Grinding it out, day after day

Absolutely correct you are. Friday when i did 3 early trades and had a 1 1/2 and 2 2 handle losers (that is a correction from earlier post where i said behind 5 1/4 ) i was ready to throw in the towel. I then thought..........go ahead and try to get even if nothing else.

I always start the day attempting to catch a "run" thats where the 3 losers showed up because the first hour was wicked whipsaws and the last 2 handle loss got me as the 1025 est bar dropped 3 3/4 handles and i bailed. Behind that much in such small ranges is like trying to eat a full dinner when being fed chicken feed. I knew i had to peck away at small feed and that can at times be very frustrating and a wasted effort. The trades were, +4 ticks, +2 ticks,+ 3 ticks, +3 tks, + 2 1/4, +3 ticks.........i was about even counting commissions. Then at 1185.00 after the 1 tick low below the previous low of 1185.25 at 1400 which was alsoa double bottom of a small swing down, i took the long from that second next bar at 1187.25and got caught in a sideways range for next hour and half and took 1/2 of the late runup to the close. believe me, i considered myself LUCKY more than a good trader.

Ok, back to masters and listen to Tiger say naughty words. :eek:

PS: Please excuse me this time for trampling on Lescors thread. I will not keep doing it. Sorry

 

i guess that's a different class altogether

 

I believe this without doubt. I tested breakout strategies in my sim account for quite some time last year and one day netted over $3000 simbucks trading 400 shares on an AIG breakout.

 

There are all levels of classes in any profession. That's an admirable achievement by a veteran stock trader, for sure.

Likewise the OP here... for sure

Back to the topic I touched on (and the last bit I have to say about that) would be no one, not anyone is profitable every day of trading. Period. That is especially true for ES specialists on the retail side... they all have many scratch and net-loss days along the way.

Too many developing traders assume that "day trading" means being profitable every day, or else it's being done wrong. Lescor is a shining example of that being foolish folly (if not an outright lie) and I'd opine the same is true for seven-figure guy alluded to above. If he had no net-loss days along the way, he'd be a nine-figure annual trader instead.

Right or right? Exactly.

Profitable trading is all about repeating what works a majority of time, and treading water thru the rest of time. As lescor said, when they turn the money spigot back on, his bucket is ready at the pump. day to day means nothing at all. Month and year means everything.

All I have to say about that. Appreciate the thread, lescor. Wonderful contribution you are adding here in ET :>)

 

Thank you, and I agree with everything you said.

 

Speaking of retail ES traders, could you give me your opinion as to why so many small traders trade ES rather than some of the other indexes, which my quick-and-dirty analysis suggests have more trading "value?" Please have a look at my thread for details on the subject and kindly respond:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=195420

Feel free to respond in my thread if you choose, so as not to further clutter Lescor's thread. (Sorry, Lescor.) Again, I refer to retail index traders who presumably are not swinging large size.

 

Would anyone care to elaborate on Sperling? What's his full name? I guess it's Marc Sperling... What annualized percent return does the 7 figures per year represent?

thanks,

Walt

 

thanks for posting this, glad to know others are having to trim down size and number of positions as well. hope you got KMGB in the week!

 

don't know..read this abt him though, making some serious dough.....

Quoting the New York Times on April 14th, 2008.


By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY and ERIC KONIGSBERG
Published: April 14, 2008

But that still leaves plenty who are consuming away, and one of the things New Yorkers love to consume is real estate. In October, Marc Sperling, the 36-year-old president of an equity-trading company, bought a new condo on the Upper West Side in a building where four-bedroom apartments like his cost more than $4 million. When he moves into the completed building next year, he plans to hold on to his other two apartments in Murray Hill and Miami Beach — each of which he values at about $2.5 million.

Mr. Sperling views the nation’s economic slump as a temporary problem, and is grateful that it has yet to affect him. “I think if you have the means to ride it out, that’s what you do,” he said.

 

Lescor,

Bumping this as reminder.