Hi all, I jumped into the world of daytrading about a month ago. My goal was really no more than to play the volatility of the markets and then when they settle down back to a form of value investing. si I opened up a fidelity account and off I went. I was quickly labeled a pattern day trader which I suppose gave me some leverage, although I have been trading 1 position at a time that is very close to (+-) 10% of my cash. I don't plan on ever having 2 day positions open at once. I have made about 50 roundtrips and as of market close today netted a little over 16K with starting cash of 80K in my account. As I said above I have been scalping. I buy either SDS or SSO depending upon movement. My biggest trade gain is $2700 and my biggest loss is almost 6K. That trade was today. I did not stop it out, I just was caught like a deer in headlights, hoping wishing it would come back. What a fool am I!! Obviously I need a system and some books. Can any of you point me in the right direction. What I learned to day after beating myself up for not getting out of the trade which BTW took all over 45 minutes to be down...is that I am super hard on myself when I lose $$. When I am scalping I often leave profits on the table to lock in a # in my head. I have only lost on 4 trades and two of them were over 2500. what is it about hanging on to a trade and HOW do I NOT do it in the future when I am losing. thanks!
Get the book? If you are too cheap then read some of it here (some pages missing) http://books.google.com/books?id=s8...dq=the+psychology+of+trading&client=firefox-a
use stops and stay disciplined. Your losses are large so always give yourself a stop and make sure you stick with it. You cant lose money (besides commision and slippage) if you're stopping properly. As far as books or systems or whatever i went to isohunt.com and looked up stock market or stock market books or something. I now have 3gb worth of reading material.... i'm sure you'll find something. (isohunt.com is a torrent site so make sure you have azureus or utorrent or soemthing). But it sounds like you're doing alright, just stick to your guns and use those stops. NEVER hope its going to bounce back. Take the $14 dollar loss in favour of a $6000 loss (makes sense no?). With a position of decent size you're not going to lose a real amount of money by stopping too early then rebuying to catch a real move.