Trading Recap 4/2/15

Another loser day although out of the two trades I took, one worked eventually but I just had too much size to give it enough wiggle room and the other was a slight winner that due to not filling and having to put in a few orders when it reversed on me turned it into a loser. I noticed that I am playing more stocks than before which is good and bad. It is good because I may be getting more comfortable trading real money vs paper trading but at the same time I think I may be just trading anything where there might not be any meat left because I was too scared to go in when the move was actually happening. A lot of the time I will try and wait for that confirmation but by then it becomes too late. It is extremely hard trying to pinch pennies on entries because I am on margin and those pennies can lead to a  much bigger loss than originally planned. If I am taking 500 shares of something and only willing to risk .05 because otherwise I would only be able to play 200 shares, for example, it doesn't become worth it because even if I win it's not a lot at all on these lower priced stocks. If I get filled .1 away from my entry then that is an extra .05 and therefore double my risk for my small account which instead of a $25 loss it's now $50 and of course plus commission.

White arrows are entries followed by exits.

CAPN: I wanted to originally short near the top but I didn't get filled plus I didn't want to "chase" a few pennies in order to get the size I wanted and respect the amount of risk I would have to take if it kept going. I missed the initial move so I tried for the base break afterwards and stopped out for a slight loss when in the end it broke the base but I just had too much size. But the answer is not to use less size when you're "big" position on a $8 stock is 300 shares. 100 shares unless you get a $1 move is nothing. I don't know if there is anything to be learned from this trade since if I had a normal size relative to my account I would have just used over/under 8 and it peaked at 8 before coming right back down to break the base for an almost .5 move.

TXMD: I wanted to short this in the morning since it was just a CNBC pump and it would have worked great. It came back later in the day and I thought about shorting it again but once I got into the trade I sort of realized that it was just for scraps since as far as I know this isn't a pump/pig company and the daily chart looks ok. I entered short on the first lower high and it came down .1 and it looked like it was going to crack to red on the day but then it just spiked on me and started grinding so I took it off. Unfortunately I didn't get filled on all my shares when it started grinding so I had to put in another order at my initial entry which cost me another $5 of commission. First entry is initial followed by an add when .43 base cracked. Last arrow is when I covered.

Things to work on:

1. If I miss something either because I was too scared to enter at the right time, don't try to force it later one for scraps. I think the GENE trade was the same thinking of oh I just have to put on 1k shares and cover for 10-20 cents and make bank on my small account.