2020-11-27 - முழு பைத்தியம் - Story of 2 halves

 Yesterday's trading story can be divided into 2 halves. The first half where I did all the wrong things and notched up a big loss. In the second half, I was more careful, watched the charts and was able to halve the loss. On the charts, I separated the halfs with a white dotted line.

 

In the first half, I was trading blindly (literally). I had 8 charts tiled and was impatiently taking every signal on those small charts. This method can work in a backtested mechanical system, but not in discretionary trading. None of the signals worked. I booked losses in each of those trades.

 

I was just trying to enter every time the price range compressed to some extent. 6 trades in all. But getting every one of those wrong? Shouldn't I have won at least one by gambler's luck? What's wrong with statistics? 😡

I was tweeting live during this period. Not that the tweeting affected me. If it had, I would have not tweeted - I know the priorities. The issue was that I had planned to take every signal early, without really looking up the chart.

 

Lesson 1: For discretionary trading, open the charts and study it carefully (duh!!). 

So, after the string of losses, I decided to call it quits for the day, and tweeted so. But then, the compulsive idiot that I am needed to try once more, didn't I?

This time, I looked at the charts more carefully. This time the enlarged charts, not a tiled collage. Didn't matter if I missed some - FOMO be damned.  I already knew that secret:

If I don't trade, I don't get to lose.

And I did miss some. And some I missed because I was trailing quickly. Got to work on the trailing. Some part of my trailing is mechanical - calculated values, not charts. Got to work on it.

In NIFTY, I was able to lock better profit by moving the stop. In HDFCBANK, I regretted not moving the stops lower.

KOTAKBANK -  entered it when it consolidated for a couple of bars with volume and volatility - though I was in two minds about it. Good entry, I think. Trailed mechanically and got out. Undecided about whether that was a good thing or a bad thing??? Then took a short. Dangerous one during a highly volatile period. Almost lost more than planned - see description in chart.

 

Lesson 2: Avoid trades in very high volatility zones. 

Since I had more losses in TATASTEEL, it would have been gratifying if I could get that money back in TATASTEEL. Almost got my chance in the last trade... almost. Got to work on the trailing, but isn't this one of the permanent to do points in trading?

2020-11-26 - One bad trade

 Because of yesterday's debacle, I decided not to enter during high volatility. Was watching SIEMENS, but could not enter during the volatility. Same case with AXISBANK. Later, took entry in AXISBANK when it cooled down. SIEMENS continued to be volatile.

 

Both SIEMENS and AXISBANK would have given good entries during the volatile periods, but that is just my guess.... since my discretionary trades have not been consistent.

 

The first trade in AXISBANK was good. The second was a trade in SIEMENS. The setup was a breakout from an extended narrow range. Had there not been an upper circuit, the initial breakout move would have perhaps gone higher. There was no buying pressure to lock it at the circuit. This loss ruined the day.

 

Meanwhile, AXISBANK jumped from a narrow range. That made me decide to look for narrow range entries. The last two trade - one each in RELIANCE and AXISBANK were from that setup. Did not get much out of them.

 

Live tweets of my trades today.

 

 

 

2020-11-25 - Patience is a virtue

Ok. This where I get back to whining that discretionary trading is not for me. Last year, I was able to trade discretionary for whole of 5 days before I gave up.

Off course, one solution is to trade mechanical. I am already doing that. Major part of capital is on mechanical trades, and I have only put a smaller portion into these discretionary trades.

So, today's IBULHSGFIN trades were as per plan. I wanted to get in early, and reverse until a move came right. That worked to an extent. Couple of those reversals/exits could have been at better prices, but I was not able to get those.

 

Should have been more patient on the SBIN trades, and twice. Badly done. Patience will be included in the plan from tomorrow. What do they say about counting up to 10...

NIFTY - my entries were late on a trending day and did not work out.

Live tweets of today's trades

2020-11-24 - ಹಣೆಬರಹ decides a lot

Today was a regular trading day, though markets hit new high. I got my chances, lost my chances, but did not end up losing money.

 

Started the day with a bad result in GRASIM - maybe I should have waited a couple of minutes. Then, was lucky to catch a move in HCLTECH. Actually, this was the only redeeming trade today. That was followed by a heartbreak in BHARTIARTL. HDFCBANK trade did not move much - I entered towards the end of a trending move. Last trade was greedy one in AXISBANK.

Unless I am able to catch a 3x move during the day, this kind of trading does not give any satisfaction. Yesterday, the last trade gave some satisfaction, but no such luck today. Regret exits had their impact today as well. 

 

Live tweets of these trades.

2020-11-23 - എനിക്ക് ഇനി നിയമം ഇല്ല - I no longer have the law

 So my last post was one Samvat ago.

Today, I decided to try my hand at discretionary day trading after a long time. After having tied myself to system rules for so long, felt liberated doing these discretionary trades today. Felt like Ayyappan would have felt when he was suspended from police duty. I NO LONGER HAVE THE LAW. Referring here to the Malayalam movie Ayyappanum Koshiyum.

Here's today's report.

Seriously watched only 3 charts today. Initially, INDUSINDBK was all bouncy and volatile. Thought of trading that, but had an unfortunate(?) exit. Next, watched RELIANCE and BAJAJFINSV. My RELIANCE trade did not move. Finally, was back in INDUSINDBK and got some satisfaction EOD (which is also probably the reason I decided to post today's trades.).