Sent you a PM -sorry didnt see it earlier or wouldve replied earlier As far as ramping up is concerned use position sizing rather than share sizing--easier to ramp up from $50 risk/trade to $100/trade to $250 per trade rather than ramp up from 100 shares of GSK to 200 shares of FCX or RIMM--that will eat you up before you know it (or any other stock thats "trading on news" type of thing)and thats a common mistake most people make. But if your loss is fixed doesnt matter what stock you trade--sometimes higher priced stocks like AMZN GS AAPL give nice entries and if your risk is $100 --and .25/share you buy 400 shares and stock moves $2 in your favor you just made $800. How difficult is it to make that kind of money trading 100-200 share lots--if you are wrong you lose $100 so? big deal.
Sounds like your striving for perfection.. which to me is pointless perfection is ugly ...... nothing is perfect... just do it ... we can always remain confident as long as we live life with no Regret's. Happy Trading NoDoji
I disagree. Confidence is important, but striving for perfection in following trading rules is crucial. Confidence without strict adherence to rules and trading plans can wipe you out. Without perfection in following my rules, I'll always be at risk for losing more than I gain, and I'll continue to leave large profits behind. I do agree that striving for perfection in the outcome of trades is pointless (and in fact very dangerous). Some trades will gain, some will lose. As long as I follow my plan for the trade and my rules for trading, I should be a net winner. But I can't make a living if I follow my rules for 3 days, then wipe out the gains in one day by violating them. I can't make a living if I take five $30 losses in a row, catch a winner and close it at +$150 because, whew!, I'm back to even, thank God!, and watch it move $250 more in my favor without me. Last year my biggest "loss" was actually a massive winner cut short because I changed a trading plan without a technical reason for doing so. My husband put on a swing short position for me in his IB account (my Etrade account had no shares available to borrow on this particular equity). I told him to place a pretty wide stop above 52-week resistance (it was a thinly traded stock that often moved 1.00 in a few minutes), and that I was targeting a price zone of 50% retracement of the move it had made from the last low to this recent high. Price moved against me the next day, and my husband, who liked the daily chart setup of this trade) doubled the position when it did, adding an equal size for himself, since he was comfortable with the stop price. We now had a significant position size that, based on stop and initial target zone, provided better than 2:1 reward:risk ratio. The following day price moved a bit higher and came within .50 cents of the stop. Even though I had chosen that stop, seeing the drawdown that the double size position showed when that happened changed my perception of the trade. Prior to this I thought my initial target was extremely conservative and that in fact we'd get a much better move in our favor when that zone was reached. Now, I suddenly doubted my plan and didn't want to lose that much if the stop was hit. Nothing about the trade had changed. Only my perception had changed. The next day price pulled back significantly and our position was profitable. It moved within view of the initial target zone, but then over the next 2 days it moved slightly into the red again and consolidated in a fairly narrow range. The day after that, price moved a few ticks higher than the previous day's high off the open, but quickly started falling. A failed breakout, leaving a lower high. This had gone from being a counter-trend pullback trade to exhibiting a confirmed reversal signal. But seeing that large drawdown earlier blinded me to the new price action picture! I just wanted to take some profit and run before it "turned" on me again. As soon as the trade was over $1500 profitable and price started to tick up a bit, I told my husband to take the profits and we could always short it again on this bounce. We closed this trade 2.00 from my initial target zone, which was a conservative enough target for a counter-trend pullback, but now we had a confirmed reversal signal and that initial target should've been lowered, certainly not raised. Within minutes of closing the trade, price broke down hard on heavy selling volume, not finding support until it had fallen well past my initial target zone. Just 2 minutes of patience and adherence to the plan and we would've pocketed an additional $10-$12K depending on how much slippage we got from the trailing stop that would've been in place once the target zone was reached. I wrote in my journal that day that it was my second worst day ever as a trader, psychologically. I was holding a large losing swing position at the time and this winning trade would've covered it 3 times over.
+ $262 Morning watch list was AAPL and POT long, AMZN short (always seems to rally on the open, then fall). Unfortunately, my PC was all bolluxed despite the fact I performed my Sunday computer maintenance and everything seemed fine last night. The market opened and my charting platform was completely frozen, and IB was acting like it was trudging through molten lava. I deleted some files, then everything stopped responding and I gave it the cold boot. All came back well, but I missed my opening trades. Short AMZN @ 119.75 pullback from a failure to test previous resistance, leaving lower high, plus serious weakness vs a rallying ES. I only shorted 100 shares and covered when oversold @ 119.23 for +$50, leaving an additional $100 on the table. I wanted to ring the register, figuring price would bounce there, but it just paused and then fell further. The relative weakness shouldâve been a signal for me to be more patient. Long X @ 45.45 higher low; stopped out at b/e when the bounce failed, leaving behind a lower high. Short X @ 45.67, overbought pullback from a lower high. Tightened stop when price action established support at the slightly rising 20 EMA, hit for +$6. Short AMZN @ 119.49, pullback from overbought on the 1-min, just looking to scalp, stopped out for +$7 on a spike. Shaken out of 2 POT longs for +$7 and decided the action was too choppy for now and waited for stronger setups to trade further. I was having a convo with someone in chat and missed a setup I was waiting for on POT to the short side. Decided to leave chat and focus, despite the fact everything was choppy. The signals can come any time out of nowhere and I needed to stay ready. Missing POT really bothered me This decision paid off well. Short AAPL @ 197.02 pullback from overbought lower high. Sat on my hands until both fast & slow stochs became very oversold and tightened the stop at the round number, hit @ 196.05 for +$192. This was the most difficult thing Iâve ever done, sitting through all that back and forth action for nearly half an hour, but it really worked! Took a break for lunch and a good stretch, not wanting to churn away any profits after that nice move. I returned to discover there was no reason at all to cover that AAPL short, as it had made another move down, a perfect measured move! Later, AAPL was setting up nicely on the 1-min and the 5-min, confluent with SPY. Later day trades always seem to chop me, though, and I saw a higher low as well as a lower high, which caused me to hesitate. It fell suddenly, and my hesitation kept me out of a very good trade where the stop loss wouldâve been only .15 cents. I was disappointed with myself on this one, because of the low risk zone. Itâs not often you can actually catch an AAPL setup with a .15 cent stop price. Normally by the time I jump into AAPL, my stop is anywhere from .20-.50 cents.
doughji! perfection is absolutely not important when trading... discipline is important. If you are trying to be perfect at every entry adn exit then you will nickel and dime yourself in to the poor house not to mention maybe the psyhiatric ward due to stress!!!!!!!! be confident in your abilities and trade small enough to weather a few storms and you will do just fine.
You make a good point. My edge is such that over 80% of the time price moves a specific distance and if I get in a little late, it's not the end of the world. Problem is when I get in late and my stop loss is so much further away, I have even more trouble not moving it too quickly!
Did you say you had a blog? I'd like to follow it if you do. I find the journal format on EliteTrader to be really confusing, and it's something that has a lot of cross-traffic from other people. I'd love to read your stuff in a blog format.
No, this is my only journal. But if I don't break out to the next level in trading soon, I'll just write a book
I always ask the interesting authors on ET to start a blog. No one has taken me up on it. Perhaps you could share your retail trader journey with us in such an environment? I bookmark a bunch of retail trader blogs and read them. They seem to get less polluted with "haters", and the comments usually get sidelined into a comments tab which makes progress easier to read and follow.
NoDoji, Having read your journal for a while, terrific job! One question though, did you ever go take a look all those previous trades and did you ever realize that if you can stop being so "TECHNICAL" and focus on those stocks on a little longer time frame for your holding, you could have made a lot more than those dimes and nickels. I used to be a scalper as well, I tend to take profits as quick as possible and if the stock goes against me, I will hold considering there is not too big down momentum for the market. Quality stocks pretty much all recover soon. My point is, just looking at all your post, I can feel WHAT YOU FEEL EVERY SECOND OF THE TRADE SESSION. I really think you could do better without being too technical.