Aphie's REAL Trading Journal

I have decided to sit today out. I made two trades this morning as maintenance to my option positions.

I immediately bought back my short $23 QQQ PUT and then sold my LONG $24 QQQ PUT for a net gain of $20.

As of right now, my account is down $400. That is a little better than the 10% I thought it was down.

I am done trading for the day and will work on my Jasper program.

+ $20 is better than nothing.

 

Why are my posts being deleted??

 

Becuase all you are trying to do is put Alphie down to make yourself feel better.

 

I did not have much use for Aphie before he started trading for real. The fact that he has been honest and forthright since has changed my mind. Most of these last few derogatory posts are by the same screwball imo. Hang in there Aphie. We have all gone through the same awakening that you are going through now.

 

Hi aphexcoil

When you trade 1 ES contract you are way over-leveraged, the question is not if you are going to lose all your money but when.

As far as i can tell you have one solution:

- put more money in your account (30-40k)

Other solutions include -quit (not fun), trade QQQ/SPY 3 times a week(learning curve = 10 years).

While learning the trade, you should have one obssession:
-staying alive-

good luck

 

Hi Aphe,

I know that there is a huge amount of pressure both self inflicted and from everyone else to succeed and it seems the common result of that is to try too hard, overtrade and lose.

The best advice I ever got as a new trader was to take a horse size chill pill and take it real slow and easy until I'd proved to MYSELF that I could be successful. There is nobody else to prove it to.

I assume that right now you have another source of income so there is nothing forcing you to make huge $$ quickly. Try taking the ES or whatever you choose and make one trade a day with a target of 2 - 3 points. Be real patient and wait for the one trade that rings your bell as the perfect, high probablity, low risk set up. Remember don't force it, wait for it to come - if it doesn't, don't trade. If you can do that for a week or two, making 2-3 points a day you'll have gained something much better than $$ - trading confidence. Then gradually increase your activity...two more weeks doing two trades a day and so on. If you start to lose as you increase, slow down again.

The most important thing is that you come to believe in yourself and your trading ability in real time and with real money.

Wish you all the best!



Indie

 

You speak of the one truth that surprisingly not a lot of people have mentioned. I mean who knows anyone who trades full time and is successful and never lost more than 5K? I don't know anyone. Let alone trading futures. Regardless of skill, intellect, and drive, this is what will ultimately guarantee a trader to race to an early grave or learn how to raise money, quick. Just my opinion.

 

ES does have a lot of leverage, I will agree. However, I can daytrade three times a week and swing-trade other times. As I get more experience, I will trade ES more and more. I am determined to learn and trade right now. That break-even point doesn't have to be "that far" away.

I am just finding that emotions are tough at times. In time, I'll learn to deal with them better. Someone said that I had an unrealistic expectation of not having losses (I think it was Max). He was right to a degree, I need to learn that losses are a part of the game and not let them get me down.

 

I couldn't have said it better. IMO who in their right mind would try to daytrade under 25K? It can't be done. Getting in and out of positions is crucial and the last thing you want to be thinking is "oh no the trade is going sour but i can't sell or i will burn off one of my three daytrades/5 days." -(Not talking about futures here) Trading is all about probability, and at times you will need to exit at a loss even the best of setups. Those three permitted daytrades will go fast and you are going to be sitting out most of the trading week at a loss and feeling terrible.

Even if you win most of your daytrades for nickles and dimes you are still out the game for a week after three daytrades with stocks.

Isn't this obvious after a moments reflection? Why does it even need to be stated to someone who has been strudying the market for many months like you said you have been, right aphie?

I also wouldn't try to begin with futures either for the same reasons as Instant Karma. Your account is going to burn down fast learning on the futures and this will make you even more scared to trade than you are now.

IMO, If I were to trade under 25K, I would look for a DAILY strategy, spend hours and hours and hours scouring for such a strategy (ET is a great place to start, and "inandlong" has some interesting things to say about this), then having found something promising I would spend many many hours backtesting (manually if i had too) to get a feel for what the outcome would be and the risks in the real world. Does the strategy seem to work or not is one thing you are evaluating BUT I would also try to imagine what the worst case scenerio would be trading the strategy, and then imagine how I am going to feel when it happens because IT WILL HAPPEN. "Can I live with it" is what I would be saying to myself, and what & when is going to be my next move/trade when it does happen. If the loss will devastate or paralyze you with fear and anxiety, then DON'T DO IT. The strategy is too risky for you at this time. Keep looking.

Even after all this backtesting and researching and contemplating I would be skeptical of the dam thing ever working, and would proceed very cautiously with only 50 shares to begin with. The object at the beginning is not to make money at first but to try to AVOID LOSING IT. There is a difference here. The winners are easier to trade, it's the losers that give us trouble.

If I had only 5K, 50 shares would not scare me much even if a stock I was holding overnight gapped against me 2 points or so. In this event I'd only be down a hundred bucks. (Now if it gapped against me 8 points like IBM did yesterday i'd be sh*tting my pants but hey .."you pays your money and you takes your bet"). But remember this is all predicated on having a strategy that is likely to succeed because I spent an obscene # of hours researching and painstakingly backtesting it manually, thinking about what could go wrong, testing some more, then wondering what else could go wrong, more testing ("what am i missing cause this seems to work" I would be thinkingand after all this if I was satisfied I had a likely system and i could live with the worst outcome (you won't have any probs dealing with best outcome should it occur ) I would place my 50 share bet and cross my fingers (and watch it very closely).

Then RE-EVALUATE! And RE-THINK ...

regardless this is just my opinion and you shouldn't believe me anyway...LOL