Day 13 Notes: Thinking back on today's trading, I made critical mistakes that explains the huge loss. I started the day with small positions in VALE and DUST. If VALE's support broke, there would be a downside of 3+% and also the chart looked like it had a downward pressure. I went in with 25% position but after seeing the initial upward thrust, instead of pulling out waited a little more and doubled down, telling myself I will exit if the thrust continues. I exited but not following the original plan cost me about 1-1.5% in losses. For DUST, I tried to time the bounce with 25% position but when the GDX was slowly creeping up, I ignored the signs that it could go either was and assumed it would be down because GDX has been rising so much lately, it was due for a downfall. I should have pulled out when I saw the GDX forming relative strength to further upside, at which point I was down about 3% in my position, but I waited. And after GOLD made a jump upwards, instead of exiting I went all in, assuming and half hoping this was a fake thrust. I think my decisions in DUST were due to my beginning of day assumptions that Dollar was bound to go up in shortterm and Gold was bound to go down. However, that short term could be anywhere from within a day to a week. I think my loss in DUST was due to the tendency of not trying to be wrong, and not exiting the day for a loss. There wern't any other good plays to go into, so I held onto the current bad positions, hoping 1) other opportunities would open up in which case I would switch positions and/or 2) hoping luck is on my side on such a no action day and when the action happens, it would go my way. I originally thought today's loss was due to a simple mistake, but I think there was a lot of instances I could have worked better to improve my results. I gotta pick it up real quick if I really want to live day-to-day just trading.
Day 14: Beginning of day: $38341.64 End of day: $35489.82 P/L: ($2851.82); -7.44% Weekly P/L: -5.46% YTD P/L: -0.27% Withdrew $489.82 for personal expenses and will start Monday with $35000. JBLU (332.39) AAL (2262.49) TSLA (1024.46) VRX +998.25 DUST (230.73) Hm... started the day with airline stocks. Thought they were oversold and if NASDAQ holds, or rebounds, airlines would go up. Picked two of the four airlines stock I watch. NASDAQ was being pressured downwards heavily I think, due to Europe markets pulling down. Airline stocks were trying to stay afloat but dropped. What surprised me here was the drop in AAL. Was deciding between AAL or SAVE.. and I had to pick the loser. I guess the CEO changed the term of his contract in AAL which gave investors lose confidence in the stock. AAL dropped a lot more than I expected but I didn't sell even if it touched -1% because other airlines were not dropping like that. It was just that company and I should've cut it short but I thought it would be a temporary oversell and it would bounce back to levels similar to SAVE, but nope, it just stayed down. Loss in JBLU was as expected and loss in AAL was by surprise and I lost big. NASDAQ was being a little btich all day and could not pull up. When it was making a potential reversal I thought I saw an opportunity in TSLA for a bounce. Went in, and when the support broke, I went out. Power of 4x leverage... lost 1K. Thought I saw a similar opportunity in VRX and went in... it did bounce but exited way too early... this time I took off half and took off the other half at a higher place yet it just went a lot higher. Haha.. crap. Thought to make a quick one with DUST but it wasn't pulling up from the massive drop. Overall, giving myself 1- stars for today's trading. Markets were bad, yea, so what? With my positioning, things could've gotten real south real quick. I went all in on trades that wasn't clear, trying to make a redemption for the week. Ended up losing all the gains for the week and more, and now im back to where I started. This week's been a really tough week to trade. Volatile, unexpected earnings; macro economic factors affecting the markets; S&P near its peak not knowing to go up or down in the future; low volume during the days for most of the days. This does not look good.. was up 15% first week and now im even. Crap.. going to be repicturing today's trades in my head, rest up during the weekend, and start again on Monday. FML.
I haven't read the whole thread but here is my two ticks. Pay back that high interest loan, that is the best trade you can make right now. If you want leverage there are always futures or fx where you can get plenty of leverage but at least not at 26% APR good luck
%% Its like paper trading; BUT NOT near as accurate or helpful or handy to study. Both are not much like real trading but @ least paper trading gives you a record............................................................. Wisdom is profitable to direct; pay off the loan asap. Save more like the other trader exhorted.
That is correct but I have used this in the past to get a VERY cheap loan for various things. What you need is a card with an offer like this AND another credit card. On the "other" card make whatever purchases you want (high interest), or get a cash advance (very high interest) and THEN before the first payment is due transfer all of that debt to the card with the low balance transfer cost and 0% interest. You get everything you wanted AND the low x-fer cost with 0 interest. I actually had 2 cards with that deal and a third I used to originate with. Once the 0% interest time ran out I could transfer any remaining balance to the other card with the same deal to extend the repayment time at 0%....assuming it made sense depending on the remaining balance amount, etc.
Day 15: Beginning of day: $35000.00 End of day: $45491.95 P/L: $10491.95; +29.98% Haha...started the day off with DUST. Thought GDX would break early because it rose so much in such a short period of time but nope, it would not. Was still in DUST when I saw the big drops in VRX due to Warren Buffetts comments on VRX over the weekend. Watched the chart until I saw a good reversal sign and exited all my positions in DUST and went all in on VRX. VRX started to bounce but the bounce was very strong and there wasn't a substantial pullback. Went to stocktwits to see what was happening and my man Ackman was saying good things about the company in CNBC. Got lucky on VRX again Made all my money today on VRX. My trading would be 2+ stars today for the horrible entries/exits in DUST but today was my biggest earning day so far, so going to give myself 2 bumps and rate 3 stars for today's trading. Riding VRX wasn't difficult because there wern't any notable pullbacks along the way and there was strong volume and good stability. Was hoping/thought it might see green today but.. this works. Seeing green would have been amazing though.. WOOT what a nice start to the month. Going to concentrate on maintaining this capital.. Also switching from scottrade to IB. Last Friday did a calculation on my trades for the past 3 weeks and the transaction costs alone cost me over $1500.... fml. Not sure if I will be able to credit my new IB account tomorrow to trade, but will definitely trade on Weds.
Day 15 Correction: End of day: $45492.74 P/L: $10492.74; +29.98% Sold all my positions in VRX except 1 share because of a mistype, and the share rose more than 2%...haha wow.
Nice job. Still think you are crazy. If you have a few more days like that, just pay off the loan ASAP.
Start moving money out daily/weekly as you make it and pay down your loan. I've been here before man, (minus funding with the loan). You will feel on top of the world and take a ton of risk...then a couple bad days and you will get absolutely hammered. Best decision I made when taking on a lot of risk was to move out half of all profits I made. Then I had some cash to move back in if anything happened (which it did). In your case, pay that loan down so if anything happens you won't owe somebody money you don't have. Good luck and keep it up!