What's up everyone? All right? Well I Broke the ice with my first trade of 2024 and thank goodness I am locking up 2024. First day of the year with a green day above the daily goal over $6,000 of profit. That's a great start I Finished 2023 with a green day which was nice. Put a little book end to the end of kind of a choppy year and I'm starting this year with a green day at the end of the day.

Doesn't really matter, but it's always nice to start with a green day because this gives me a little bit of a Tailwind now I Feel like okay? I've got a little bit of a cushion and it's not a small green day, it's a decent Green Day So now tomorrow I Can feel you know a little bit more confident. taking a little bit more risk and this very quickly can put me into a solid positive feedback loop where my confidence ENC encourages me and gives me the you know the confidence to take bigger share size now. I'm trading with bigger size now, my profits are getting bigger, my profit loss ratio is improving and just like that, I Winners can stack up very quickly. So my hope is that this is the beginning of a little bit of a hot cycle, but even if it's not either way, it's still a nice start to the year.

I Did sit down on the early side today and you know I I Felt like I needed to be a little bit careful First day of the year. first day back after a 3-day weekend and really first day back after the holidays. so my expectations today were very low. Something that I'm thinking about for 2024 is just sort of the fact that you know I sit down every single day and I want to trade and every single day I want to trade and I want to try to make money but sometimes I lose sight of the fact that you know the Market's just not that strong today and maybe I'm better off conserving my energy, not taking unnecessary losses and sort of, you know, holding that firing power until things get hot.

And you know, Over the course of 2023 we had Windows where there were tremendous amounts of opportunities. Early in the year we had the Silicon Valley Bank So all this sort of opportunity within the banks and then we had of course during the summer we had these Chinese IPOs and these spacks that were really strong and you know so so it's like we had these windows where there were a lot of opportunities. There were a few other Cycles but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Uh, But but nonetheless, each time we had a stock that went up 500% or 1,000% it felt like you know, that triggered a week of some really heightened volatility where there was some great opportunities.

Now we didn't have that. Today today we had a couple of good moves. We had a stock that went up 200% that's the one that I made the most on. That was solid, but you know it wasn't anything insane.

It's not enough to start, You know, a new round of momentum. It's not going to be. Anything that goes down in the history books is like whoa, do you remember? That's no it, It's going to be forgotten and you know, whatever. So I'm kind of waiting for that next stock that makes a really big crazy move.

I suppose the last one was SJ or ZJ whatever it was that you know that that Chinese ticker that went from like $12 to 500. but to be honest I Don't think that really touched a lot of people because it was such an anomaly. The volume was relatively light I Don't think a lot of people were really trading it. so I think a lot of people kind of just missed it completely and don't have much fomo over it because it was just such a weird thing.

It definitely highlighted the risk of of shorting. Um, but nonetheless, it's been a little while since we had one that was really crazy. We had a couple in the beginning of December Uh, again, nothing that really goes down in the records, but just you know, it was like a 500% move. We had a couple and so since then it's been, you know, a little more subdued.

So what I'm waiting for now is that next cycle? that next kind of theme? that next stock that goes totally bananas and then triggers Five, Six, seven other stocks Just like it to go crazy. So in the meantime, you know if it's slow I don't need to push it I Can be patient at the same time. There were some opportunities today I was able to break the ice, get green and so that's good. All right.

So let's look at the charts here for a second. So sitting on the day, um, as you can see, $616 76 check Daily Goal Good. Um I'll talk about the daily goal in a moment. but uh, which is 5,000 or that's what it has.

but um, but anyways. Um, so let's see. Um, we've got a high here of 13 on P So with P Well, let's actually start with Lbph. So lbph here.

Uh, this one was the first one they traded today. All right. So we'll start with this. This was kind of crazy, so you know All of a sudden, look at this chart.

This stock goes at 8 Am. News comes out and it squeezes from $76 $6 $7 all the way up to a high of $18.43 Golly, that is an impressive move. That's $10 a share. Honestly, I didn't trade it that well I'm up 5,000 on it I didn't trade it that well in part because you know when I first pulled it up.

um It Well by the time By the time I first pulled up, it was already hitting $12 a share right up here. So it it squeezed up like on very light volume seven points. So it sort of made the first leg of the move here on very light volume and I was just like I don't know it's got bigger spreads, the volume's light. So on my very first trade on I broke the ice.

Um, let's see. Actually my first trade was at $11.9 bought a th000 shares. all right I sold that one. um ended up adding back at like 14, selling at 15 with small size thousand share blocks I was not going big on it, added at 16, sold at like ,650 added back at 1680, sold at 1770.

just kind of traded the move up. got a couple of dip trades as it came back down. Uh. but really, the thing for me was that as soon as it hit my scanners it was already up a ton and had big spreads.

It was the big spreads that really made it the most difficult. So we'll jump on the Whiteboard here for a second. So when it first comes up at and you know I I got in at 11. So so we have let's see 1110 by you know, like 1090.

So we're straddling a whole dollar there. so you've got 20 cent spread between the bid and the ask. So I punch the buy button you know I fill it 1109 one penny below the offer but I'm instantly down 19 cents a share right? It's 200 bucks now it squeezes up to 1145 and when it goes up to 11:45 this is what the level two looks like. it goes to 1145 on the offer but it's like 1118 on the bid.

so you know on the offer I'm up a bit but on the bid I'm only up like8 cents n cents a share and this is what kind of kept happening. so I would buy I would be up. I' put my order on the ask here so i' put my you know th shares on the ask at 11:45 and I wouldn't fill I wouldn't fill any shares and then all of a sudden I would see some red and I'd be like ah shoot you know what I'm I think I'm going to have to hit the bid on this and then you know I hit the bid on it. so I bail out I only make 10 cents.

So what what started to happen was my winners were kind of small but when I did catch a loser you know like a couple of them where I added at 1145 for the break through the half dollar and then it drops for it's 1118 and then by the time I'm selling it's like 1098. I'm losing a solid 50 cents a share on some of these trades. so you know this was kind of. This got me a little frustrated and I was just like man, you know this thing is grinding higher but it's got these topping tails and then it dips and then topping tail and then dips topping tail and then kind of dips topping tail false breakout, false breakout.

Now it's just selling off and then off of this level. I actually got a nice trade uh, 1250 support uh as it curled back up here. This was actually one of my one of my better trades. that was a good one.

Um, I also had a good one at the open right year which was like maybe $1,500 winner. Uh, and I got out. my best exit on this was about $20.57 It hit a high of 2150 so I didn't get out at the high of day. But the problem on this was that we got this big topping tail and then it sells off and at that point I was like you know I I I don't know I I don't think I don't think there's going to be I think this is kind of ruining the chart here.

that sort of ugly candle and this is the one minute chart. So when we look at this on the 5 minute, you'll see that that was a red candle to start the day. So a high volume red candle starts the day for us. and that kind of set the tone on this one.

So it's sort of slowly been selling off. um, you know, coming back down. Whatever. Anyway, so I've moved on from that one and then I was like okay, what's next so we had um Dogz hit the scanners light volume stock.

It ends up halting up making a big move, but the spreads again on this one were pretty big I just did not feel like I could trust it so it halts up here. at like $720 it opens, flushes, rallies back up, then flushes again that that's hard to trade so no trades on that one for me. Uh P this one I didn't end up trading. Um, it didn't have news today that I saw it ends up having like seven eight green candles in a row, but up here it started to get pretty extended.

We had a halt and again on this one it was kind of wild. so it halts, it opens, it drops, it almost halts down, and then it rips up and halts up. And when it was almost halting down, I was like well, I mean I guess that makes sense. You've got two, four, five, six green candles in a row and it was halting down right there and then it rips back up, halts up.

but again, you had bigger spreads on this and then it opens higher and I thought about dipping a rip but I was like, you know I just don't think it's worth it I just don't want to push my luck on it. so anyways didn't want to push my Lu look on it, it goes a little higher, it pulls back, comes a little higher here and in this area I was like okay this is a double top. it's not breaking firmly, it's barely holding over the double Top This is weakness I think this is going to be a reversal coming back down here and and it was so. anyways I didn't end up trading it I didn't like it in this area.

this area was too choppy and this area I thought about it but I was like I just can't I don't think I can break the ice with it up here. Um, Pnst was one that I traded this one. um it was halted. it sold off.

um and I actually bought it at $8.39 coming. uh out of this first Hal or out of this Hal down into the first Hal up and that ended up being a nice little trade. It was small size because the volume was light on it, but that was a nice reversal trade. I was thinking of Z ZJ yl or whatever that one was and I was like who knows, maybe this will open at $500 a share? Probably not, but you never know.

So anyways, that was a little dip trade or a reversal trade really. and um, and yeah, that was it. So so anyways, broke the ice today with a few trades, got myself in the green: $6,000 and in terms of my daily goal, so I've set, I've had the $5,000 daily goal for a few years. Um, during 2020 and 2021, I'm pretty sure my daily goal was 20,000 and I was hitting that pretty consistently.

It was was a different market, then we had a lot of liquidity which allowed me to take huge size and so I could make quite a lot of money. Um, and then I reduced it to 5,000 I think in 2022 I was like let's scale this back and 2022 was a good year and I was hitting it pretty consistently. So 2023 I was like I'll just leave it at 5,000 but in 2023, I you know I didn't hit it consistently. And and by the way, my annual goal is not the daily goal times 250 trading days in the year.

My daily goal is aspirational. it's what I would like to hit each day. but I also recognize that I'll probably have one red day each week. So the way I factor sort of my annual goal is I have my daily goal.

So we've got Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so I'd like to hit my daily goal day one, oops, Whatever. Day two, Day three, day four if I can, and then this is a red day minus 5K Max loss. So these two days cancel each other out. So really, it's my daily goal.

You know it's it's realistically. my weekly goal is if I can hit the daily goal three three days. um, it's it's the daily C goal Times three is my weekly goal which would be $155,000 which would be then about 60,000 a month which would be about 700,000 a year, you know, give or take. So I came up Shy with that last year because I finished the year with about $300,000 of profit.

I did my year and review video already so that's uploaded on YouTube if you want to check it out. So since I A since I finished with 300,000 um uh, my daily go my my actual what I walked away with each day was closer to, 1500 a day which is significantly lower now. Obviously there were a lot of days that I did exceed the $5,000 daily goal. but then there was a lot of days that there just wasn't a lot to trade I came up short.

and then of course there were red days. So you know it's kind of tough for me. On the one hand, I could I Could just say well let me just set my daily goal at $1,500 That's what I was averaging last year even though it was a slow year. I just set it at that and you know.

But the problem with that is again, you know 1.5 1.5 1.5 right three days. So now I'm at a $4500 daily goal. So you know Now we're kind of at a $20,000 weekly goal or a monthly goal approximately. And so now this is kind of setting me up I feel like it's setting the bar too low? Like I'm not pushing myself hard enough because that's that's would that would be a $240,000 year? Not to say that's bad, that's still six figures.

It's still. you know. Look for doing two hours or three hours of work each morning? it's great. But I feel like I should push myself a little harder.

so I'm not sure. For right now you know I was kind of like oh, maybe I should set it like 2500 or 3,000 Um, you know something? you know I think 2500 feels feels good to me. Uh, $2,500 days are solid. $3,000 days are solid.

If I finish up 3500, there's nothing wrong with walking away there. I shouldn't feel like oh, I'm not at five grand I need to keep trading I shouldn't feel that way at all. and at a C at a certain level, a daily goal is completely irrelevant. and I say that because on a day when the Market's really hot, you could make a ton more than whatever your daily goal is.

And on the day when the market is cold, it's like it doesn't. It doesn't matter what your goal is, it's unrealistic to even keep trying. It's better just to wait so you know you could set a monthly goal be like, well, I'd like to have 50,000 a month or 40,000 a month or you know, whatever. But but even then there'll be Cycles where the Market's really hot you know, like it was in August and September where I'll exceed my monthly goal and I'll do really well and there's no reason to just stop trading because I hit the goal and then there'll be months where I come up short and there's nothing I can really do about it.

So I don't know may maybe it's better to detach ourselves from daily goals entirely and not really worry about it I Guess the downside would be that um I don't know I mean I think the I think the thing is emotionally it can be helpful to have I feel like a daily goal because you tell yourself oh, you know know I've I've got to keep pushing myself a little harder I shouldn't just be sort of content with this um, and or on the other hand, oh, look, I'm I'm above my daily goal I I Could sort of step back, but ultimately we should be deciding when to push and when to step back based on the condition of the market like not the our gains relative to our arbitrary number. Yes, my gains are a reflection of how I'm performing in the market. So a day where I'm up a lot is a day I should put push it harder. so I did trade a little longer today cuz I thought well let's see if there's more action.

but but the actual daily goal is a very arbitrary number so you know I I don't know I I could be convinced to throw it away, but I don't know. Honestly if I've now had a daily goal for so many years of trading I honestly don't know if I could actually delete daily goal from my brain. You know, like right now today I was like I have a $5,000 daily goal so I was like yep, I hit it good I I just don't know how to erase that Benchmark or that kind of measuring stick that I have. Maybe that's something that I could try to work on? um I don't know I'm not really sure but uh n nonetheless I Finished today in good shape and my cue to walk away was pretty simply that uh, the stocks I was watching started to sort of fade lbph that was was fading, you know wasn't really holding up p Um, you know P it is holding up relatively well, but it's on I feel like it's on the backside and one of the things I said I need to be careful of, especially just in general.

But this year in the beginning of the year is trading the front side of the move and not overtrading the back side of the move and I actually did. For what it's worth, overtrade lbph a little bit because I made $4,000 on this candle and then I gave back 1500 of it on some of these trades up at the top when the spreads got bigger. So I went from up 4,000 to up 2500 and I thought to myself at that point I said, you know this, you're starting to overtrade the back side of the move. There's nothing wrong with walking away right here with $2,500 This is a good day.

Anyways, it ended up curling up here I got some more trades I got myself up to 5,000 on it. but uh, you know if I had just hit that $ $4,000 winner and walked away, that wouldn't have been so bad either. So once this started to pull back, I was like N I think it's done uh P started to pull back Dogz I didn't have any interest in this I didn't see I I just I don't know I just didn't feel like this was obvious enough I didn't think that other people were really watching it I sort of struggled today with what's obvious. we've got our leading gapper lbph we've got p and then what? This one n it's too cheap this one n you know it's like I just felt like there were a lot of kind of Mayes that weren't really that interesting.

Sngx sort of popped up earlier, pulled back, came back up, but cheaper. so anyways I I'm content to have locked it up here. um, if something ends up making a big move later in the day, One of the things that I've sort of set as a goal for this year is to not look back once I leave because even though I'm pretty good about not coming back after I leave, I'll still I'll still check and sometimes I'll be checking on my phone and I'm like I see you know it's like I'm I'm at the the par park with my kids or something or I'm at the grocery store and I see this and I'm like God dang it you know I start getting really agitated and that's Fomo. that's frustration I feel like I've missed out and there's an a funny example.

Um so a couple weeks ago I had a day where um I I traded all afternoon I don't remember what happened I think I went red and I was trying to recoup losses or something. so I traded like all the way till 4:00 and I did recoup some the losses but it was just a really stupid day cuz I just sat trading trading trading and it wasn't the right Market to do that in. so I didn't make a lot of progress anyways. there was a stock that was kind of grinding higher grinding higher kind of like Dogz and so it's like you know it's starts to it, sort of makes its move, pulls back and that was sort of in the morning and then the afternoon it kind of um you know starts grinding up here and it finally starts to pull away and then it immediately Rejects and comes back down and when it was in this area the volume was super light and the spreads were big cuz it was like you know 2 3:00 in the afternoon, no one's really looking at it and so finally once it starts to pull away I got in like up here and I was like okay, let's just see what this does and I ended up stopping out and taking a loss on it.

So the next day the next morning I'm sitting down looking at charts and someone's like hey, look at you know whatever it is and I pull it up and I was like oh man that one made a big move in the afternoon I can't believe I missed it. that was the one I had actually traded and lost on I I had like I was so frazzled the day before I forgot that that was that one so but what's funny is I instinctually I look at it and my immediate reaction was darn it I missed it assuming I would have made money on it but I actually traded it and I lost on it So isn't that kind of funny because that just shows you your perspective of like you always assume. If you had been here, you would have made money on it and so you make yourself feel bad when in reality there are times where you could have been sitting here the whole time and not even traded it like for me today on P for for whatever reason possibly a very good reason. So one of my goals is to leave and not look back and so tomorrow when I sit down in the morning I'll look at the scans and I'll see what stocks did you know the previous day like in the afternoon and if I see somebody that made a big move, I'll be like okay I could factor that into my decision- making today, but I don't want to spend the whole rest of the day feeling fomo and frustration for missing a move I just think that's a waste of time.

um, you know. Having said that, it's also true that if that I I would want to know if a stock made like a 500% move or a 1,00% move I don't need to know in the moment necessarily because trying to come back and trade it as I've said would be really Reckless and I'd be doing it from this Fomo kind of emotionally fueled place. But but I do need to know if a stock made a big move the previous day because that that is going to factor into my view of sentiment for today. You know when we're starting to getting in these hot cycles.

so I do need to check but I don't need to do it in real time. So once I walk away I want to be done for the day so I'm done for the day. I'll see you guys back at it first thing tomorrow morning. Reminder is always.

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