Yesterday, I made the below three trades on the Open based on our morning game plan and strategies we teach on the prop desk. It is important to spend time reviewing your trades each day to determine if you followed your trading plan and identify possible improvements on execution.

BABA (win)—good #s. With large recent runup no great setup but expect some initial profit taking before any bounce.

Look for failure at 104. Didn’t get short off on 104 failure as wasn’t on desk.

Got long flush near 101 w/ stop below 100.50. Not huge confidence in this trade because Chinese name so anything possible but $3 from resistance seemed like would be sufficient profit taking. Also 101 level supported after hours after initial pop on earnings Trade worked best PnL from am ideas on Open.

MMM (loss) got long on open into 175 support from AM sheet. #s weren’t bad enough to justify a break of this support area. Got stopped out below 174.50 w/ low print of day. It then bounced about $2… only loser for day

VZ (win) small miss on EPS with good revenue. This does create impression margins may be under pressure from Tmobile competition. Opened below 50.80 support so put on small short position for move to 50. Long at 50 was idea from AM Meeting as insitutions tend to bid at large whole numbers. Was able to flip short and get long at 50.50 and it bounced 50 cents so very good execution on trade w/ minimal risk.

Steven Spencer is the co-founder of SMB Capital and SMB University which provides trading education in stocks, options, forex and futures. He has traded professionally for 20 years. His email address is: [email protected].

no relevant positions