Ok, so here is my result for the month, since I’ve been trying to trade with some discipline. These are realized trades, in addition I have 3 trades open, CLR, SMCI, and RELL, with total gain of $200. Seems I could’ve done better, down 2.1%, SPY is up a few % in that time. Been keeping trades small, cutting losses fast. Maybe stops are too tight, sometimes the stops saved me but other times I left money in the table. been buying breakouts, and also sometimes buying pullbacks after strong breakout from a base, shouldn’t have sold ENPH, wanting to buy VRTX, sometimes FOLM is stronger for me than FOMO. If I wasn’t afraid to buy high, could’ve made some money total capital I started with is $50k, so trading usually 10% per trade
Actually good day today, up 10% on my open positions (not on the entire value of the account). Now down less than .5%
My Stats so far, since keeping records. Started with $50,000 in trading account, August 1st Current Value $48,650 Total trades 15 round trips plus 5 open positions 9 wins 11 losses Average win $159.75 - .3% of starting value Average loss $250.62 - .5% of starting value Average position size - 11% of starting value Total loss of capital 2.6% So i guess i could call this a baseline with a goal of improving on this. Anything else i should be tracking? Aside from the level of how much this sucks so far? Obviousy need to improve my win rate, which wont come until i have some rules that i follow like religion.
I’m still not sure if day trading is for me, I’d like to get better at swing trading, don’t love being tied to the screen for hours like I was today. But see post below
I haven’t done great in my attempt to trade. I’ve been trading random stocks, based on charts, things I read in Twitter, keeping my stops super tight because 1. We are in a bear market, and 2. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. (AKA i know what I don’t know). And was starting to think maybe trading ain’t for me. Haven’t really been posting trades in my journal. In fact, haven’t traded much the last 3 weeks or so, until today (did one trade yesterday made half point, but small position!not worth mentioning) Today was different. I don’t know why, I just felt in sync. I think you guys would call it “discretionary” trading? I was doing it by feel, and working hard to keep emotion out of it. I mostly watched the 23 MA on a one minute chart, and traded when the slope changed. here are the trades I did, ended the day flat (as far as trading positions go). Ignore last line, that was not a “trade “, I wrote a call against a long position. So ignoring that , 5 round trips, 4 wins, 1 loss (very small), net gain$2300(round #)
You netted 2300 for a bit of screen time. That is higher than any other profession on earth. Don't be discouraged.