What is your “move on” trading rule?

BellaMike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs2 Comments

I received this review from a mentee after the close:

Positives:
traded well with the market. basically didn’t get short other than in-play stocks at the Open, didn’t have a short trade after 10:15 when the market established a clear uptrend. would add scalping lots to take advantage of small market leg-ups.
good comeback after being down 120 on the Open
held my trades2holds for good moves, namely BKS and MTG
slowed it down around 2pm knowing it was worst time period, kept the bulk of my profits and I don’t remember a no-brainer trade that I shouldn’t have missed

Negatives:
stubbornly traded that STX the same way, over and over… traded my bias, got too big without a pivot or a clear buyer on the tape, pressure myself to ‘guess’ my stops and place them too tight…. make the spread over and over and over again. revenge traded it, didn’t let it trade out and think over my plan.
had a godawful open, the tape was just terrible and I wasn’t internalizing it and making the proper adjustments

Should I even force my pre-market ideas on a day like this? Today, every retailer reported guidance, BKS tanked, these random biotechs were popping, lotta stuff in play, why not be in “surf the radar” mode for trades? I probably missed some solid trades because I kept forcing that STX. I guess before all those stocks had fresh news, I saw STX move afterhours the prior day and had mentally committed to trading it the next day and pressing my ideas if certain scenarios developed.

I responded:

ok lets develop a rule for this
send me your rule for what to do next time in the same situation
what gets you to move on?
what get you to make a clear adjustment?
and then I will share how I attack this issue.

So I ask: what gets you to move on? Do you move on or stay with the stock and just make an adjustment to how you will trade it going forward?

Bella
One Good Trade

2 Comments on “What is your “move on” trading rule?”

  1. After the first stop out I review my original trade to see if it was rushed or unjustified. I’ll then take a second trade if there’s a good setup. If both the original and the second were valid setups and both were stopped out I determine the stock is whipsawing around too much and move on (whether this be true or not). If the first trade wasn’t a good setup I’ll allow myself a 3rd but 3 is the absolute limit, at that point i’ve had a gut full, consider the stock as junk and look elsewhere.

    This happened to me today with the first setup not very good, but I decided to call it quits after the second which I closed out early. I was trying to trade the stock short with the market but the damn thing was just too bullish. Of course, an hour or so later it finally fell but without much distance or conviction. Is always the way 🙂

  2. After the first stop out I review my original trade to see if it was rushed or unjustified. I’ll then take a second trade if there’s a good setup. If both the original and the second were valid setups and both were stopped out I determine the stock is whipsawing around too much and move on (whether this be true or not). If the first trade wasn’t a good setup I’ll allow myself a 3rd but 3 is the absolute limit, at that point i’ve had a gut full, consider the stock as junk and look elsewhere.

    This happened to me today with the first setup not very good, but I decided to call it quits after the second which I closed out early. I was trying to trade the stock short with the market but the damn thing was just too bullish. Of course, an hour or so later it finally fell but without much distance or conviction. Is always the way 🙂

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