Weren't you the one who told me that to stop trading after I am up in the morning is not a good strategy? Now that you posted your journal after I quit, you are telling people it is pretty useless to trade in the afternoon?? Pretty hypocritical of you don't you think?? And not telling people how you do?? Without any numbers you can say whatever you want. What the hell, you can say that you are flat when in fact you are down $1000. By the way I don't give a crap how you do, but when you go on to someone's thread and diss them saying that their strategy sucks and says that you figured out how to trade and whatever they are doing is bullshit, then you better back it up with some hard numbers otherwise keep quiet and do your little journal. And to say that you have traded 4 years and you trained people??? You are only doing 600 shares? That's a lot for a "PEOPLE TRAINER". I really don't think you have any credibility as far as writing this "Journal" but if people like to read it so be it. AAA, Well you have a lot of fun dissing HItman and his strategy, I don't see you post any of your trading results. It is easy to criticize other people when you don't have to back it up with some kinda of numbers, and if you are such a HOT SHOT, why hang around here??? Go the million dollar trading club down here. Ai righyt?
Hey Stockkbroker, Don't know why your so hostile? If you look I have nine posts, I found this site about two weeks ago. I don't know if the stress is getting to you, but no need to get all paronoid. Never posted in your journal or personally e-mailed you. But since we are in my thread, let me say that you are a mediocre trader. Have yet to see why you even bother coming in to the office. That was a jabb by the way. By the way aren't you the one who pussed out on your journal after all the crap you got, cause you weren't trading well. That was another jab. And now I'm sure your going to be the hypocrite and write something here to defend yourself, in my thread, so I guess your going to do what you stated that you didn't like others to do, oh well, what do you expect from someone so mediocre? This by no means reflects on my take of Hitman, real nice guy from what little I've talked with him. And let me say again, I do a multiple of strategies, and you know what I also do baskets, just like you guys at WorldCo do, and it makes money, no doubt, but there are other trading styles out there. And sure I could be lying, but hell so could you. I can look back on the charts and say I bought here, sold there, etc... but whats the point not like I'm soliciting customers or investors. I flated the last couple of days...does that irritate you somehow? I mean come on, you could be lying too, its not like your giving me your account login and password so I can verify it. AAA, thanks for the imput. If I list a trade, or mention a sector at a specific time, and someone bothers to look back and sees something I don't, I would be interested in knowing what your looking at.
FLAT = +/- 200 NET (After commission) DOWN = Down over 200 UP = Up over 200 And if I have a really good day, you'll know, and if I have a really bad day you'll know to, but they'll probably pull the posts cause of the explicitives.
Stockk, What's your problem , man? I specifically said I had a lot of time for Hitman and respected what he's been able to accomplish and that I found his and your results credible. I find his style a bit limiting. If I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me. I have never tried to bigtime anyone here and I am baffled that you seem to think I did. Hitman is constantly talking about wanting to do size and I just don't see how he can do a whole lot more with his approach.
OOPS!! Sorry, thought you were someone else. AAA, I got no problem, just voicing my opinion like YOU did!! Chill man, lol.
AAA: I think you are underestimating the tier 2 and 3 stocks. I firmly believe that unless you do say 2000-5000 shares regularly, tier 2 and 3 stocks absolutely destroy tier 1's in literally every way. And a lot of the tier 2 and 3 stocks generate more than enough volume for you do all the size you can possibly want. 1) You are not on the front line taking direct hits when futures ticks against you. 2) The tape is cleaner, more readable, specialist doesn't have to blow stops at every figure to get day traders out. The chart is usually cleaner too. 3) Most importantly, on most days, given the same broad market momentum the tier 2 stocks will ALWAYS move more than tier 1's, simply because the float is thinner. Now, if you are referring to stocks that move 3-4 points a day. I can tell you stocks like NVDA / ADI are nice to look at but very difficult to trade. It is a huge mistake for newer traders to look for fast movers, you WILL get smoked. As for my limit, I rarely take more than 1000 shares, and most of my positions are just 500 shares. If I can improve my holding period, and increase my size to 2000 shares, that's more room for improvement than you think. Last but not least, when I say I took 10 cents it is because at that specific time I didn't believe my position will get me anything more than that. I have made it very clear that I AM NOT a scalper. I take profits quickly, it is called defense. On most days you CAN NOT take a full position and hold it for a point or two, it doesn't work like that. The best of the best traders will always trade in and out of most of their positions, adding and removing as needed. If you see me say I was 8 for 22, I probably took 100 shots with all the pare in and out's. What separates me from top tier is the confidence that you must have when you KNOW you have a golden opportunity. Nothing can give you that except time and a lot of painful lessons, a lot of profit left on the table, etc . . . The number two trader at my firm do not trade anything that averages more than one million shares a day, that's 1.4 million reasons that you don't ever need to touch large caps to make money. There are a lot of newbie day traders that cut their teeth from swing trading, believing Nasdaq (technology) is the only game in town, and they look for stocks that trade at least two million shares a day. The number one stock of the number one trader at our firm is a utility stock and it is not ENE. That should tell you something.
I would say that the opposite is true in regards to experience and trading. To say the more experienced traders are scalpers and longer term intraday/multi-day traders are newbies doesn't make sense. You can move huge size in a longer time frame, so I don't get your logic? Tony Oz and Linda Raschke are longer term traders, trading millions at a time I'd imagine. George Soros isn't a scalper if I remember right.
I am referring to swing traders with Datek accounts trying to switch to intraday day trading. There are a lot more newbie swing traders than day traders simply because they don't have to do it full time. I have NEVER defended scalping as the best style, I take a scalp when I don't see an opportunity to get anything beyond that, but I sure as hell don't believe that it is the best thing since sliced bread. ***There are a lot of newbie day traders that cut their teeth from swing trading*** I do agree eventually swing trading is a must, and I plan to start doing some overnight's soon, probably with 100 shares every now and then and try to hold a few day's with 30-60 minute charts . . . However, I do believe, that until a trader's account becomes too large to intraday trade, a day trader will beat a swing trader given equivalent skill level, simply because the day trader rotates his money more efficiently on a micro-level. Once the trader's account outgrows the liquidity he finds in intraday opportunities however, swing trading becomes a must, but I still believe the ultimate level is a combination of both, as I know for a fact that the hedge fund guys at our firm do quite a bit of intraday trading (namely the news plays) on top of what they do overnight.
Hitman, Thanks for thoughtful reply. I hope you realize I was not criticizing you personally, since Stockk seemed to have got that impression. I know you are not a pure scalper, sometimes I just use that term as shorthand for taking a quick profit. My comment about dime profits was more directed at the nature of the moves you get in that kind of stock. I have to say I have admiration for your number two trader who can make that kind of money daytrading smaller issues. Does he follow the same ones each day, sector trade or what? How can he move the sort of size he must use? The issue though is not whether it can be done, but rather what is the easiest way to make big money. Just for fun, why don't you keep an eye on a couple of big volume, fast movers each day and papertrade them at say, 5000 share level? with your tape game, my guess is you will find you can produce 5 figure days. My experience is that those monster days are what make your year, not grinding it out day by day. Defense is important for sure, but you need the big days. My problem with tier two and three names is they seem to be more unpredictable, and can gaff you with pretty quick .30-.50 moves out of the blue, plus you are at the specialist's mercy on exiting.
No problem, I never took it personally, but SK is like a brother to me nowadays and he defends me very seriously. In fact during this minor losing streak he definitely gave me a vote of confidence here and there. On the contrary, I find the specialist in larger caps a lot harder to read, as the stock tend to print all over the place. As a matter of fact I believe trading large caps is one of the hardest ways to make money consistently. As for 5000 shares, let's just say when a dime tick is more than my average daily gain, that's way too much for me at this point. I am very sure if I trade 5000 shares big cap I will have a five digit day, but I am not sure which way it is going to be, up or down lol. Paper trading 5000 shares is a joke, no offense, it is like the difference of playing a video game of basketball and playing in the NBA. When it comes to tier 2 and 3 names, it is about knowing the stock, knowing the liquidity. The number two guy trades on average more than 50 different stocks a day. He starts most positions with 1500, I am almost sure he has some sort of system to put up some of those trades in the morning, as he has a tons of orders right off the open. In the end however, he would break even on 67 out of 70 stocks, and he would make his money on 2 or 3 of them that he probably did 3000-5000 shares in, as he would trade them all day long. The key is to somehow recognize that one or two golden position early in the day and micro manages it all day long. He is an awesome tape reader and somehow remembers key BID's and ASK's and because he trades thinner stocks those are for the most part real. By day end he would trade anywhere between 200K-400K shares roundtrip. It is one of the most unique strategies I have ever seen, as no other top tier trader I know trades anywhere close to what he does, it is the ultimate carpet bombing approach, as most other top tier guys trades no more than 10-20 stocks a day tops and rely on highly concentrated shots (namely news stocks, as those guys overwhelmingly favors bullet trades). There is NO easiest way to make money, everything they do requires some serious nerve, I mean, when you hold 10000 shares of a stock like ENE/DYN/HAL/EPG when they are on news, every tick is like a quarter or half a point, and we are talking about some serious swing's here. Most of the traders will never have that kind of fortitude to trade those on a daily basis.