All right. So today I went on the roller coaster down and back up red almost to Max loss before we're couping and finishing in the green. This is a tough Market to trade in and it's exasperated by the fact that we're trading stocks in many on many days right now that have really big spreads have big ranges, but when you get these big spreads, it's very easy to suddenly be down a lot more than you were expecting and that's exactly what happened today. So let me walk you through it.

Well actually first let's talk about yesterday. So yesterday as you know, I did my recap and walked away. It was a green day and I was like yep, locking up a green day and I felt yesterday like I just wasn't on my game I don't know what it was but I was just like there were a couple of stocks, I was kind of trying to trade and I just I didn't feel like I had the touch you know I just I felt like I was just off and I said you know what I think I'm going to make a mistake if I keep trading So I'm just going to walk away so it's Green Day locked it up, walked away Well as it turned out, Nexi ended up continuing to move higher. So the first thing I did this morning when I sat down I was like well, let's take a look at Nexi from yesterday even though I didn't trade it uh, which is fine, it was the right decision for me to walk away cuz I wasn't feeling well.

um I'm still going to look at the moves and evaluate. You know what. just better understand the price action. Okay so as I sat down looking at Nexi I um I have some lines here that I drew uh today.

so I'll I'll remove those for now to make it easier. So I was watching Nexi as it squeezed up here and if you recall this candle right here with high volume, this red candle was what kind of turned me off I was like I don't know I don't like that. then it rallies back up and goes higher. which surprised me especially because there was no news.

so and this one also did a T12 haul like in I think it was December anyways so just a little iffy about it anyway. so it it goes higher, kind of pops up, pulls back, and then it ends up halting up here at $16 and this is where I was like you know what? I'm over it I'm just going to call it a day. this is this is obnoxious I knew I didn't want to chase it on resumption and I just felt like the more I watched it, the more annoyed I would get. So anyway, so I walk away.

so on resumption it opens at uh, let's see it opens at 1725. It dips to a low of 17 and then it rips up here which is good. So a nice little dip and rip. It goes uh, to 18 to 1890 to 19 and all the way up to 21.

$20.70 Then in this candle, it drops to 18 54. That's a two-point candle right there. Wow. Okay, so we got some big candles.

It does rally back up, but more or less double tops. Uh, people are selling against that previous. High Shorts are selling against that level. Longs are getting out and it sells off a bit more.

However, it never comes down below. You know this. Gap Right here that was formed uh by the halt. so this stays.

Uh, it holds above that level. It pulls back down to the 20 moving average and then it starts to curl back up. Uh now. I Imagine Had it had big spreads pretty much the whole way.

Uh, so that was still a challenge. It kind of pops up here, rejects pops up here Rejects and then this time it breaks through the whole dollar of 20 and squeezes up to 22 little topping tail, pulls back, pushes higher. Notice these topping Tails here here and here, this indicates that you had these big spreads. It pops up, but then it dips down.

That can be some tough price action to trade, especially when you've got a lot of range, Pulls back, pops up, and then drops all the way back down to here as you can see and then pushes higher for one more move before selling off again. So you know what? It ended up going up to a high of about $28.69 It's that's a nice move, there's no question about it. Okay, so I saw that this morning when I first logged in. um and the first thing I did this morning, you know, probably around I don't know.

it was like 6:45 7:00 a.m. um I pull up the charts on my phone I pull up the the scans on my phone and then I pull up the charts so you know I'm looking at the charts just to see. All right, you know I was just looking at the top gappers. That's pretty much what I do I'll look at the top gappers and then if I like one of them or I want to learn more about it, I'll click on the chart.

So Ghsi was our leading gapper today up 75% Uh so or actually our second leading gapper. Uh, but anyway, so uh CN XA was the leader. but so I looked at Ghsi I didn't end up trading that and then I I looked at Nexi which was on the Gap scan but it was gapping down. It was gapping down about 10% Um, and then or maybe it was.

oh no, it must have been G gapping up 10% Um, anyway, so it's gapping up 10% but it's a very small Gap So that was next I was like, all right. well um, you know what do we have here? So at about 7:30 a.m. I sat down at 7:15 and at 7:30 I see it starting to pop up and I watched it right here and I was like man, you know I don't know I I Kind of am tempted to punch it here but we had these big spreads and I was like you know, just and the volume was super light I was like just wait for more volume while it ends up going here from 18 to 19 to 20 up to 21 and I was like gosh darn it you know. But so while the result of that trade would have been a winner, the fact is, the decision I still stand behind to not take the trade because the spreads were too big at that moment so it ends up selling off and pulling back.

and then I take a trade. um as it breaks over Vwap right here. So I jump in a little high at like $19.5 I waited for this big green candle to form. it ends up hitting this high of 1923 and I bought right in here.

It goes up to 1975 which is good, but the problem is I added too high so I got in at 19. Let's see, let me look at my orders. Uh so I I ended up losing three grand on this stock. So I got in at 19 U 32, 1947 and then added at 1950 and 1959.

So I added 2,000 shares at 1959. I got myself up to a 5,000 share position and then in this candle it drops back down to 1909 on the bid and on this candle it goes to1 1850 on the bid. So I'm down three. you know 3500 bucks almost and you know I could have just held it but that's not how I trade.

that's not worth it and if I had it wouldn't have worked out anyways because of that drop. So I cut the loss on it and I was kind of annoyed. You know I missed this first move and then I got in on this one and my problem was that I added. but here's why I added high volume.

the volume was coming in, there was a ton of volume so I was like here we go, the tape was moving and that just sort of stopped. so that was annoying. Um ends up dropping here and then at the open or sort of right before the open it rallies back up. So I end up getting a trade at it as it rallied back up and made about 500 on it.

I think I was down 3600. um at the beginning of the after that trade. so I made back like 500 here. but I traded it really cautiously because I was like you know I'm all I just stock is is kind of trash Anyways, it sells off here and my last trade on it was a dip at Uh 1171 1172 which was a nice dip but I only did it again with small size went up to like 12:30 didn't really come up as much as I thought it would.

So so that was Nexi that put me in the red $3,600 to start the day and then my next trade was CX and that put me in the red another $127 Okay so this is our top gain scanner as we have see the market right now. so CX isn't on here. but it did pop up on our highay Momo scanners a little earlier today and it squeezed up right in this uh, right in this uh range here. So I traded it in that range but I lost 127 bucks.

Okay, look, no big deal. The only problem is I was down 3600 already on this and then I lost 127 on that. So now I'm down 3,700 bucks. What's my Max loss minus 5,000 You know that's what it's been at for a long time.

That's what I'm keeping it at realistically. Maybe Could should be a little tighter than that because I'm not hitting $5,000 green days as regularly as I was when I set this $5,000 Max loss. But in any case, this is what it's set at. So okay, so I knew that I was basically one trade.

You know if I lost, you know $1,200 on the next trade I was going to be at Max loss ofus 5 grand. So I was like you know you're really kind of getting very close to your max loss here today. This is not great. Uh so then I was sort of okay.

so then what happens was um what was it? um so when Nexi dropped on this candle right here I was like all right, Nexi is dead I didn't think it was going to Rally back up like that but in any case I was like Nexi is dead. let's go look for something else. So I put that on the side chart and I was looking at my top Gainer scanner and you see these arrows right here. So this is when a stock is moving up the scan.

red is when it moves down. So these two just traded places basically and these two just traded places. But when you start seeing you know five red arrows and one green arrow it means that one stock just jumped that many places to the top. So like this one just did.

All right. So I noticed Crbp down down there on the scan but moving up and I was like interesting. Okay so what happened was CBP starts popping up and the first thing that I'm thinking about is Crbp. this is the stock that on Friday you know went from $8 to $40 a share.

We I know we had a couple days of pullback. so I pull up the chart and I'm like here we go this is a bull flag on the daily. it's a big it's not perfect bull flag but first candle to make a new high is a set that I like to trade. So I pull up the chart and I like the daily I'm already familiar with the stock and I'm looking at it right here and I see that it's just popped up like right here it's just popped up in this area I immediately look at this level here.

I think I actually drew the trend line I was like yep, let's snap that on there. $29.70 Okay, that was our so I'm like this is our first first candle to make a new high if we can break over. Well, if we break over this level, we're breaking through this resistance point from after hours and I knew that we were already going to be above that first candle to make a new high from the previous day. So I was like all right, this is something that I'm interested in and I knew this was a type of stock that could move several dollars a share so it's squeezing up right here.

I see it go from 29, uh, 28 to 29 it hits 30 $29.99 and on this one let's see: I took my first order at 2960 and I added at 2976 and I added at $30 38, I added at 3104 and I even added at 3226. Um, although that add was a little bit too high. So as it starts basically pulling away, I'm adding as it's going higher. Now the only thing is that I took my starter right down here and then on this candle.

All of a sudden this shows a low of 28. uh, 79. So all of a sudden I was down a dollar a share. almost and I was like whoa, uh hello, like the spread opened up.

It's not that it dropped, it's that the spread opened up and it was like 2850 or whatever by 29.99 and someone sold. And because of that print, the candle was formed. So now you've got this huge spread and I was like uhoh, I might have just made a big mistake because now if this thing doesn't break out on the daily the way I think it's going to and it drops, I'm going to be stopping out at 28. I'm going to lose two grand on this and I'm going to be below my Max loss.

So you know when I kind of think back about the quality of this decision. If I hadn't been read 3500 already on. next, would I have taken this trade and I think that the answer is that I wouldn't have taken the trade because the risk was too high at this price range and with these spreads. But because I was already red, there was a feeling this is the funny thing is I'm already red so I'm like, well, what's what's the worst that can happen I'll be I'll still be red right? and then the best that happens is it ends up being a really nice move and I can make some profit which is what happened, but when you're already in the red, it can be very easy to sort of break the ice and take another another another trade because since you're already feeling discomfort by being red, what's the difference between being red 3500 and being red 5500? Red is red and that's a really tough thing to get away from because it can lead to capitulating snowball losses.

where the losses get bigger and bigger and bigger because you're like, well, I'm already red, Who cares? So I don't think I would have taken this trade if I wasn't already read on the day. um, which is also which you know. So then if we look at the decision on the first trade, I took on on Nexi. That trade then sort of resulted in me being off my game for the following trades.

So it shows how important it is for every single trade that you're making. You know a a good decision all right. So anyways, um, it doesn't mean that I didn't have the right idea obviously I made money on it I made $4,000 on it. but I I probably shouldn't have taken this trade because the risk was too high so it was a high-risk trade where I had the risk of easily losing two grand, maybe more.

and anyways, it broke 30. it pops up here so I add for the break of 31 it squeezes up I add for the break of 32 and then it squeezes up here. and my best exit was around I didn't even get so I added at 3226. but my best exit wasn't that High U my best exit was 3204.

so anyways, um but nonetheless, that was a couple dollars a share so made some money on it and then it pulls back. and then the news of the offering drops and I was like this is classic, right? You know we see this all the time. these stocks push higher and then next thing you know, boom offering comes in. So of course by that point I wasn't in in it I was already out.

but uh yeah. so then we got an offering on it. it drops. priced at 19, ends up rallying back up a little bit.

But all things considered, the offering price wasn't as low as we've seen on other stocks, so this may have some more potential in it in the coming days. But I you know I don't want to I don't really want to push my luck. So all right. so that was uh, Crbp and then we had Reb I got a small trade on this as it moved higher.

Uh, this gave uh, let's see this. put in a squeeze here. Um, at the open it squeezed higher and my trade on this one let me see. So right? So I bought this at $986 Um, as it started to pull away and that was a decent trade, I just took small size, but I got in right here at the beginning of this candle.

ended up going all the way up to nearly $12 a share. so that was. That was a nice move. Again, didn't make a lot on it.

but um, so I'm sitting at $984 and it's not a big green day. but hey, it's certainly better than a Max loss day. and it's better than being red 3500. But if we go back to that first trade on Nexi, so you know if I'm going to be sort of critiquing this first trade, which is where things went bad for me today.

I've had some good trades where a stock is below Vwap and then comes back above it, but I ended up having a cost basis of like 1948. you know my average was way way up here. so I chased it, you know? I I I didn't get in when it broke I waited for volume to come in and then it came in but then I was into the top I thought it was going to rip right back up to the high I Had just seen this big move earlier so I saw the potential but I just got in too high. That was the problem I got in too high and when you get in too high, your back is immediately against the wall because now it needs to continue squeezing or you're going to be down and you can't hold until it goes all the way to support.

most likely even though you know. Okay, why sell on support? Yeah, well, if you sell here, you're down a dollar a share. If you don't sell here, then you end up getting caught selling here and that's even worse. So I really need to be um, thoughtful about those first first trades and making sure I'm not chasing too much and I'm waiting for that good entry.

And one of the challenges with that is the fact that at least for me I often feel like if I wait for a good entry I might not get one at all. You know this is this is the window and if I don't participate in this window right here, I'm not going to get anything from the stock. so it leads me to jump in quickly when I see something starting to move and in the hot markets of 2020 2021 even tailing end of 20, you know it kind of petered out in 2022. That was a good strategy and that allowed me to capture as much as I could of these big moves.

but in this colner market, that strategy is not as profitable because a lot of these stocks will squeeze up and then they kind of stall out and then they pull back right? so the pullbacks have been safer. no doubt about it. But what's challenging is being able to determine. is this the stock that's going to, you know, pull back and just fade and go and be dead? or is it going to pull back and is it going to Rally back up and I haven't gotten really good at being able to figure out which one is going to do which? Uh I Think part of the problem is that when something is pulling back, if another stock pops up, Traders will just abandon this one and go over to the next one and then that's the one that's in Focus So Minm today stole the attention as it squeezed from 360 up to 460 and all the way up to $5 a share.

So any hope that one of the others would curl was lost when this one became in Focus People just gave up on the other charts and went for this one and as I saw this one at 360 I was like I don't know. it's been kind of a grinder here I'm afraid it's going to jack knife you know, but it did give a nice breakout. uh and it gave another another one here and then this nice pull back here. By the way, Nexi had a really nasty jack knife uh yesterday which I um I should have pointed out.

but I'll I'll show you now. So This was um um let's see there was this here. but no I'm not thinking of Nexi I think I'm thinking of Rvsn Rvsn I was looking at one of these earlier uh on my phone premarket and I was like golly that was gross. yeah it was this one Rvsn.

So look at this thing. this is uh that that right there I that is that is a nightmare. You know that really is just the worst. This thing went from 24 nearly $24 a share all the way down to 19 in one candle, up and then down jack knife.

So we've been seeing these types of moves, especially on stocks. You know that have been in consolidation, start to break out and then get slammed back down. So you know this is something that's led me to be very cautious about trading stocks that are in consolidation for that curl because you know we do see those rejections and then when that happens it's pretty much over from there in most cases. Now sometimes they do reject and then they do a slow grind backup, but more often than not they fade.

So you know in my small account. well I don't want to talk about my small account because I'm I'll I'll upload I'll do that episode epis later. but um anyway. so I guess the long and the short of it right now is that this is a market where it's been more challenging being a breakout.

Trader You you go for a breakout, you catch a jack knife like that or uh, you go for a breakout like I did on Nexi and it just kind of stalls out and you're like man. So breakout Traders have been forced to, you know, go back to the drawing board a little bit and either tighten up on how much we're willing to chase something or what our quality standard is. Obviously, breakouts worked well on Nexi yesterday, right? Day one of the move, it gave some pretty nice, pretty nice action and there's people that certainly chased it and did well on it because it kept going higher. that was, that was very strong.

But day two today. Continuation. Nah, not so much, right? It just sort of stalled out and then stalled out and then went lower second and then fail. So it's a time to be a little bit more cautious and just be a little bit more picky.

I Mean it, it's Breakout Trading works. You just have to be a little bit more picky right now than. uh, maybe you've had to in the past. So I think this morning I was a little too aggressive on a continuation setup and that put me in the red.

you know, by quite a bit. So I've got to be careful. I've got to slow down a little bit. Uh I Guess today's actually the last day of January So January is in the books now and we're starting a new month.

Um, you know, first thing tomorrow morning. So we all have the chance to start a new month fresh and take some lessons from. January apply them to February and more than anything, try to make some better decisions in February Try to focus on accuracy, higher quality setups, taking trades where we feel like we've got 80 85% probability that we're going to be successful, so avoiding the high-risk kind of speculative trades that have maybe resulted in some unnecessary losses. I I Haven't looked at my metrics, but of course I had a loss today and I had a loss.

Uh, a couple weeks ago I don't remember. Oh, it was Dwac. Um, yeah, it was Dwac and and that was another example of me buying into breakouts and then catching these flushes on big spreads. So some of my biggest losses have come from uh, that this month.

But no doubt some of my biggest winners have also been from Breakout have continued higher. So it's really a question of being able to decipher which stocks should I apply that strategy to. Was Dwac the right one and we I already know that it wasn't It was not the right one and was NEX each today the right one second day continuation with no news? Probably not. So quality of stock selection for me is probably going to be the most important and that sometimes means trading less and that can be very difficult.

However, I'll remind you that my best month of 2022 was sorry. 2023 was also the month that I took the fewest trades. So let that Snc in and I'll remind you as always that trading is risky. My results aren't typical, so take it slow, manage your risk and I'll see you back here for the recap tomorrow.

All right, See you tomorrow.