TSCC intraday chart is forming into a big wedge with the tip thinner and thinner, it is going to zap one way or the other in a few minutes, hopefully in my way, as I have 12000 shares on it after dumping the original 3000 at 1.54.
DG shorted 500 at 21.25, stopout 21.45, -$130 TGT bought 250 at 40.15, stopout 39.7, -$130 TJX bought 500 at 20.5, stop 19.95, out at close 20.7 +$70 ESRX shorted 200 at 59.55, stop 60.3, now 59.42 ($0) RDC bought 400 at 26.45, stop 26.05, now 26.38 (-$20) So Total Realized Paper P/L: +$340. UnRealized Paper P/L: (-$20)
You have been going at this since late August and have only realized $340 in profit. Or less than $10 per day. I see no rhyme or reason for your trading positions. How do you plan to make any money in this bull market?
Hey, $10 per day can buy me good lunch everyday. Not too bad. In older days I would lose hundreds or thousands of dollars. Seriously, I charge $30 commission for a round trip, whereas my Datek account is $22. Or consider the Interactive Broker's commission, my average size is about 400, so $8 roundtrip. As I roughly counted, I did total 103 paper trades round-trip, if using Datek, that is an additional $800 profit. If using IB, that's $2200 profit, which would make my P/L to +$2500. Even after I carelessly wasted $600 on paper option buying. +$2500. Typically there are less than 15 positions, or less than $200,000. A $50,000 margin account can handle that with the typical 1:4 margin. The paper trading is proof of concept, the little statistical edge would accummulate to meaningful sum over the time. I will continue on.
The criticism on my lack of explanation of taking positons is certainly valid because I didn't spend time on writing about the setups and reasons. There are six setups I use, all based on jumping into a new trend, 3 long, 3 short, symmetrical. All normal stuff that circles around the concept of breaking out of congestion.
I used to think finding THAT magic setup is my mission in the pursuit of money from speculation. Now I do not think so. A few months ago I read the cover story on Business Week about the most powerful trader on Wall Street, I noticed the numbers they mentioned, the guy (what's his name?) said the win rate of his best trader is 63%. Only 63% ? Yet they still make lots of money.
Be advised, officially my opinion is worthless. Please do not trade or not-trade just because I wrote something in this journal.
ACE short 300 at 34.15, stop 34.62, target 32.5 BA 300 follow breakout of [36.5, 37.3]. CHK buy 1000 at 10.9, stop 10.7, target 11.3 CHIR 200 follow the breakout of [52.85, 54.7]. DG buy 500 if moves above 21.65, stop 20.85, target EOD. DLTR if gaps/moves above 36, buy 400, stop 34.85, target EOD. DLTR short 300 at 35.15, stop 36, target 33.5. ESRX short 200 at 59.4, stop 60.2, target 58. IACI buy 300 at 37.3, stop 36.85, target 38.6. MDT short 250 at 45.4, stop 46.1, target 42.5. TJX buy 500 at 20.75, stop 20, target EOD. UIS buy 700 at 14.1, stop 13.75, target EOD.
WM short 250 if moves below 40.2, stop 41.1, target 37.5. TGT short 300 at 39.8, stop 40.35, target 37. STT buy 250 at 47.6, stop 47.2, target 48.4. RDC buy 400 at 26.1, stop 25.7, target EOD. PHM short 150 if moves below 73.2, stop 75.1, target 70. NE 300 follow the breakout of [34.45, 35.25]
Trend or Fade ? This question had been bugging me all the time since the very begining. I intelletually understand the logic behind the trend style -"buy high, sell low" (No, not a typo), but just can not get it. I intrinsically want to "buy low, sell high", the emotion me wants to fade. With no success. Many many thousands of dollars had been lost. But that is just part of the story. As I studied my past trades, I noticed if I had just sticked to my principle - "cut loss etc.", I 'd had made money. What really made the loss is that I could not accept the loss, making a small loss developing into a big loss. Or maybe it is just the problem of sizing ? The fading style tends to be early and noisy, a small amount of pain should be expected, but with my oversized positions, making the right decisions is just more dificult than it should be. Or it is just coincidence ? I don't know for sure. What is difficult of fading (at least to me) is the noise level. Let's say $20 is a good support for ABC stock. During the crash down the intraday could go as low as 20.03, 19.95, 19.8, or 19.75. Typically if 19.6X is breached, it is broken. And if I waited a couple days too long, the trend could accelerate, resulting a big loss. As I read more about James RevShark and Gary Smith on thestreet.com, their approach of waiting the critical level to resolve themselves makes more and more sense. Things at those levels are quite chaotic, a 1% random move in either direction could trigger another 5% or 10% in that direction. Betting it either way is like betting on the result of a flip of a coin. Anyway, a few months ago I switched to trending style and things are getting better.