Its not important what i pay Im the only one that needs to know that. Yes, ill start posting size on each trade....i alo trade small size right now.
10-06-03 Well i dont know what to say about today...greed showed its evil face and kicked my ass today. a couple hours into trading and im calling it a day. With it being Yom Kippier the volume is light and not much is going on. I came into this trading day today thinking ill take one or two trades in the first hour or two and then call it a day, and thats what im doing. I took 300 shares of YHOO at 39.55. It was strong, and also it broke froidays high, which was also a inside day. Very nice setup, but just didnt follow through. I should of known to stop trading right then and there if a setup like that didnt work. I got stopped out at 39.29 (-76.50) I took RMBS long off that bull flag at 22.38 ...just 100 shares seeing as it was pretty overextended. took half at 22.64, and the othe rhalf of it off 22.90 (+39.00) I should of just walked away right there like i was going to do and left the day with a tiny lose. But no....greed kicked my ass RMBS took off like a rocket, and was very strong...and i kee watching it go and go...so i broke every rule in the book of trading and bought 100 more at 25.64...i wa sjust planning on making my lil lose back and close up shop with a scratch for the day. I ended up not taking profits when it got to my target and then it just fell from there...jumped ship at 24.88. (-76.00) Not so steller day obviously. Not a large losing day by any means, but a stupid trding day in my part. Grossed -113.90 on 1000 shares. Start over fresh tomorrow, mondays are usally a pretty bad trading day for me.
A very long day for me....been working my ass off...its 1030 and ive been on this damn computer since 7 this morning. I decided to get a E-book business going in my spare time. I have alot of spare time, and the extra beer money wouldnt hurt. I have like 1000 e-books. But anyways i spent all day going through them, decidng what ones to throw on ebay, and also getting each one a template for auctions. Lots of work. I did 75 auctions today for them. Going to post them all on ebay for a test run. See the supply and demand to determine prices, and also supply and demand to see which ones to keep posting and which ones to take off it. But anyways, not sure why i am saying this is my trading journal...but i guess ill be working on this alot, and i can keep ya in line with this. Reason im posting this thread is because ive been thinking all day non stop...whats the one most thing that affects my tradingy..and it clicked!! The PNL is what effects it. I keep such good records of my PNL its so stupid. I know exactly how much im up or down for the week, month every trading day. Two examples...friday...i knew i was down 150ish gross for the week...so all i wanted to do was make that back..and i traded my ass off to make it back..and i did...i got lucky...and today... i had one bad trade in the morning, and so what do i do rvenge trade and end up losing more. I need to stop thinking money...and just trade!! Money is my only emotional problem. I came across a article tonight by Martin Niemi...i think of it as a sign...kinda random i ran across this on accident, when im having this problem...but here it is... The above is a very interesting statement. Sure, most everybody wants to go to heaven but I can't think of anyone I know that wants to pay the price right now to do that. Funny, but trading is much the same. People want to make a lot of money. People want to be full time traders. But, not many people will pay the price by grinding it out one trade at a time. We say we will ... we want to ... we try to, but we start to look ahead and some how or another we always seem to come up short. Why is that? A large part of the problem is that traders tend to think about the money too much. It becomes very psychological, very emotional and therefore almost impossible. People spend so much time "line iteming" the wrong issues, i.e. "How much can I make this month?", "I only need an additional two grand a month to make my bogie!", "How much size can the market handle?" yada, yada, yada ... all of which has little or nothing to do with the current trade! Do you think you can be profitable every day? Do you think you can make $12,000 per month trading? Most everyone will say yes because they want to! But, in the back of our minds it's more like " NO WAY! Nobody makes money every day. Why do we think that? Well usually because our thought process is skewed and secondly we've never known any one who could. On the other hand, how many times have you taken a few trades and made 5 to 7 tics? Probably a lot! And how many times have you struck out at the end of the day or week by going for the long ball instead of taking the walk? Unfortunately, more often or not. Why? Usually because we think to much and way to far ahead. What if we could trick ourselves into not thinking about the money, not thinking about market size etc., and just think about the next trade? I'll bet we could make money every day! And what does 7 tics per day, at $31.25 per tic, twenty trading days per month add up to? If you can forget about the answer to that question, you're on the right track. If you get excited and obsess about it and plan it out and put it into multiple budgets and spreadsheets, then don't bother to go on because you're thinking is skewed and you will probably fail. Starting tomorrow, i will not keep my PNL screen up...i will have it minimized just because it has a nice bail button on it and i use that alot...but if i find myslef still looking at it alot...ill close it...i also am going to stop keeping track of my daily PNL...its not important...i will just keep track of volume, and on saturday ill post my NET PnL in my journal. I just need to stay away from the money aspect of this as much as possible.
I think you are correct in not displaying your p/l during the day. It's true, thinking about the money will distract you from your real goal- good trading. Of the dozens of trading books I've read, one of the points that stands out the most from all of them is from Alexander Elder's "Trading For a Living". When a lawyer is arguing an important case, or a surgeon is in the middle of an operation, are they thinking to themselves about how much money they're making? No, they are focused on doing the best job they can and practicing their craft to the best of their ability. The money flows to them as a result of being good at what they do. When a trader finds himself in a trade and thinking things like "ohh i'm up $500, I can buy that new xxx I want", or "damn, I"m down $500, that's the cost of a whole xxx", then he should exit the trade and rethink it without money on the line, because the money is clouding his judgement. You can always re-enter when you have a clear mind. Letting go of the money part of trading took me a long time, but it has made such a difference. I was down almost 3 grand on friday morning, one of my worst days of the year. I was pissed off for about an hour, and just took a break. But then it was out of my system and I traded the rest of the day like it never happened. A year ago it would have taken me a week to recover from that. I do think you should continue to keep good records, including your p/l. The numbers are still important, afterall, it is the bottom line that counts in the end. You might be able to look back on detailed records down the road and glean some useful info from them. But during the day, don't pay attention to the money. Good luck, CB
Joey- On the Kawabunga position window, I think you can shrink the P/l portion and leave eveything else the same. On the top of the columns there are small lines seperating them, try clicking on the P/L line and sliding it over. If that doesn't work, the $ portion is on the right side and I have my order window overlapping my position window so i cant see the $ part. And I can still see how manypositions I have open and amount of shares. Happy Trading. BTW, you really didn't think the Twins had any chance against the Yankees did you?
10-07-03 Very slow day for me today. I took my PNL off my trade window...helped alot. I actually found myslef trading on price action and not PNL like i did alot. Very whippy and range bound day today. I took SNPS long at 27.68 with 300 shares. Took profits at .85. A nice lil $51 profit. I took RGEN short at 14.65 300 shares. The market was looking weaker and weaker and RGEN broke its lows from the morning so i took it short. It also is one of the weakest stock today on the nasdaq. Market decided to rip big time and i got stopped out at .82 -51.00 in that. So i scrathed today, but followed plan, market just wasnt very good today. My actual gross loss was -9.00 due to a bad stop i put in on RGEN..i pushed the wrong button and had double shares, so i dumped market. oN 1800 SHARES. I need to just stick to morning trading, its the only time i make money unless the afternoon is a trend day or making new highs or lows. Need that discipline!!!
10-08-03 I just traded the morning today. Not felling well today, have had a bad head cold lately. Decided i didnt want to churn anymore money away cause i wasnt felling up to par. I took ISSX short into the open at 14.19 Kinda figured the market would dump seeing as that 1040 has been a brick wall in the ES. Guess i just took the wrong stock! I stoped at 14.30 on 300 shares (-33.00) I took SBC short at 22.32..it had a nice bull trap and based on the 15 min nicely. I took 300 shares of it. I covered 200 at 22.20. I put a brekeven stop in and went and laid down. Came back and noticed it stopped me at .40 the high of the pop....lol...guess thats just my luck. But wish i wouldnt of got stopped....it held weak all day. (+16.00) -$17.00 gross today on 1200 shares.
10-9-03 Slow day for me today. Just traded the morning. Had alot of stuff to do today. i took IACI long at 38.40. Only 100 shares because the best stop was about .40 away on the pivot up. Took half at 38.65 and stopped on teh rest at 38.51. (+18) +18.00 on 200 shares....lol
Another slow day today Great range lol..... Just one trade.. I took ESRX short at 59.48 with 300 shares. covered 100 at .30, and another 100 at .20. Breakeven stop on the last 100 was took, but filled me at .53. (+39.20) +39.20 for the day on 1200 shares. I havent traded well or much all week as you can see ive been spending alot of time figuring out my edge ect. I think i may have figured it out. Im going to try trading it to the plan next week and see how i do
10-13-03 Well what can i say Its Columbus day today. Fun ole' holiday trading. I just traded the morning today. I took CA long 300 at 24.53 after it held its gap nicely and based. Problem was i had stop to tight. On a setup like that it should of been below LOD. I got stopped at .25 and then it ran. I guess thats life. Ill learn from my mistakes (-84.00) I took FDX long 200 at 70.49. One of the strongest stock o the big bored, and was resting nicely at highs. took 100 at 70.83, took another 50 @70.98, and took the rest profits at 71.31. (+99.50) That was a perfect managed trade. I just need to learn to be better with my risk to reward. No reason i couldnt of traded 300 or more shares on that. Original stop wasnt very big. But the only way i learn is from mistakes. The CA trade also was very good. I just didnt manage it right and ended up getting stopped out to soon. but anyways... +15.50 on 1000 shares. Not much, but at least im in the green.