of the stock and better insight into whether or not to enter at any given point. For day traders looking to make small gains on stocks valued at under $1, I can see how this is an essential strategy.
2. Formulating a trading strategy on the go probably isn’t the best case scenario but is better than having NO strategy.
3. I would love if someone with more experience could assess my thinking. Open to any feedback.

In other news, I exited my position in $FALC, 1000 shares at .4075 from my entry at .345. That’s $62.50 profit. The stock seems pretty dead at the moment so I wanted to take profit on my lower priced entry while it was in my favor this morning.

Still holding $JMEI, $LINU, $ONDK and $SABR. $ONDK and $SABR are holdouts from when I first opened my paper trading account and had even less of a clue than I do now.

$100 profit $AMRS

Still paper trading. If you read my post yesterday, you’ll see I did just about all the things you’re not supposed to do. I chased. I ignored my trading plan. And I didn’t take into consideration my personal schedule. Bottom line: NEED MORE DISCIPLINE when executing trades.

So today I didn’t enter any new positions. I exited my small position of 1000 shares in $AMRS. Bought in at $2.37, exited at $2.47. It’s high today was $2.53, for a total of about 1 minute. Since I trade via Think or Swim, my data is delayed 20 minutes on the desktop version, although with my mobile app I can get a slightly better guage of current prices. I profited just over $100.

I tweeted about my sale on StockTwits and a few longs in $AMRS said “bye Felicia” and “see ya penny chaser!” As I learn, I’ll be able to enter positions better and exit with a higher margin, but I ended the day on $AMRS green and that’s better than red! So in your face, StockTwitters.

I’m still holding $FALC and $JMEI. I am going long on $JMEI and expect to be in this position for days or possibly weeks longer. My trade plan is to exit JMEI in the 5s and FALC in the mid-50 cent range.

Today I signed up for a free online trading journal called TradeBench. I’ve been using a spreadsheet to track my trades but I’m not very pleased with the results so I’ve been looking for a better option. TradeBench is free and is designed to help traders review their trade strategy, learn, and get better.

Left holding the bag? $JMEI $FALC $AMRS

Last night I checked out my watch list and scanned for movers with high volume that looked like they were on an upswing. I tried the “first green candle” method and set limit orders pre-market to get in just as the market opened. I was on the way to teach a morning yoga class and was not at my desktop when the market opened.

I did everything I probably shouldn’t have done with this morning’s trading session. Instead of missing the trade because the stocks didn’t meet the prices that would have put me in a good position, I chased these things on the upswing and entered OFF my mark.

I fired off limit orders chasing $FALC and $AMRS just after the market open.

1000 $FALC @ .4001 (my original limit order was .274!!!!!)
1000 $AMRS @ 2.37 (my original limit order was $2.38 so I actually got in under my original mark)

My limit orders for $JMEI 1500 shares at $3.55 and 1000 shares of $FALC at .345 were filled at 10:40 am and 10:37 am respectively.

The only play working in my favor at this point in time is 1000 shares of $FALC at .345 and that’s barely above what I paid for it as of this writing. Everything else is down for the day.

I am paper trading with ThinkorSwim but still trying to practice good plays. But I made a lot of mistakes here.

1. It wasn’t the right time. I wasn’t able to monitor my trades and time my entries. I was busy going to teach a yoga class and instead of opting not to trade, I decided to use limit orders pre-market and my phone app to enter the market anyway.
2. I used limit orders to get into the trade and when the price action wasn’t going in line with my thesis, I abandoned my thesis and fired off new orders chasing the stock. 😦
3. Because I wasn’t able to monitor my trades, I wasn’t really clear about the price action and my “first green candle” theory went out the window because I wasn’t trading from my platform (even though it has delayed reporting), but was trading from my phone where I can’t really see candles although I can see price action.

There may be some movement on these stocks come afternoon or perhaps tomorrow. Looks like they are all pulling back now, even though they were all trending upwards last week and showing up on tons of scanners for gap ups and over 10% gains.

I’m still not in any formal education program although I’m watching as much of Tim Sykes’ content as I can as well as Warrior Trading. Warrior Trading is where I got the idea for the first green candle play. Unfortunately, I didn’t execute it well at all this morning.

I want to start taking a little more risk in terms of trying different strategies to see how that works. This morning my strategy was to use limit orders to get into trades knowing I wouldn’t be able to monitor my entry points. However, to make that strategy really testable, I would’ve needed to have STUCK TO IT and not altered my limit orders to new entry points that were higher than what I had outlined in my trading plan.

My intent here is to post EVERYTHING that I am learning. Good lessons, bad lessons, mistakes, success, everything. This way I keep a running order of my daily thought processes, trades, strategy development, etc.

Thanks for reading and please follow my blog to keep up with my learning curve. Let’s hope it starts to trend upwards soon.

 

 

How I changed my life in one month

It started innocently enough. I didn’t get hired for a job I thought I wanted. So I doubled-down on being self-employed. I signed up for a program through Mindvalley called Lifebook. It seemed like a good use of my time. Somewhere along the way, I came across Timothy Sykes, the day trader. I don’t remember how it happened, I was Googling something, but there are no accidents.

I was taken in by his in-your-face style and millionaire student success stories. But then I started to watch his content. He is very compelling. He made me interested. I decided I had what it takes to enter this risky, speculative industry. And just like that, I started studying the stock market and day trading.

I had decided about a year ago that I would become a millionaire. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it, but I believed that I could. At first, I thought real estate. Problem: no capital and being self-employed, my tax returns suck and no one will give me a mortgage, despite my amazing credit and nice savings account. I’d always entertained the idea that I could sell informational products online, ala James Altucher, Mindvalley and all the gazillions of other people in this space. Problem was, I wasn’t sure where to start, so I was flirting with Ramit Sethi and his Zero To Launch program. Except he didn’t accept students with credit card debt, and I still had some. So that was out. I wanted to start a YouTube channel and monetize it. I was consuming a ton of content in this space too. Problem: my apartment is small and cluttered and I don’t have a place to record nice videos. I had no shortage of ideas and I researched them all. But I’m glad my conservative financial nature held me back from pulling the trigger on any of them until I had that definite feeling of YES.

Then I stumbled across Tim Sykes.

My appetite for information has been pretty voracious since, and it’s been about a month since I joined his site Profit.ly so I figured now is a good time to start this blog and keep notes of my journey. Maybe one day it will be useful content to someone else, but in the meantime, I know discipline makes the difference between success and failure, so I need to start keeping track of my trades. That’s basically what this is about.

We’ll see where it all goes from here.

And that’s how I changed my life in a month. I didn’t get a job. I doubled-down. I signed up for a life mastery course that didn’t really hold my attention but got me in the groove of a morning disciple again. And then the Fates ensured that my path crossed with that of Tim Sykes. My life is VERY different since. I feel totally different. I feel re-inspired, re-invigorated. My discipline is stronger than it’s perhaps ever been. My productivity is through the roof. I’m working on so many projects right now but not stressed at all. I am firing on all cylinders. I have tripled down on the entrepreneurial lifestyle and mindset. Now I KNOW I can become a millionaire, and I will be Tim Sykes first female millionaire student.

I’m also studying to become a Luxury Travel Advisor specializing in the wellness and experiential travel space. All this happened in one month since I didn’t get a job I thought I wanted. I’m so glad I didn’t get that job.