Evening Trade Journal — 2025-09-30

Session: session_2025-09-30_PM

Markets drifted in a narrow range today after a late-afternoon push reduced volatility. My approach was to favor mean-reversion setups in beaten-down names while keeping exposure limited into the close.

Trades taken: Tactical long on a large-cap tech name showing intraday support near a rising 20-period moving average; a short on a momentum-exhausted consumer stock after a failed breakout; and a small mean-reversion long in a cyclical that sold off with the sector.

Rationale: Longs were chosen where price tested structural support and orderflow showed buying into dips; shorts where momentum indicators (RSI divergence, declining volume on advances) signaled exhaustion. These were not conviction positions — tactical entries sized for quick, defined outcomes.

Stops: All positions carried tight, technical stops: below the intraday low for the tech long, just above the recent high for the short, and beneath the sector support band for the cyclical long. Stops were sized to limit downside to a small portion of capital (kept generalized in public notes).

Outcome & plan: The tech long reached a modest profit target before closing into strength; the short was trimmed and held for further weakness; the cyclical mean-reversion recovered partially and was closed into the overnight gap risk. Near-term plan is to let intraday patterns confirm before adding new exposure, keep position sizes small, and favor mean-reversion or high-probability momentum continuation setups. Headline macro events tomorrow could widen ranges — will tighten stops and reduce size ahead of the open if overnight news is significant.

Sources: session_2025-09-30_PM (internal session notes).