November Trading Journals

Excellent trading Hitman! You made more than me on Friday (similar amount after commissions) ... darn, I am starting to deteriorate in my old age ... and you are most definitely no longer a rookie ... I did a few intraday trades on Friday and found it somewhat tough. You did excellently to nail the energy rally.

 

Ostod,

Nice words. Thanks.

There really is no way around losing, you have to loose to win big, just hope that newer traders realize this.

 

Didn't want to start a whole new thread , so I think this might be the best spot because it's like a journal entry.
.
The 1 train:
I got off at the Chambers ST station so I could walk by the WTC site...and it was a horrible site. I can't even write about it.
Walked over to Hitman's office. Nice guy. I thank him for taking the time to show me Worldco. He's got a sweet set up with 4 flat panel monitors running AT financial. Worldco seemed like a good place to go if you wanted to put down a little $ to trade. Everything was great except for the people in the management office. The girl was rude...I think she was mad because I asked her a simple question and took her away from surfing the harry potter website.

Grabbed some lunch and called Mike at the Echo trade office. He said I could stop by anytime, so I walked over....really nice looking office...much smaller than worldco, but nicer looking...new furniture, new flat panel screens all over the place, great view...Mike told me how he helps traders in the office with trade set ups and stuff...real nice guy...also a place to consider. Top notch place.

Walked over to visit Gene Weissman. Another nice guy. Cool office building. About the same size as Echo office, not as many traders, Gene said most of them are remote now...easy to understand people not wanting to go into the city if they didn't have to....another place to consider...and Gene 's pricing was lower than anyone elses.
After that i walked around the city for a while...and met my old college buddies at Steve's(college roomie) apt. Sweet pad on E. 9th street...we grabbed a cab and went to Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. Biggest shrimp I've ever seen, GREAT steak! Then the four of us went back to Manhattan and hit this bowling alley on University Place. It was crazy. Like a niteclub really, with bowling...lots of women ...got some digits...got pretty drunk and bowled to about 2:30 am
I'd like to thank Hitman, Gene Weissman, and Mike at Echo for taking the time to show me their firms. I had a great time.
So what do I do? It's a tough decision...I'm headed for Florida for 2 weeks of sun and fun...so I'll make up my mind when I get back.
If anyone has any questions they can pm or e-mail me and I'll answer as soon as I can.

Peace

 

Horrendous open bailed out by solid afternoon market movement. It was a very winnable game but I could not get myself into the black until literally final minutes before the closing bell. I missed the chance to score big in one of the two "real" games to be played this week (Wed/Fri will likely be very light games), and I must step it up tommorrow.

+265 before commissions, +3 (lol) after, 11400 shares on 7 of 15 shooting, but that number was vastly misleading as I could not get a triple digit winner until very late in the game. For some reason I just could not get the open shots to go my way, missed fills, slow on getting out, etc . . . Then the game was blew open on the wrong side with a horrible trade on BJ that went berserk. Clawed my way back inch by inch and finally closed back in the black and extended my winning streak into six straight games. Up three dollars is better than being down any amount, and psychologically it is support going into tommorrow's game. My game has always been about consistency over home-run's, defense over offense anyway.

Pre-Market: Nothing worth mentioning. Didn't get sufficient sleep last night thinking about things, and wanted to take it easy, especially that on Friday I had blistering shooting % (12 out of 14) and knowing that I am a career 50% shooter, I would probably have a tough game today. As it was I went 1 of 7 to open up the game and smaller size really reduced the potential damage. However, I just could not find that one trade I like to do a full lot on, that prevented me from adding anything substantial to that P&L.

9:30: Futures going up, BTK was up a lot and took a little DNA and took 40 cents on . . . 200 shares. CEX going up a lot and I took a little PPG, stopped out for flat. Took some CRA as BTK was going through the roof, pyramided and really thought it would go up, it hit me for a quarter and it really hurts as I bought more on the way up. Tried to bottompick NSM and churned a lot of commissions, SOX was really weak today.

10:02: I knew I was way off, futures made a big rip and I had no financials, no retailor, and the stuff I was in just didn't work. Then I took 600 shares of BJ as RLX seemed very strong, at 46.67. Big seller in him and I looked away for a second, boom he printed 46.35, and there was no BID for me to get out, I knew I was in for a world of hurt when he printed size at the figure, because futures and RLX were strong I figured I could have held on a little longer, get out on a bounce, ouch, he printed the half and I was out of the money by 1.2 point, that was a world of pain, and I was down $900. He was printing a lot of size, and there was no offer, futures still holding so I took a chance and allowed it to go against me just a little more, it didn't as it squeezed right back and I was able to get out for half a point loss instead of the full point, still hurts but far reduced damage.

10:30: OSX squeeze, scalped HP for 20 cents. I was still down $500 and market didn't looked that great, I wanted to chip into it, slowly but surely. Just to get my confidence back.

11:00: IUX breakout, took CB/MMC, out of both for flat, CB tanked more but MMC went up quite a bit. Scalped LXK for a quarter on a bounce from 50 psychological support (and the BID on the tape didn't look that bad either).

12:40: Started to bottompick energy again, unfortunately I wasn't as sure on this as I was on Friday, F really helped me to hold today as she has a stronger biase, and I managed to score half a point on WFT, 30 cents on SGY on very small positions. Churned KMI/TDW/VTS and ended up flat in them. Had KMI all afternoon and it would not break out.

3:00: Took BJ on a bottompick play at 43 which was a previous low and futures squeezed. Scored 35 cents on small shares and that put me into the black. Tried DNA final minutes as it took out a huge 200K offer at 56.5, and broke even. A look at my P&L I was up three dollars with three minutes left in the game, whew . . .

 

Glad you were able to come back on being down so much.

I read your past articles over the weekend and I through enjoyed it, especially the part about your princess. I didn't see you mention her anymore. How's that going?

I think you have to be mentally strong to trade with any consistency and your ability to handle very challenging emotional issues deserve a round of applause.

 

Glad you were able to come back from being down so much.

I read your past articles over the weekend and I through enjoyed it, especially the part about your princess. I didn't see you mention her anymore. How's that going?

I think you have to be mentally strong to trade with any consistency and your ability to handle very challenging emotional issues deserve a round of applause.

 

SB:

When I first started writing my journals I was on the MSN board, where the members really got to know me about my stories, and they watched me literally blow by blow as I got the interview for my current job and lost money during my learning curve. Even tho that community doesn't have nearly as much talent as this one, it was where I came from and there I post the full version of my journal.

When I came to ET I tried to keep this thread totally professional hence I try to keep this thread princess-free.

 

Hi Hitman. I really enjoy reading your posts here and at tripod.com. As a soon-to-be prop. trader your journal has been full of awesome information. I really give you credit for baring your soul the way you have and once I start trading I will do the same.

My question is about bullets. In one of your past journals you wrote:

"The way our married put works is for a fee of $90 (forgot whether it is a flat fee or not), the firm will purchase a stock and buy a put that covers the same number of shares at exactly the same time, therefore establishing a hedged position. At the end of the day, the hedge position is closed by the firm.

Once the married put is established, the trader can short a stock the exact same way if he is selling a stock. No downtick rule applies, no 1/16 above BID price, short works exactly like sell. This is a HUGE advantage for a stock like NT, one of the senior trader established a married put in it today ready to short it many times today.

The minimum share requirement for a married put is 1500 shares. The married put is how our top gross traders make 75% of their money. Those people favor the short side and trade huge positions (it is very common for him to carry a dozen 5000 share positions at same time along with smaller positions)."

My question is about exiting your bullet position if the stock goes UP instead of down. In that situation would you merely sell the put side and thus earn money on the stock having gone up? Or do you wait for the stock to come back down before you close the bullet position?

I guess I'm confused about the maximum loss you can incur on this kind of hedged position - is it the ticket price and commission per share?

I'm also wondering if you can just wait for the stock to go down during the day instead of closing the position very quickly if the stock goes up.

Thanks again!

 

Am I reading you correctly? R U paying 8800 or so in commisions on only 250,000 shares? I am on my laptop, and the font is small, I must be reading this wrong. Even if you paid a full penny a share, it should only be around 2500 plus some sec fees (r u paying ecn fees or something else like that). I have seen 50% go to fees before, but usually only when the net profit is around 1 cent or so.

In any case, keep up the disciplined trading!!