Guys, I am running a small blog about my progress as a day trader, sharing every trade I closed. Here is my weekly recap about the previous week. Wanted to share with you to see what you think. I am mostly doing this for myself, to be able to keep track of my own progress,discipline and work. Kind of makes me reflect on all the trades and urges me to be a better trader day by day. Appreciate your comments! David

This week has been fairly good to me! Even if the markets are turbulent, there are always plays out there that can bring you big money if traded smart. Timing is extremely important as well as discipline.

I will analyze each trade below but if you are short on time, have  a look at this screenshot of all my trades from last week. 2 major mistakes along a few good trades.

As you can see there were some really good percentage winners, however the goal is to become consistent and to be able to place 10,20,30 trades and still say that even though there may be some losers among them, I traded all of them according to my golden rules.

Here is a recap on what happened and how I managed to make almost $400 this week (2.43% on my total investment)

Monday

$AXPW

One of the best days of the week. Only focused on this single stock and played it multiple times. based on breakouts from previous highs. When a stock breaks out from a price level, you have a chance of trading it based on the following things:

• Buy when the stock hits new highs for the day
• Put your stop-loss about 10 cents below the previous "high of the day" - which becomes resistance once the price breaks out to new daily highs.
• As the stock goes up gradually, tighten your stop-loss to maximize profits.

How to make $400 with Sniper Trading!?

Tuesday

$AXPW;$XNPT;$CBLI

$AXPW

I made all my mistakes/bad trading on Tuesday. In the case of $AXPW I was trying to anticipate news for the next day and bought the stock to sell it the next morning for a nice gap up. When the news did not come, there was absolutely no gap up and I had to cut losses quick. The stock went back up to higher levels later but I was out of it already. . .

Lesson : Don't buy and hold a stock overnight on "maybe" news or unverified expectations. If there are no news or no movement, you can easily find yourself losing money.

$XNPT

$XNPT was my second bad trade this week. They had news pre-market, the Federal Drug Administration gave them the green lights for one of their products. Usually, this would be great news and the stock would skyrocket. It did go up really high pre-market, hitting the 8 dollar mark already. I thought buying it in the 6-es when it came back was a goldmine. Well.. turned out I was wrong, it quickly declined after hitting the highs and fell back dramatically at market open. Why? Because as it turns out, people were more doubtful about the possible success of their drug than anything else. People thought their drug is not good enough to grab a market share in this environment. So, even though the FDA approved their progress, the people were not that sure. This resulted in a massive selloff.

Lesson: Do not buy stocks in big quantities until you see the market's reaction. It's always better to wait for the direction and then move on it.

$CBLI

My last trade for the day was $CBLI. This one was a good swing trade as I held it for more than 5-10 days. They got good news and funding on the day of my purchase and the stock was climbing up steadily since then. I made a great 5.4% on this slow trade. The only frustrating thing about this was that they came out with some good news the very next day!! The stock price jumped to around 5.3 (remember I sold at 4.53) ... so it's a typical case of could have,should have,would have. 

Wednesday

Did not place any trades on Wednesday. Sometimes you just can't find anything good to enter. This is totally fine. The goal is not to jump in any trade that breaks out.. The goal is to save your money for the best opportunities. Wait it out, be patient and you shall find a few great ones every week.

Thursday

$CANF

Traded $CANF for almost 18% profit ! Very rarely can a trader pinpoint the bottom of a washout (washout is when a stock opens high and then quickly gets sold and dives down to a point where the sellers get tired and the buyers start to pick up the pieces again. many traders try to find the bottom and "dip buy" the stock for extensive profits.)

In my case,that intraday bottom was 2.16 and I managed to buy my shares at 2.17 - Was really happy about that move and rode the waves all the way up to 2.556 - This gave me a comfortable profit, but little did I know that this stock will go all the way up to 7.8 the next day. WHAT??! So, meanwhile being happy about the opportunity and the gains, I could have,should have,would have made over 2.5K on this single trade!!! Crazy!

Friday

$CANF $AQXP $CANF

  

I bought $CANF pre-market on Friday, expecting it to go up at the market open. The stock finished near its day's highs, showed real strength and was as hot as it gets before the Friday market open. I decided to buy it, however, as usual these hyped stocks usually start the day with a little washout (all sell orders that are placed the previous night or pre-market are being executed at the open. This drives the stock price down) Unfortunately, I just didn't have the guts the hold the stock and sold for a tiny profit right after the market open. As expected the stock went down, but only to take a breath and come right back up to the previous price levels and make its way all the way to 7+ later that day. Pretty frustrating to think about the fact that I had this stock twice (500 at 2.17 and 200 at 4.34) before and was not able to hold it and make much more money. My second $CANF trade for the day was much better. Traded a clear breakout pattern. Bought near lows with a low risk/reward setup, anticipated a rise into the market close and there it was. Rose nicely and I managed to make around 10% on it. Easy to spot pattern. Not that easy to properly execute.

$AQXP had good news Friday morning too! In spite of the news, it did  not really spike after the initial market spike in the morning. I waited till it faded back to around 18 and moved in to buy (dip buy - as I thought that the bottom would be around 18) Set a stop-loss of 17.6 and left to do some errands. HUGE mistake! Never enter a trade if you know that you won't be able to be there when things are happening. It's just stupid, why would you risk your own money without knowing what's going on with it. You don't leave kids home alone, you don't leave your day trade alone either. . .

As it turns out, the day's low was 17.55 and I got kicked out by my stop-loss. Well.. I was only 5 cents away from making an other 100 dollars for the day, instead, I took home  a loss of 2.5%. Stupid trade that could have been avoided with some concentration.

I think AQXP could still rise next week so it will be on my watch list for more trades. The news were good and the price is nowhere from overextended yet. Could make some money with this next week.

That's pretty much it for this week. Hope you could learn from the trades I made and got the mood to jump in and become even more engaged.

Don't forget to like on Facebook (www.facebook.com/breakoutbuzz), I am also posting some interesting,real-time thoughts/alerts on Twitter (@Breakout_Buzz) and if you like video explanations, you are always welcome to subscribe to my Youtube Channel too.

Have a good Sunday evening. Stay safe.