Gaining Ground After A Tough Couple Of Weeks

After a tumultuous start to the year, things have finally started to turn around in my day trading accounts. While it’s a low bar, the third week of January has been my strongest stretch so far this year with close to $70,000 in gross profit.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, the week started with a few roller coaster trades in Aclaris Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACRS). I first traded ACRS as it was climbing in Monday's premarket session for about $10,000, but then took a roughly -$15,000 loss as it dropped on the open. I was able to tag back up with ACRS and a few other runners to dig my way out from that loss, but it was a tough note to start the week out on.

I didn’t take any trades on Tuesday, but that action in ACRS was still fresh in my mind when I came to the market on Wednesday. I made a concerted effort to avoid any risky setups and just aim for hitting my daily $10,000 benchmark. That caution paid off thanks to some premarket trades in Obalon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OBLN), one of the leading gap stocks that morning. While I did briefly dip into ACRS, I ended Wednesday early after seeing most of the momentum stocks I was tracking at the time completely collapse.

Thursday was when the market really started supporting a bit more momentum, particularly in Vinco Ventures, Inc. (NASDAQ: BBIG), which I traded in a gap and go setup through its breakout from the $7.00 level to above $9.00. Those trades in BBIG represent almost half of my total profits for the week, and they also happened on a day I was able to avoid any big draw downs.

I wrapped up Friday with a handful of okay trades in OLBN and CLPS Incorporation (NASDAQ: CLPS) and, while not a stellar close to the week, I’m happy that it was a relatively calm one for my trading accounts and that I was able to string together a few green days to make up for the massive losses I started out the year with.

Despite it being a solid week that ended up approaching my weekly goal, I’m still in the red on the month by more than -$90,000. While it’s not impossible that I find enough momentum in the market to make up that deficit, I’m going to try and keep my P&L concerns on the back burner and instead focus on just making my daily goal and keeping this green streak alive.