10/31 +300.00 (approx. I'm having difficulty opening the report for friday) 11/03 +257.85 If I can turn a positive day on Tuesday I will be increasing my trade size on Wednesday to 300, along with rethinking my stop/auto close.
10/31 +310.48 11/03 +257.85 11/04 +478.34 I had planned on increasing my base share size after a plus day today, but I've decided to keep it at 200 shares for the rest of this week.
Today's challange for me was an exercise in "bend but don't break" At open my positions started going against me...I had about 4-5 positions, then added a few more to try to offset my unrealized losses. The unrealized loss climbed and peaked at about -($1,200) I was about to exit the one position that was really killing me when direction changed and the grouping went positive. I exited and decided to stay out of the market. In the past when I was having a bad day and was able to turn it positive, I would continue trading (or overtrading) until I had another big loss (sometimes just in fees) +198.33 (I always post net figures)
11/06 - Thursday. Usually I don't post in this journal on "Friday" night, because I'm commuting and get to my destination pretty late. If I don't post Mon-Thurs it's because I had such a horrible trading day and I'm trying to sort thru the day in my head and get refocused for the next day. Thursday was a bad day. -($2,410) Breaking the rules, increasing the shares. A roller coaster ride that twice I could have got off just above even, but I couldn't click the mouse when I had to. Exposure time was too long. So, as with the last draw down, I took this as a time to up my base share size from 200 to 400 shares. I based this decision on my trading performance since my last losing day: 10/23 +3,389.53 10/24 +627.44 10/27 +633.43 10/28 +246.05 10/29 +276.43 10/30 +288.20 10/31 +310.48 11/03 +257.85 11/04 +478.34 11/05 +198.33 11/06 +-(2,410.72) I have been getting the job done, but my losing stop/auto close for a day was too high compared to my avg. daily profit. I was either going to increase my shares or lower my daily stop. Now at 400 shares my avg. days profit should help build my account and drawdowns should not be as significant to the overall balance of the account. 11/07 Friday +2,165.12 11/10 Monday +451.87 Monday and Tues I'm trading from my laptop and not my normal computer. My touch pad is very sensitive and I exited trades earlier than I wanted to, but I couldn't find my stupid mouse...
BEN +8.00 FMCN +52.00 PRU +252.00 STT +169.00 TYC +240.00 Net +686.96 Done by 9:58, I'm back in the "build" the account mode, so I'll be looking to take 1 point ($400) out and not pushing my luck too much. Done trading with the laptop, no mouse again.
after doing a quick read of your journal, it seems apparent to me (and probably to you by now) that you were quite successful trading by your rules and when you broke them you lost big. this is pretty much true of every trader. its a marathon, and being positive $300+ a day aint bad.
Builder, Thanks for the reply. I completly agree with your statement. I'm trying to stay focused, but walking the line isn't always easy. One second is all it takes to screw up and add too many shares.
I had a good day today (= I made money) but it was a very short day, which gave me plenty of time all day to think about a few things. I've read plenty of posts where ET'ers have said that they had a shitty day, but they were +$3,000 (I always think "asshole" but in an envious way, nothing personal) In one of my first posts in this journal I mentioned that I would like to work on trading for a longer period of time. Finding the correct amount of trading without overtrading, more time during the day without being over exposed. I guess after I have built up my account I will feel better about continuing to trade after I have hit my goal. Now I feel it is almost sinful to enter a trade when I have locked in right around my daily goal. When a trade has climbed in a way that I have exceeded my goal I have continued trading and have set my goal as my stop. POT +$462.00 [+1.16 on 400 shares] +457.07 net just over 4 minutes and from 9:36 to the closing bell I fought with myself to keep the platform closed.
nice. I bet that was tough to walk away all day. I'm enjoying your journal and wish you continued success. I know from my own experience it feels good to hit those home runs (for me +1000 day), but more often than not when i tried to swing that hard it only ended up going against me for the same amount. But thats just me and I've especially become more conservative in the past two months after getting slammed.
BG + $231. ESRX + $451. MICC + $19.91 PRU + $179. RIMM -($125.90) SI + $275. SYNA -($304.) Net + $669. I had most of these positions open all at the same time. It was not a day without challenges. I had locked in a loss with SYNA -($304.) pretty quickly(9:41am). Then got back to about even closing out SI and MICC. Then closed out my other 2 winners ESRX and BG, so I had a closed profit above my $400 goal @ about $650. But I was long PRU and RIMM (9:40am) and they were headed down. Unrealized loss reached about -($1,100), I added a few hundred shares(9:50am) and waited for a bounce. I would have cut both if unrealized reached -($1,500) with the +650 already in. PRU+ and RIMM- just about cancelled each other out, so I exited for the day.(10:18am) These 2 coming from -($1,100) to 0, I was tempted to hold for a little profit, but that was just about how my last losing day went. I don't really dwell too much on "left that money on the table" because those trades could have gone back down just as fast(but they did go up a bit). Trying to live in the moment.