Couple of thoughts - For this reason alone "cannot afford big losses", of course "big" as defined by yourself, you will most likely not succeed until you have many big losses and much time behind you. Fear and Greed are your two major enemies. Fear to loose and Greed, "I have two ticks." You will NEVER be ultimately profitable taking one $60 loss and 4-5 $7 gains. The math just doesn't add up, as you know. Anyone here offering true constructive critique will most likely understand and that is why they would be offering such input. Demo platforms should only be used to learn and understand how to use the platform - not for "will my random button pushing be profitable" Do you have a trading plan? One that covers your strategy (do you have one of those?) your risk management, when you can trade and when you can't trade (i.e. times of day, or reports or news or..) what instrument you will trade and not trade. A trading plan is more than simply when to get in and when to get out. You made mention that it was your entries that you need to fix - I would suggest that it is in fact your exits that you need to concentrate on. There is a train of thought that says give two traders the same entry and a good trader will make money and fearful or greedy trader will not. It is all based on the exit. You have mentioned a few times that you got out only to have the price move in your intended direction - your exit was mistimed.
Thanks for the input. No, I do have a plan.. like I said.. will wait to do more trades as time goes on. My plan right now is to do mini-scalps and get out quick until I have enough of a base to let trades run more later on. I understand that I haven't let them run but also by leaving them in, I risk the reversal too. On one of the mini-scalps I did get out in time before the reversal. At this phase, I can't risk it. I just take profits when I can get them no matter how small they are. I just can't risk any losses at this point since finances are tight. I cannot afford to do anymore ACH transfers from my bank account to fund this venture. Easy for the 1%ers here. Right? How many pros here would be happy to have a small positive gain week during their first few months? I'm happy about it. Better than losing every week like before. No trades on Friday. I waited 2 hours in line for Black Friday for a $300 46" TV at Target. Missed it by a few people. They said no running but the guy behind me ran anyhow and snagged up 4 TV's. He also lied about not buying any TV's but yet that's all he did. First time doing a Black Friday sale for me, don't think I could do it again next time. I did end up getting a 46" TV but for $500. I was doing this for a family member as a favor so don't think I got extra funds for new TVs. LOL I woke up late on Friday to realize that the market closed early. Hey, I'm still new to all this. 2 months in - Give me a break. LOL.
+11 Sold Short 91.66 11:30 Bought Cover 91.63 11:35 Sold Short 90.84 14:58 Bought Cover 90.80 14.59 The computer algorithms went crazy at the second short. The volume spike was insane. I never seen anything like that. I couldn't believe it. It went all the way up to 92.19 in a matter of seconds and I was down -100 in a matter of seconds only to see it reverse so quickly. I was thinking WTF? But I stuck to my guns and set a limit order to get out. There was no way it would go up so fast without a correction. This is something that I did different than when I first started. I used to bail on fast reversals. The market corrected itself and it spiked back down and I was exited without even having the chance to change the limit order. Glad I got out anyhow. Everyday I will try to make more than my previous day. That is the goal. Slow baby steps. The market hasn't closed yet but I'm done for the day. Not having done the demo at all today and rusty at it, missed out on a bunch of other opportunities again. The fear factor definitely causes me not to jump in on more trades. Doing more paper trades will hopefully get me more confident that I can act more mechanical and less with emotion.
Go back and read it. I said I was doing it for a family member so it's not my money that I'm using to buy the TV. Don't quote other people out of context.
Apology accepted. I've been on other forums before.. mostly politics.. People rant like crazy on there. Even if they misquote you (often times they purposely misquote you), they don't apologize. For some reason, people get mad like hell over politics, like it's fighting words. I don't get it. It's not like any of us (if you are still a 99%er LOL) have any control over it or have lobbying power over them. I'm not a 1%er so I don't have funds to donate so why would they listen to me (like I have a voice)? Anyways nuff with politics. LOL Anyhow, it is refreshing for someone to do that.
+13 Bought 90.36 10:25 Sold 90.40 10:25 Sold Short 90.52 12:10 Bought Cover 90.48 12:11 There was one entry I missed by 0.01 due to me cancelling and trying to lower my limit order by 0.01. I shouldn't be such a cheap skate. LOL It would've been a great trade. Low expectations for now. Only hope to increase gains slowly day by day. Each day more than the prior one Slow process.
Not to come off too harsh, but I am not sure what you are trying to do or what your strategy exactly is? B/C from what I am reading, you are not day trading at all but merely trying to capture .01 price movements in a $90 stock. If this is your strategy, then you are doomed to fail, because this is not a strategy at all, it is just gambling as another poster put it. Except you are gambling with horrible odds once you count in the bid ask spread and tendencies to accept winners that are smaller than losers. The reason I know it's a losing strategy is b/c I had the same mentality when I first started day trading. I thought all day trading included was buying stocks and then selling them at a higher prices so I tried scalping for small penny price movements, and if they worked I just figured I could scale up bigger to make more money. This is not how trading works though, you need to buy or sell something for a reason. And a proper reason isn't "well i think in the next minute the price will go up or down a few cents", it needs to be a reason like "I think the price will go up or down in the next half hour or more because of X". The main key is the variable X, you need a reason for price movement other than random noise. My advice is similar to many of the other posters, you need to think longer term and start out small. Identify a larger trend and go from there. On top of that, stop trading the same stock everyday, there is going to be no rhyme or reason to the price movement of GS on a one minute chart on a day where there is no news affecting its movement. Find stocks or ETFs where that company or sector has market driving news for the day and trade those. Also take smaller positions so you can let trades ride out longer. For example, you have been frustrated over taking $100 losses when GS moves against you a few cents, well guess what that will happen to a stock that trades over 10 mil shares a day with a price in the $90 range. Where as if you bought say $10k worth of QQQ, you could actually set up a proper stop in place that would actually signal a failed trade while limiting your losses to the levels you were used to getting after a few cents and you would be forced to let your trades run in order to get some good profit. Having said all of that, the big elephant in the room is the notion that you cannot afford to lose any money on a trade. If this is true then I hate to say it but you should stop and get your life/finances in order until you are in a position to be able to trade without fear. Any successful trader will tell you that you will most likely lose money in the beginning and that the learning curve is harsh earlier on. I made the same mistake when I was younger, I quit my job and tried to make it as a full time trader without actually knowing what i was getting myself into. It is hard enough to become a profitable trader alone, without having the burdon of being profitable and being profitable enough to support yourself 100% via trading. It makes every loss seem twice as bad b/c you are losing money you have and putting yourself more in a hole when you need to cover rent.
+16 Bought 93.89 11:02 Bought 93.48 11:11 Sold 93.92 11.02 Sold 93:52 11:13 Bought 92.96 11:48 Sold 93.00 11.51 That's it for today. Need to bring my mother to the doctor today. I lived to survive another day. PlinytheTrader, How long have you been trading? Were you profitable two months in? I know you're trying to help but you have to read all the journal entries. Don't just read stuff from a few weeks ago and not read the recent ones. I have low expectations right now. My whole goal is to increase gains slowly everyday. With that said, I'm not trying to use this to fund myself right now or raise a family. It's a learning experience. If anyone has high expectations and are planning to use this to pay for everything right away, they'd be in for a rude awakening. Greed is what will kill them. I'm not greedy right now so I have taken away that part of my emotional hinderance. Like I said in my prior recent entries, I'm trying to build a base. A base that I can use so that don't have to do anymore ACH transfers to fund this venture. A base to grow on slowly. Yeah, people complain about the mini-scalps. Like I said before, I'm trying to build a base where I can let some of the trades ride a bit more later on. What keeps me in this is because I do well on paper trades. I can go and simply tear it up in the paper trades. Fear is my biggest weakness. This is my way of doing a transition. If I sucked at paper trades, I would've given this up already. I trade one stock at a time. Preferably around a $100 stock so it keeps commissions low. I made a mistake in trading F stock earlier since I can't get out for less than a penny. Trading GS lets me get out easier. I look at the stock's chart so that I am in tune with what's going on with it. No, I don't care about news, as long as the stock has some movement and volume so that I can exit. I only have one screen on my lap top. LOL. Also I don't use stops. I use mental stops in my head. If the pattern is completely taking off in the other direction and passing resistance or support points, I will exit myself. One note on not using stops, on my 11/28/11 I got caught up in an unforseen upward spike on a short position. It was crazy. Go look at the chart for that day and time and you'll see what I'm talking about. The computer algorithms went crazy. Had I put in a stop for that trade, it would've exited me for a -100 loss easily. I stuck to my guns and know now that it is unusual and will correct itself. Yeah people will rant on me for being a rookie for this. This is my own strategy. If you look at pro people like Lescor's journal, he doesn't use stops either.