Able to recognize good trading Opportunities....

Thanks for the words of support!

 

hang in there, it's hard with a smaller account.

my 2k account had a max winner of about $500 so far

trade per-share pricing for large stocks, but i recommend low-priced stocks with flat-fee commish. i pay $10 a trade, 20 roundtrip

 

Until you get to over $25k at least, I think you should change to a very low or no commission broker. When you are only averaging $30 per trade profit, $13-$16 in and $13-$16 out is effectively 1/2 the profit.

 

When i started i was also moving my stops trying to protect smaller profits. I figured out that for me, this was a big impediment to making money. I really had to force myself to hang on until i reached my projected target and developed very strict rules for raising a stop. i know this is different for everyone, but for me, giving a stock some room to trade yields much higher gains than letting a small winner get away every now and then.

Another thing that I changed that had a profound impact on my trading was to stop playing the what would of- could-of game with myself. If I see an opportunity but don’t take it for whatever reason, it just wasn’t an opportunity for me after all. I am not saying this is a problem for you, rather saying it used to be a big one for me. I taught myself to look at what I do and if I see that making an adjustment might afford me more or better opportunities, I will modify my strategy to take advantage of them. But I try hard not to beat myself up over what could have happened if I had only done this or that. It made a big difference in my results.

Also, considering your account size and the high commissions you are paying, it doesn't sound like you are doing all that bad.

 

1. Trade in the direction of the indexes.

2. Never buy all at once

 

Thanks for all the responses. Some of the different experiences and opinions give me new ideas for how I might improve/change some of the habits which are holding me back in my trading.

Target0: I found your comments on targets and hindsight particularly helpful... I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.

P.S Anybody from London?? I'm eager to meet up and talk trading!

 

use interactiv brokers. using retail is worthless. if your swing trading u could use retail. but if scalping for 30,40,50-100$ at a time, use IB or some other DAT