Hey everyone! Iâm a long-haul truck driver who is also very active in the markets. I want to trade full-time and will hopefully make the transition this year. Thought I would start a journal to document my progress towards that goal. Back story: 8 years ago, I got tired of office politics and having a boss. Wanted to start a business, had a good idea, but needed funding. Why not trucking? The late-night commercials made it seem not so bad. So I sold everything, drove a truck all over the US for 2 years, had a decent time, and saved my money. Business idea had obsoleted itself by then, but the markets looked interesting. Studied up, quit job and became a full-time trader. Did well in the beginning. Switched from equities to options. Moved to central Mexico. Drank a lot of modelo's, chased senoritas, and blew up my account spectacularly. Came back to the US and started trucking again and trading on the side. Hated myself for wasting a good opportunity. Blew up several small accounts in over-leveraged attempts to get out of a job I was beginning to seriously dislike. Became very mad at myself for screwing up and then screwed up some more...and some more. Hated myself even more. Hit rock bottom and then quit trading for a few months. Switched from options to e-miniâs, grew up a little, and began studying MYSELF much more than the MARKETS. Slowly, my attitude began to improve and so did my trading. Coincidence? Maybe. So now Iâm close to going full-time again. But I still need to be mentally stronger and more disciplined. Iâm working on it. My set-up and trading style: I trade the ES intra-day. 3 point max loss and 2% max risk per trade. One hour max holding time. I use candles, volume, moving averages, RSI, S-R levels, and trend lines to get my signals. Very basic stuff, but it works for me. Risk / reward is a bit less than 1:1, but my hit rate is around 65%. All signals come off the 5 and 1 minute charts, and I always watch the daily. As for my set-up, itâs much more complicated than my technique. Since Iâm on the road averaging 400 miles a day, it gets a little hectic. I can plan all my driving and about half of my deliveries, so that helps. Last Thursday was a good example. I woke up at 0430 near Little Rock AR and started driving towards TX. I wanted to put in 550 miles that day on my way to Laredo. Stopped just short of Dallas to avoid the rush hour and settled down at 0800 to trade as planned. Got my Verizon supported laptop out, checked the charts and tuned into Bloomberg on my XM. Was planning for 3 hours down, but after 2, I had made a few good trades and packed it in. If I left then, I could make it through Austin and San Antonio before the other rush hour. Lots of planning involved. Iâll try to update every couple of days and hopefully you guys can watch me reach my goals. Thanks for reading! Lencho
Update 01-12 For the month so far I am up 18%. Since I risk only 2% on each trade, it looks good on paper. But my trading has been less than stellar. To put it succinctly, I sucked. Seemed liked every turn I took, the market took the other one. I started doubting myself and had to get smaller. Lots of work to do.
lencho who did you drive for if i may ask. I used to drive for about 5 years I long for those peacefull days of cruisin the open or congested roads. Are you a super trucker sitting in your peterbuilt with the seat all the way to the floor like a lowrider, with a ten gallon cowboy hat on your head.
No offense NKHOI, but pilots would ruin this place. They are total EGO and the world revolves around them. They are good for filling YOUR orders and nothing more. Seriously...lencho.
Ken, I can't tell on myself too much. I'm on my 3rd carrier and have about 800K regretful miles.....L
Ken, in between brawling with angry truckers, my 6'4 235" frame (diet starts toworrow..lol) tries to be nice with everyone. If all those jerkoffs were decent, we could all spend our time discussing zero band stochastic bounces. I don't talk to anyone out there. I'm like Han Solo in the cantina scene. One human and a bunch of animals....lencho.
Harrisonburg VA - Last week was not one of my better weeks of trading. Not so coincidentally, it was also a bad week for me in the trucking world. The correlation between the two is always very high and itâs easy to see that attitude is the deciding factor. That has always been a problem for me and I spend way too much time dealing with it. I read PMA websites, motivational stories, trading books, and even meditate sometimes. Iâm much more positive than I was a few years ago, and could even be considered the Tony Robbins of trucking (thatâs not saying much). But Iâm nowhere near the level I need to be at to succeed in trading. The other problems I had last week were staying focused while trading and being too lazy to do my âhomework.â Part of that was complacency after a nice first week of the month, but mainly itâs because Iâm out of shape. Gotta workout more, eat better, and get more sleep. Sounds silly having to remind myself of these basics, but living on the road makes it a little more difficult and I think I use that as an excuse for slacking off. That will have to change. Looking forward to a good week ahead....lencho.
Did some trucking in my younger days but they didnt have the connections that you guys have today. Any trading would have had to been EOD. Hated freight and dealing with lumpers. Flat bed was not too bad but always worried about shifting loads. Finally settled on a dry tank. Good paying loads and no help needed loading and unloading. Would have been nice to be able to trade back then and have the XM going down the road.
some health threads to get you start http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73827 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22613 'A Moveable Feast' won't get many eyeballs, you might want to change it to trucking and trading or something