February was a slight improvement over January, but clearly not good enough. I continue to struggle in my shooting, as I absolutely must hit 55% of my shots to be playing at a high level. The team is for the most part, moving as expected. I now have 3 YTD profitable traders on my squad, including myself, that is 4 out of 9, and that is not a bad percentage for the kind of year we are having in 2002. Both trading and leading, for me, are long term career goals. Just like it will take a very long time before I can become a top tier trader, it will take a very long time before I can have a very strong team. There is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, as I have convinced myself that it is a 7 year contract I signed with Worldco, and the next 7 years will probably define me as an individual. I firmly believe that I am in a very good situation, and considering I have never suffered a year that can be remotely considered failure since I started working when I was 18, this is probably the first real setback I will have to endure, as at this rate, I have no hope of finishing with my last year's numbers. But you can not taste and appreciate the sweetness of victory, without first tasting and enduring the bitterness of defeat. I firmly believe that setbacks will strengthen my will, increase my maturity, and truly make myself a better person, who will hopefully one day win her heart, which is to me, the ultimate prize. As much pain, stress, and frustration as I have endured, I have already found the love of my life, and the work that I truly love, what more can I possibly ask for? Strength, courage, and honor . . . If I am meant to fulfill my potentials, I will, time will prove everything. February / January P&L Before Commissions: 13847 / 11994 P&L After Commissions: 4294 / 2923 Shooting %: 47.2% / 46.3% Cent Per Share: 0.038 / 0.036 Volume Each Way: 361200 / 328000 W/L: 14-6 / 13-9
HIT LIST MOMENT: http://hitmantb.tripod.com/ MY WORST CAREER GAME TO THIS DAY, WHICH CAME 2 DAYS AFTER MY BEST CAREER GAME TO THIS DAY. From: Hitman Sent: 3/26/2001 5:51 PM It is incredible, absolutely incredible, the pure power she has. I will have to confess that this past weekend I was extremely lonely and in sheer boredom, I went out with a friend who always wanted to hook me up with a couple of girls. Had a good time singing and playing pool Saturday night, and I actually considered pursuing someone other than the princess, even if just as a "temporary fix", yes, that thought actually flashed my mind, you know, I am at that age and physical attractions, even if it will never equal to the love I have for the princess, even if I will never ever consider anyone else for marriage, can mean a lot especially when one of the girls was scantily dressed and in shape. I actually had a little bit of feelings for someone else, and as a result, I faced her wraith today. Please forgive me princess, it was late at night, I was half asleep and my mind was not clear, but I have never ever even layed a finger on her, if I did I would saw my hand off. Even Sunday night I was thinking about fulfilling that promise and give you everything I have to offer. You are the only one I will ever marry. Being a 21 years old male I sometimes have less than pure thoughts, but it stops there, and please, let me win it for you tommorrow. Everything I do is for you, and you know it. It was a flash of stupidity in my mind, and it will never ever happen again . . . I didn't ask for her number and I will never ever see her in my life again, please, forgive me . . . It is not a coincidence that I was completely destroyed today. Despite of many, many attempts to cut into that deficit, I was completely pinned down and choked to death in the afternoon. There will be no rebound today, my first prayer to the princess allowed me to cut a $2000 deficit into a $500 deficit, my second prayer to the princess allowed me to cut a $3000 deficit into a 1500 deficit, and in the end, it was the touch of death, as a blown out would be an understatement for this game. I think now those of you reading this thread can understand why I was very upset after Friday's game. You can never, ever show any mental weakness, especially after a huge day like last Thursday, the market will get you if you show a single opening. This was the worst game of my career, as it was nearly 4 times the pain of my previous worst game. Easy come easy go, I have lost all but $500 of last Thursday's $5000, and this is my first back-to-back loss since the beginning of January. Time to ring the alarm, this is a losing streak, and it must be ended tommmorrow. As soon as I got to work this morning I knew I wasn't into it. I was slow in getting into positions, my stops not as tight as they should be, a lot of it has to do with the fact that I went out last Saturday, stayed up until 4AM and slept until 3PM Sunday, so my mind was not sharp at all, recovering from the effect. The quality of my shots definitely suffered today. In the end, I kept on believing that the market will provide some momentum for me to cut into that deficit, it didn't, and as a result I chipped myself to death. 45100 shares, 9 of 31 shooting, -$3151 before commissions (ouch!), -$4253 after commissions. Yes, the entire team struggled, but Mr. G. and Mrs. D., only suffered very minor losses, and Mr. E. actually made $2000 in the morning and skipped the afternoon session. As painful as this is, it is quite simply, part of the game. You are going to have blown out games in either direction, and it is fortunate that this happened toward the end of the month, after I built a serious cushion. I was surprised that Risk Management didn't call me today, perhaps when they looked at my P&L, with the exception of ADI (I lost $1500 in him today after many many tries to trade him on either side, and it has been one of my top 10 stocks), there weren't any major losses, just stop out after stop out after stop out. I traded very very aggressively today and a lot of my shots just didn't fall. Perhaps I never realized how much money you can lose, until now. Time to put this beside me, look ahead, let's be realistic here, I need to finish this week positive. $1000 a day, rest of the way, I just embarrassed myself, my princess, tommorrow I must show up strong from the opening bell. 9:30, lots of RLX strength, went long in MAY at 36.35, stopped out for 15 cents loss, jumped back in at 36.30 when it was making a new high, got hit again for a 30 cents loss. XNG strength, went long on EPG at 62, stopped out for a 30 cents loss. OSX strength, most oil stocks too high for my taste, took NOI at 38.94 and stopped out for 6 cents profit. 9:41, already down nearly $1000, ouch, took CRA at 30.95 on BTK strength, stopped me out at 30.50 before it took off, what hell was that about? Took TER at 37.71 made 30 cents on a bounce, but took ADI at 43.20 and lost 60 cents. It is very very important for a day trader to NOT develop an opinion about sector strength/weakness, I thought SOX is a strong sector so I kept on bottomfishing it today, and resulted in a lot of bad trades. XNG still looks ok, took EOG at 43.90, stopped out for 5 cents loss. Tried to take ADI again at 42.79 and lost another 30 cents. This is absolutely stupid, Nasdaq futures down and SOX down, why did I bottomfish SOX stocks? 9:53, took FTU twice on BKX strength, combined I lost 30 cents. Finally, a decent trade in AGE as I took it at 35.15 and stopped out for 60 cents profit. Futures tanking, shorted STM (this was a great stock for me, lately it has been a total nightmare), at 37.22, covered for 28 cents loss. Thought OSX had some life left, bought WFT and BHI on pullbacks, ouch, lost 30 cents a piece. XBD looked strong, so added LEH at 67.10 and stopped out for a 40 cents profit, had more than 1 point in it, futures looked so good and I thought I would have went positive from a $2000 deficit (took it to -$500), nope, futures tanked, LEH shook me out and went higher. 10:00, fake futures move, that was the killer move of the day, bought AMD, LOW, STM, ADI, four trades looked extremely good then futures came back down, wiped out small profits and turned them into losers. Shorted WFT at 54.35 but SLB and OSX made one last squeeze before they went down for good, lost 30 cents. Lots and lots of bad fills, lots and lots of slippages, combined with my slow reaction and loose stops, a recipe for disaster. Shorted STM again at 37.51, and shake out again for a 10 cents loss. Shorted HD but it was stuck in a trading range today and lost 30 cents. 11:16, down 3K, ouch, not a good position to be in. OSX looked so good on the short side, shorted WFT, BHI, SLB, NE, when it was said and done, I managed to make $1500 off those trades and cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, that deficit refused to go smaller as I got chipped to death in technology and financials during the dead zone. 1:30, shorted SFA at 49.21, FRX at 56.06 (BTK was tanking but why didn't it want to go down?), those two trades basically cancelled themselve out. That's the story of the day, every time I make a few good trades, some positions in other sectors reverse and hit me hard, uphill all day long and just caved in under pressure. 2:00, do or die, shorted BSC, MER, AT, ADI, MMM, NSM, WMT, HD, rest of the way, again, every time I make a run, future squeezes to take it away, I get stopped out and I have to re-position. By 3PM, it really really looked like a solid sell-off into the close, but as futures made tail after tail on the candlestick chart, my heart sunk with my P&L, there will be no rebound today, my P&L closed on the intraday low . . .
is it because of your style of trading that 70% of your gross profits go to commissions? the amount you pay in commissions seems really high. how was that percentage last year?
Hitman, Thanks for sharing this - it is enlightening. The curious thing of course is that from one point of view, you really work for your broker - most of your hard earned money go there. That's something to really consider. IMO, you have to find a way to reverse that balance: e.g., different trading methodology, different broker, both, etc.
Just to give you a benchmark, I was talking to one of the financial managers of General Mills (Gen Mills could be termed a "commercial" in the grain market) grain trading operation a few years back and he said they made about a nickel net per contract traded. Of course this is an apples to oranges comparison but just take that FWIW.
Hitman, I think you may be selling yourself a bit short in terms of what is possible this year. I fully understand that the first quarter is prime time, but we never know what might happen in the markets. Volatility has been abnormally low and it tends to regress to the mean with a vengeance. We could have some real fireworks at some point and you could eclipse last year in a couple of weeks.
What do you mean very low? Do you think that Hitman is saying he PAYS 3.8 cents per share........obviously this is not the case....nor would it be considered low. In fact it would be very high. Hitman's GROSS PROFIT was 3.8 cents per share AVERAGE on his trading (he now lists volume as one way volume). THus for each share he bought or sold short, he made an average of 3.8 cents per share before commissions. Obviously when you average in losses, it takes your average gain/loss per share down from what your average winner is, and many I have talked to say the best traders in the industry will average no more that 5-7 cents per share. Keep on truckin Hitman your gross P & L IMO is more important at this stage of the game and your gross looks pretty darn good in this market.
A nickle a car. I think I recall their prior year's hedging activity netted them about 74 Mil (an exceptional year), so you do the math on how many cars they traded. As a % of net profit that 74 mil was a small %, but a very profitable percentage wise for the grain division. You have to take into account that for most of its positions, Gen Mills is hedged either by actual wheat in storage or options and has the flexibility to take delivery when they need the product, work different spreads etc. So that nickle would be net their profits on the cash product, futures and options. They did have a pretty good sized outright longer term directional (futures) trade going though.