Monday +4.13 [$413 div. 100 shares] Tuesday +2.93 [$293 div. by 100 shares] Daily Stop = -(5.0) As my account balance has increased over the past two weeks I am going try and decide when I will increase my trade size from 100 shares to 200 shares
Nice Journal Try increasing your size when you increase your trading capital by the same factor. Example: You start your trading account with $10,000, and only trade 100 shares with this amount. Your trading proceeds successfully and you are able to build your account up to $20,000. That is when you start trading 200 shares. Good Luck.
Thank you for the suggestion... I have traded large sizes before (2000-5000) but wasn't anywhere close to being consistent and suffered big losses. I have found consistency. Increasing trade size also increases my "Daily Stop" The increase from 100 shares to 200 shares should be the hardest (100%) Then going from 200 to 300 shares the percentage starts to drop...
We'll the 8 day winning streak has come to an end. I knew eventually I would have to post a red day. So, what happened... My success has been: 1) keeping my share size down. I did only trade in 100 share positions today, although I have been guilty of "sizing up" maybe 2-3 times this week(w/ tight stop & success)...this was not the problem. 2) Good stops. Letting 1-2 losers just keep running and not letting my mental stop trigger. I do use mental stops, and I do adjust them as the trade progresses. This has not been a problem over the past 2 weeks and it wasn't a problem today. 3) limiting the number of positions that I have open at once..aaahhhaaaaccct ! I have done really well with upto maybe 5 open positions...closing 2, adding 1, etc...but today I was up about +2.0 points (that's $200 / 100 shares for those not reading previous posts; and my daily goal is only +1.0) and then I started adding positions...I had about 9 positions open and they all started going against me at once. I have done well using very wide stops, but with so many positions going against me at once the DAILY STOP approached like a large man going down hill towards a buffet, but the POSITION STOP wasn't even close. Lesson learned...I hope...If those trades went my way this journal entry would have had balloons and confetti... Then after poking in-and-out of trades I hit my stop...called my broker to give me a little more rope...hung myself with it. Shut off my computer. I'm not really upset about having a losing day, I know it will happen, or about calling for more rope, but.... I would like to have a losing day where I just battle and not hit my daily stop. I either have a winning day or I hit the stop. still green for the week, barely, and capable of hitting the weekly goal today -(6.78) [--$678 / 100 shares] for the week +.28 daily goal +1.0 week goal +3.0 increase of trade size will have to wait a week or so
After posting my loss in this journal last night I put a lot of thought into what I had been doing right the last few months...and also how I used to not learn from my mistakes-over-and-over-again.... I also stumbled across a few threads where some new guys were asking for advice, about should they try to become daytraders, how much $$ they needed, should they quit school/work..in the middle of a lot of garbage replies there were some really inspiring replys telling these guys to "go for it" and "do you have the passion?" we'll at least it inspired me. I got stopped and closed out yesturday, but no matter how bad the beats have been, I always wake up the next day and realize trading is what I want to do more than anything else I was refocused today... trade 100 shares don't have too many positions don't let a few losers ruin me. make +1.o (For anyone that actually reads this journal everyday,...you may notice I repeat the same sh_t over and over, but that's 50% of the reason I bother writting here...to keep me focused. SHAZAM !!!! Today +7.38 [$738 / 100] Week +7.67 [$767 / 100] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Vi8o4hxOc
Posting early today... A very good and quick day again today. Done at 10:09am EST. I try not to look at the charts too much after I have decided to quit for the day. I glance every once in a while, I left a little $ on the table, but I am still very pleased with today's results. Today +5.03 [$503 / 100] Week +12.70 [$1,270 / 100] 2 Week Total +39.84 [$3,984 / 100 shares] Have a good weekend all...
Unfocused and Unprepared, Self-destruction Mode. I got smashed right from the get go. I didn't stick to keeping my trade size the same, I was just all over the place. I screwed up so quickly and hit my daily loss that I called and had it increased from $500[-5.0] to $1000[-10.0] . I again was all over with trade size and found myself teetering on hitting my daily loss again. This is exactly the way that I don't want to trade. Daily Goal +1.0 Today -10.56 [-$1056 / 100] I think that I've found myself trying to guess which way the market is going to go at open rather than trading what I see. I am going to try and take things a little slower on Tuesday.
In the last couple of weeks I have been trying to decide when to increase my trade size, from 100 to 200 shares. Generally after a bad day and a drawdawn I wouldn't have decided to do it on the following day. But I thought about it and feel that I have been able to easily reach my goal of taking a 1.0 profit per day. The only days that have been negative have been days that I have beat myself more than anything else. Today I raised my stop loss/auto close to $2,500 which would be a loss of 12.5 points @ 200 shares and much higher that the previous loss/close of $500 for 100 shares or -5.0. I started out the morning a little cautious, as I planned, and was able to lock in a profit of about $350 or +1.5 point. I was very pleased with myself as it is my first step up in this new account management plan. This day should have been in the books... I went to lunch When I returned Mr. Hyde turned on my computer started shorting and buying shares, had 2300 shares of somethng and within a short period of time that $350 was now a locked in loss of ($1,100) uggggg! I again got back in and was LUCKY to get almost all of it back with a little commish hit. I will mark this day as a turning point in this journal, which direction it turns to we will have to see... Today -($331) [ div 200 = -1.66]
ET traders journals don't die...they just fade away.... On 10/21 my last post, a loss -(331.02) I said that I would mark that day as a turning point in the journal. It was... On 10/22 a huge loss -(2900.61) I broke all my rules. On 10/23 I was ready to get back on track of 200 share position size and just be slow and steady...but, I forgot that the previous day I changed my preferences to 600 shares when I was screwing up. I entered positions before I realized I was at 600 shares, but very luckily I hit all positive trades and ended with a great day of +3,389.53 10/24 +627.44 10/27 +633.43 10/28 +246.05 10/29 +276.43 10/30 +288.20 I'm closing in on increasing my share size to 300