3 Trading Performance Questions To Ask Yourself This Weekend
If you want to be a better trader, you'll answer these 3 Q's
As traders, the ultimate is to always be better prepared for the next cycle and uptrend, and there are 3 questions you should be asking yourself to accomplish this:
After finally gaining some traction on the account into the last week of March and first week of April (and then getting quickly pushed back to cash) - I wanted to spend some time sharing how I analyze my performance to answer these questions in only an hour of time.
To analyze my trading, I use Tradersync. You can sign up for a free 7-day trial and enjoy all the benefits of a robust journaling tool here.
My FREE educational email course taking a deep dive into how to trade earnings gap ups will go live on Monday (sorry for the delay...had some personal stuff to attend to). Sign up to get the first email on Monday, here:
Below is my entire trade log from the beginning of March to yesterday, April 5.
You’ll notice a couple of things:
I’ve broken out my trades into 3 separate cycles (helps to visualize the process of progressive exposure —> progressive selling)
#1: From cash to getting positioned, no traction
#2: From cash to getting positioned, with traction
#3: From traction to losing traction, and back to cash
Labeled all of my trades with their respective entry setups and mistakes if there were any to add
Blocked out the $ gain because it doesn’t matter ;) focusing on the percentages is key
Let’s now dive into each cycle and go over some stats & key takeaways, all in the process of answering the questions I first set out to answer in my tweet above:
Period #1: 5 total trades
1 Breakeven
4 Small Losses
Highlight: Kept the 4 losses to the equivalent of 0.2% equity
Lowlight: Got flipped around on TQQQ, should have had that right, and didn’t implement enough feel.
Period #2: 8 total trades
3 Wins
3 Breakevens
2 Losses
Highlight: Wins accounted for a 1.7% gain in equity. Losses accounted for 0.17% of equity.
Lowlight: Let profits on open positions draw down more than I would have liked (specifically TQQQ). At one point open profits represented around 4% equity gain, would have liked to have kept that to less than a 2% drawdown from highs by selling more into strength. TSLA trade represented almost 2% of equity gain in open profits before gapping down on a news report that I wasn’t aware of.
Period #3: 8 total trades
2 Breakevens
6 Losses
Highlight: Got to cash before letting all open profits go. Losses accounted for only 0.6% equity.
Lowlight: ABNB trade I broke a rule, ASAN trade I wasn’t listening to the feedback of the recent string of losing closed trades and the drawdown to the account. In retrospect, the string of losers right after winners was a good showing of how the environment quickly changed and the slowness on my end to adapt.
So, what have I done well, and poorly, and what are my places to improve?
Highlights:
Losses have been kept SMALL. Very small. I’m very proud of how little of an impact my losses have had on my overall equity.
Got decent positioning once I felt the tide turn. Stuck with it even after the first cycle was a swing and a miss.
By the end of the current cycle, I had moved to cash & protected a higher low in my account equity. I want a stair-stepping pattern when I look at my returns, and I’ve achieved this goal so far this cycle.
Lowlights:
Two broken rules at the end of the cycle show I was letting my open profits allow for loose entries. If I want to be a super performer, I have to stay tight and locked in no matter how I’m performing.
Missing the news event for TSLA should have been sign #1 that I was not quite on my game. Usually, I’m on top of stuff like that, but I missed the mark and left 2-3% equity on the table as a result.
Going forwards, here are the key areas I need to improve on:
Stay honed in on the process even when trades are performing well. Stick to the system & don’t break rules just because things are going well.
When trying to get positioned, use a little more feel. Don’t have to be so rigid/robotic. Trading is an art.
No matter what, always stay on top of news events on current positions. Not doing so this cycle represented a material difference (and will continue to be if I’m not on top of my game in the future)
Action Items:
To turn these findings into actionable items, I’ll focus on the following:
Review my trading rules and commit to following them no matter how I'm performing.
Use my intuition and experience to add a more artistic touch to my trades while maintaining discipline.
Make sure I'm staying up-to-date on news events that could impact my current positions.
Now you see how I go about…
Uploading & categorizing my trading results on a monthly basis
Analyzing key highlights and lowlights
Taking these findings and turning them into applicable action items to focus on for next cycle
Now again, the 3 questions you need to answer this weekend are:
Over the last cycle…
What have you done well?
What have you done poorly?
What are some areas you can improve?
Run through this exercise and I promise you’ll learn something new to apply.
Enjoy your long weekend & talk to you next week,
Greg
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