Hi, I've begun trading 100 share lots (with unfair $.01/share commissions to start) for a few weeks now. I'm only in 1 or 2 positions at a time (so therefore I use only about $10K of my $60K buying power on average). Still, I trade approx. 8,500 shares a day... way too much. I did really bad my first few weeks, but I think that I've improved. I've been consistently slightly up on gross for more than a week and I went up an entire point yesterday. Of course, on net, I've only been up one day and this is very, very dissapointing. Basically: - I'm trading too much & not quitting while I'm ahead (I usually max my gains by 11 and loose money the entire afternoon) - I sometimes don't stick to my trading strategy - My commissions are way too high How is everyone else doing?
If you have "been consistently slightly up on gross for more than a week " it wouldn't matter if your commissions are nearly free...you still wouldn't make money. Get past the commissions mentally and learn how to trade. Once you learn how to trade it will be very easy to get the best commissions available.
Don't quit "just because you're up money". You're trading at this stage to learn, not to make money. What you should do is stick to a daily max loss, and then trail it, so if you limit yourself to say $50/day, and you go up $30, you don't let yourself go below -$20. Also, it's easy to walk away when you're up money but it takes patience and discipline to willfully not churn while observing the behavior of stocks and waiting for what you perceive to be optimal opportunities... Churning is a newbie mistake, even experienced scalpers do it, but try to cut down on it, especially during lunch hour. If you want to be a professional scalper, learning to trade all throughout the day has a lot of benefits... but make sure you're learning to TRADE, not churn, or appease boredom. You know absolutely nothing (you can't, you've been trading live for two weeks) so being positive once in 10 days is nothing. Just limit your losses, be as tight as possible... and try to get that penny/share down. Realize that in the absolute best circumstance, where you're a naturally "gifted" trader, you'll not be profitable for 6 months... and even that's highly unlikely. Focus on learning how to trade and the money will come...