Hello all, I am going to start a journal here. I have started to read others and noticed that many of them started with the same amount of knowledge I have; not much. So here we go. Current Life Situation: I am a 34 year old father of five. I am in school part-time and work full-time. However, I would like to do more than barely make ends meet. So I am looking into stock trading. Current Experience - I have been playing around (paper) with trading for the past 5 months. I work in IT so I am in front of a computer 80% of the day, which allows me to keep track of things. When I started, I tried to guess when companies that I knew about would go up or down based upon the news that I read about those companies. This led to some pretty big swings back and forth between losses and gains. I ended up after 3 months basically breaking even and deciding that a more conservative/informed approach was needed approach was needed. Since then I have been reading more on market trends and companies before I do anything. I have opened an account with Scottrade which allows me access to real-time data. IN addition, I have been reading candlestick charts in order to see if I can pick out market trends. Finally, I have started reading posts here, and plan on picking up some books that have been repeatedly mentioned in posts. The nice thing about playing around is that it allows me to experiment. and see what works and what does not. So far I have learned the following lessons. 1) Don't trade on emotions - I lost all my gains for the week last week when I short sold something I thought was going to go down. Halfways through the day it was up 4%. I panicked, bought to cover, and then bought shares. The stock then proceeded to fall down to up only 1%. My analysis was wronbg (The stock has been up since then) but if I had had a stop in place, and not panicked bought in an attempt to "ride the wave" I would have limited my losses. 2) This is related to the last point. Don't trade too much, or stick with your plan. There is always the fear of missing the big one. This makes me want to find it, and exploit it. Instead of being happy moderate gains, I will sell out something that is not performing well that hour, and look for something that is, only to find the stock which was not performing well has turned around and the stock I hoped to win on was now losing. 3) Don't have too high expectations. I went into this thinking that if I could find the right trade I would make thousands in a week. However, even if I did guess right, these thousands would prove to be a temporary loan, and I would often lose that, and maybe more, on the next guess. gaining 5-10 dollars a day is better than gaining 1000 only to lose twice that much. Basic Current Strategy I am currently playing with the following strategy. First, I look for stock trends by examining candlestick charts. I have signed up for a service called hotcandlestick.com which takes a lot of the work out of it. I find what looks like a strong pattern, and then take a look at the companies recent performance and company information. For instance, a company that is not doing well financially, has been in a bullish state , but has a bearish candlestick would make a good short. I try to balance out my trading by having 1/2 shorts and 1/2 longs. I then try to hold onto them for about a week (unless my stops or limits are met) and then do my research again. Anyway, I am not sure what more to write at the moment. Any input would be great! Jamey
Jamey Have your read Spydertrader's equites threads? There is a profitable method laid out in exquisite detail for anyone willing to do some homework.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but being new to the site, I am not sure of the quickest way of finding these threads. I searched by his name and came up with a BUNCH of stuff. COuld you point me in the right direction? Jamey
I'd be interested to hear more about your plan. Not your set-ups or method but your over-all plan. Do you have a written plan,covering the following: Measurable objectives, trading capital available and how you will protect it, what stocks you will trade and why,position size calculations and how you will measure your performance. Goodluck with your journal.
As I said, this is why I am just playing around now, and starting this journal. It's this kind of "simple" input that I need to hear. I shows me how little I know! I am looking forward to reading some of the books mentioned in other threads and knowing a little more before I make the aforementioned plan. Meanwhile, I will continue to experiment and learn. Jamey
This is the latest one: There are two previous threads with same name, different number. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=83605 I would start with the first journal If I were you.
Hello all, We, the past couple of weeks have constituted the following. 1) Reading Reminiscence of a Stock Operator. This is a great book. 2) Reading through Spydertraders journals. So far I i think I understand the method relatively well. I do have one question, and maybe I should post it there. I am confused about how to cull stocks once I have them in the Final Universe. I figure once it does not meet one of the four criteria (float, daily average volume, positive EPS). Is there anything else I should use? Jamey
I have been trading, following Spydertraders Hershey Method, for about a week now. I started last week with $8000 dollars. As of 11:00 today, I am up to $11,000. I have made a few wrong moves. In general, though, I have stopped out of those, and those have been made when I deviate from the plan a little bit. Other than that, everything works out great. I also am beginning to learn how to draw channels and read charts in a more informed manner. Today I started with CMED, FTK, and CALM. CMED and FTK are up about 6.5% so far today. CALM was up a little, but not much was happening and that had been a "deviation". So I took a .2 point gain and sold that. I them purchased SIGM, as it was in dry up. I purchased a small amount at 10:00am (30 shared @ $58.14), as it looked good. The pattern continued and I filled out my order at 10:40 (80 shares at $58.34). So far that is doing well today (up .6 points). Anyway, one of the things I am really trying to figure out is how to know when to get out when a stock is doing well. I can set up a 2% trailing stop for my purchases. That's easy. But what do you do when a stock is up 10% and doesn't look like it is slowing down? That's one of the reasons I am really trying to dig into charts. I know there is no sure way, but at least I will have more information to go on. Jamey