Missed opportunities hurt, and in today it came in truck loads this morning with financials. The afternoon was a tough fight all along and had I been willing to take a little more pain I would have scored huge on a couple of Broker shorts . . . I was very conservative and unwilling to put up bullets . . . Couldn't get the shorts filled on the second move up . . . Still, an up day is always better than a down day, and I had a lot of trouble with Fed. days before, 9 of 14 shooting on 6200 shares, +635 before commissions, +480 after, two games left in the first half of the year, while I have no hope of reaching my year's high set in early April, I would like to finish this month on a high note, that means wrapping up next two games on strength. I need to force myself trading bigger sizes during the first hour, my game has been VERY strong during this time and starting tommorrow I have to force myself to trade 600-800 shares. Where is the courage and confidence? I have to be willing to take the pressure of higher sizes to make this business truly worthwhile. Not to mention it is not smart to trade same size I trade at open in the afternoon, where my game is at its weakest . . . Forget September, I am capable of making more money than I have been doing, right now, have to be more willing to take heavier positions, or I better start thinking about a career change . . . I am doing too many positions instead of concentrating my size on a selective few . . . Pre-Market: LM upgrade, while it wasn't a big XBD component but with the heavy broker sell-off yesterday and Fed. rate cut I was looking for a rally in financials. 9:30: Somehow, someway, GS/MWD opened down nearly 1 point, I have seen this before but I wasn't confident, there was no real offer so I bought 300 shares a piece. Got out of MWD for flat when futures tanked, got out of GS for 25 cents. Re-entered GS when XBD appeared to be holding up, futures really came in and I was ready to get stopped out for a loss, but XBD held and never gave in, and as soon as futures went back up, XBD made a nice green bar on a new high, that's the sign of strength, and I did not pyramid into GS like I should have. I quickly switched over to MWD and missed the fill, he was spreading it and I missed a 80 cents move in literally seconds. Took 90 cents out of GS but not enough size there, missed 60 cents. 10:00: BKX going vertical, took COF at 59.7, sold for 40 cents profit when futures/BKX was going vertical, and volume was spiking up, what's up with that? Missed a 90 cents move . . . 10:30: Thought OSX will do a double bottom, took CAM / HP, lost 25 cents in CAM, made 10 cents in HP, OSX collapsed and Mrs. D. was short the whole time. 1:00: Started to look for shorts too early, had I shorted GS or MWD it would have worked great, but I tried to short LEH the strongest stock in XBD and it hit a new high and stopped me out for a 15 cents loss twice. Had I been willing to take a little more pain I would have scored huge on this trade, which I intended to carry into the Fed. meeting. 2:20: The classic collapse->gigantic squeeze which creates the perfect time to short away, took MU and TXN, got a crap fill on MU and I was out of the money by 35 cents at one point, but futures never broke the initial move so no worry here, ended up making 25 cents on the trade but could not get TXN filled, that stock went down a LOT harder . . . 3:00: The futures bottomed out, one hesitation I missed a great move in MMC on IUX rebound. Took WAT/IRF/TER but basically just churned . . . the tape was a mess and I stopped at 3:30 . . .
forgive my ignorance of trading on the bid board, but what is a bullet? as in "putting up bullets"? thanks
to keep this post on topic and because it's been discussed before to get an explanation of bullets/conversions see this link http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=1229
One game left in the first half of the year and I was able to pull out my 7th win in 8 games. Those $500 day's do add up (afterall if you can average $500 a day, it is 125K a year), and tommorrow I just want another solid base hit, no need for home run's. This morning I was able to step up my size a little bit to 600 shares but unfortunately everything gapped up and I wasn't confident in taking positions, didn't take full advantage of the rally. The afternoon when MSFT re-opened, surprisingly the market sold-off and I blew 3 shorts . . . live and learn. Tommorrow will be another game. 6 of 10 shooting on 7400 shares each way, +588 before commissions, +413 after . . . Mrs. D. is still negotiating her trading desk contract with the management, she promised in-depth classes after market close if she does start her own desk, and she said it will be a no-secret-kept style as she want her traders to perform to their maximum. Lately I have been on very good terms with her and hopefully I will learn a few more tricks . . . Mr. R. (who traded with me as a teammate back in March, and together we had a very solid month, then we moved to this office, he started to trade with Mrs. D. and I am left in the cold) hasn't contacted us since he went to the branch in Long Island area. He was a very consistent trader and I thought he looked at the team as good friends, but today I found out why he hasn't called back. When I negotiated with our owner which eventually translated into our own office (instead of the open floor) and a trading team, one of the component Mrs. D. really wanted was a Bloomberg terminal for our team. Months passed and our office never got a Bloomberg, checked the record and Mr. R. somehow transferred that item to his name and took it to Long Island! Perhaps that's why he is a little shy about calling back. Just your typical office politics, I thought he was a good guy who helped me a lot when we traded together as a duo, but today Mrs. D. told me that at the time he was in a serious slump and I was shooting the light out (which Mr. R. told her), so in reality I helped him as much as he helped me (I was wondering why I was making close to as much money as he did trading much smaller sizes, even when he obviously knew the game better than me). Once he moved to this office, his slump soon ended, and he just didn't have to be on a close term with me anymore, so he stopped calling stuff out and racked up some serious cash with Mrs D's calls especially on her killer stocks. Mr. R. is best described as your "easy-going" guy, who is smooth with everything, tall, handsome, and a good frame. I think that's precisely why he gets a lot of help from females. At the time only he and Mrs. D. traded the same calls and that was a lethal combination. Mrs. D. said she felt used because in reality, as good as Mr. R. was with charts, he was not a good tape reader and he got a lot of easy kills from her. So the Bloomberg incident was not appreciated, neither is the fact that he hadn't called back. Still, compared to your typical corporate backstabbing action thrillers, this is nothing more than a soap opera, and I still consider him a friend, his presence was a key to my road to profitability . . . Pre-Market: I missed a huge piece that came out 6AM this morning on underperforming European oil shares, and the tape on OSX stocks this morning was showing some real pressure, at 10:30 the massive sector wide downgrade came out and the sector got completely destroyed. Very bad misses there. Mrs. D. shorted some serious size in energy today. 9:30: Took BSC and a quick 55 cents on XBD rally, didn't buy the pullback which would have gave another point . . . Saw CEX strength and took DOW/PPG, some seller in DOW today holding it down and I lost 10 cents in him. Got a bad fill in PPG and lost 20 cents on first try, took it again, and made 40 cents . . . Along the way, missed fills (I have been very careful lately, using limit orders via Direct Plus instead of going market) on a few key plays in technology and financials. 10:47: Took GS and shaken out for a small loss, missed a 50 cents move, but the stock was weak today and seller came in later to wreck it. FMC did not join the morning rally and I almost put up the bullet when an offer showed up, cancelled it because I thought it was fake even when it stepped down! Missed a 70 cents move! Tried to play the bounce and lost 10 cents on the first try, made 45 cents on the second try, the bottompicking style Took NSM on a futures pop but the damn thing shook me out before it took off, my stop was 2 pennies too tight and missed a 50 cents move. 1:30: Thought there will be another leg up for this strong market, took IRF and made 25 cents. Took GS on a dead cat bounce (very dangerous) and made 20 cents. 2:55: This market is getting smashed, shorted ADI and bastard stopped me out by hitting a new high of 44.36 and filled my stop before tanking the stock 1 point . . . Shorted CLS/CRA and just didn't have the same confidence after that ADI trade, ended up flat on those . . . Took another 10 cents scalp on FMC when a BID showed up, kept on thinking the seller is done, but he wasn't, and I had to get out . . . going to watch this one for a potential bounce tommorrow . . . I think I definitely improved my tape reading skill trading him today . . .
Hitman! What an amazing journal, a great read. Just wanted to mention that there much better costs for bullets if you shop around other firms. Some pay as little as 2.5 cents/share. You have amazing discipline, this is the key!!! You will succeed no doubt!!!!!! I had my start with Worldco several years ago. In the beginning was very difficult to pull the trigger. Traded very few shares. Sounds like you are doing terrific. Summer is always slow and choppy, with lots of bad fills, just need patience.
Predictor, May I ask who you are trading with now? I see you mentioned that you started with Worldco. Do you trade mostly listed stocks?
I trade for Bright. As life turned out, all firms I was with traded NYSE stocks. So I trade 99% NYSE, once in a while , I would take a position in otc, but extremely rare.
An extremely poor open bailed out by a few lucky rallies, have to say I was very lucky today to have not blown my pay period and while I did not make $5000 this month as I planned to, it was respectable for a summer month. Stay tuned for the July thread in which I will start later . . . This morning there was a sector wide upgrade in energy and damn specialists tanked the stocks in the morning to shake out all the day traders. I was hit quite hard and perhaps more importantly, missed the SOX rally in chaos . . . That was a HUGE miss and I thought the game was over, fortunately energy reversed and did what I expected them to do and I was able to cash in a couple of trades. Finished the month on a hot streak, won 4 games in a row, 8 of last 9, hope I can start building some serious momentum and ride this streak into at least first pay period of July. +$3200 this month which pays the bills, almost all of which came during this winning streak . . . gotta do better next month. Not going to churn and I am leaving early today . . . Pre-Market: Energy upgrades, here we go. 9:30: Took VTS off the open on OSX pop, OSX tanked and there was no BID to get out! I waited a little bit for a small squeeze and got out for a 65 cents loss. Took EPG and XNG reversed, out for a 10 cents loss . . . Shorted ROH off the 32 resistance and stopped out for a 30 cents loss, ouch. A horrendous start, with slightly increased sizes I was down $600 before I can say ouch . . . While I have been hit for much bigger losses before, being the last day of the pay period and in this summer trading crap I was VERY concerned that I could have been easily hit for a much bigger loss . . . SOX rallied and I missed several limit fills (should have went market but I was down on the day and didn't want to dig myself a deeper hole), and I was sitting with SOX going straight up. 9:50: Took ROH on the long side on CEX breakout, got 20 cents out of the trade. OSX seems to be reversing, took VTS again and got hit for a 25 cents loss, but I was watching the tape and finally the seller seemed to be done and the chart looked like a double bottom, I was able to take almost a full point out of the trade and ended up making money in the stock (which was my biggest loser on the day), revenge is so sweet! (and with OSX going up like that, it was a high percentage shot) Took HP and made 30 cents, it was looking weak and I didn't hold on for more, should have waited until OSX showed a little red before I got out, missed a 50 cents move even if the stock tanked as soon as OSX went down . . . Got a very nice trade out of FMC, I was watching it all day yesterday and it seemed to have done selling, and today at first sign of CEX strength I took it and got a 60 cents move, missed the other 60 cents, like VTS, in both stocks, there was no seller left, and buyers had to push it higher, just a sweet sweet feeling to be in a trade like this. 10:24, took EOG lagger on XNG pop, made 50 cents. It was a $1200 swing to the upside from down $600 to up $600, gotta be happy and stay out of afternoon churning on a day like this. Mrs. D. shorted GS despite of futures/XBD run-up, very nice trade, there was a big seller in him yesterday and today it was quite obvious he wasn't done.