An earnings-gap morning that paid on scaled entries
The chip and software earnings gaps set the tone, and the cleanest work on the desk came from trades built in pieces rather than pressed all at once. One long was averaged into on the flush, moved to breakeven and scaled out on the push back; a short was opened light, added at the retest and covered into a gap fill. A third was entered in two halves off a fast dump with the stop set from the new average. One name refused to cooperate on both attempts.
The 2h 01m session is on the other side of this.
Everything above is the write-up. This is the morning itself, with the names on every call and the room talking through it.
The morning's better trades all had the same shape: get a piece on, prove the level, then commit. The Apple long was started on the reversal, added to as it flushed further, and the stop went to breakeven the moment the average was defended — after which it was scaled out rather than held for a hero number. The Amazon short was opened deliberately light into a parabolic move, added on the retest of the previous day's close with a stop set just above the new average, and covered as the gap filled. Intel was the same method in miniature: half size on an ugly fill as the chips dumped, a planned add lower that was cancelled when the tape didn't come back for it, and the stop tightened to fifty cents from the average instead.
“99.9% of the time of your life as a trader, is to just sit and wait.”
He took ONE trade today and it paid his whole month. Here's why he says your real job as a trader is to NOT trade — and the $4M cautionary tale behind it.
HOOD was where the method ran out of road. The first attempt in was flagged as a problem before the entry — the spread was wide and the stop that the structure demanded was bigger than the trade wanted — and it stopped out under the low as called. Later in the session a second long was taken with a defined stop and a defined target, sat in the entry without going anywhere for most of an hour, and was eventually stopped for less than the first. Neither was an accident; both were sized and stopped to plan. The read simply didn't turn into movement.
“These are very, very, very simple points but we make it so difficult.”
Up $2K in an hour — so why keep pushing? Adri on why we complicate the simplest part of trading, and how your platform and indicators might be quietly holding you back.
The rest of the desk's attention went to names that were talked about and never traded. Nvidia was watched all morning and explicitly declared a no-short on the strength of the guidance, then a no-breakout because the setup arrived too late in the session. One member in the room said outright that nothing about the day made sense to them and so they took nothing. That is the same discipline as a scaled entry, just expressed as zero.
The morning in figures
Net points are per share. Apply your own size to get your own number: at 1,000 shares, 1.10 points is $1,100.00. At 100 shares it is $110.00. At one share it is $1.10. The desk publishes the move, not a dollar result, because the dollars depend entirely on how you size, and that is your decision rather than ours.
Every trade called that morning
Losers included. Rows with more than one leg were scaled out; open any row to see each exit.