+18 Bought 93.68 12:55 Sold Short 93.95 13:10 Sold 93.71 13:00 Bought Cover 93.90 13:14 Bought 94.60 15:26 Sold 94.64 15:26 Had to wait a while due to it being so choppy. Live to fight another day. Missed out on some opportunities earlier due to leaving the room. It always happens that way. No paper trades now. Just watch and observe.
+20 Bought 98.62 14:05 Sold 98.70 14:05 Sold Short 98.54 14:50 Bought Cover 98.49 14:50 Not the kind of gain over yesterday that I was shooting for. The stock was ripping off upward in the beginning. Wasn't really sure what to do. Wasn't sure to jump in or not. Fear is my worst enemy. Always afraid of reversals. That is experience that I need to gain from. More screen time is needed. I can why it takes so long to master this. Of course had I been doing a virtual paper trade, I'd jump in no problem. LOL. Everyone have a good weekend.
-240 Three bad trades really dug me in. I was not as selective as last week in picking my entry points. Bought 99.89 Sold 99.72 100 11:54 99.70 100 11:56 99.65 5 11.58 Made the mistake of trying to get in on the chop. I failed to look at prior trend lines. Yes, the worst thing is that I had both the 1 min & 5 min charts up again and reverted to the 1 min chart again. Just as with my many of my prior bad trades, I reverted to it. Also that I had a market sell order on ARCA button but it did not get rid of all the shares. Had to do it manually yet forgot I had an extra 5 shares on this one. Paid alot in commissions on this mistake just to get out. Sold Short 99.95 12:05 Bought Cover 100.66 12:25 Just was sloppy in picking the entry point.. Couldn't wait for a pull back to get out. The desperation to get positive gains really made me make bad decisions. I need to look at the 5 min chart for earlier signs of support and resistance. Looking at the 1 min chart kills me. At that point I turned the 1 min chart off. Never again. Bought 99.98 13:48 Sold 99.50 14:00 After concentrating on a few min-scalps. I got too greedy here and it really hurt. Could've got out with a break even of couple cents yet I let my greed set in or simply the desperation got the best of me. I mistimed the overshoot. In retrospect I should've drawn the line better. I need to recognize in a situation like this, a break even sell exit would be ok since I was trading countertrend on this one and the overshot low of that bar went way past my entry point. Other Misc. mini-scalps Bought 100.68 12:55 Bought 100.75 13:20 Sold 100.75 12:57 Sold 100.78 13:30 Bought 100.66 12:59 Bought 10.20 13:41 Sold 100.70 12:59 Sold 10.26 13:43 Bought 100.19 15:00 Sold 100.26 15.02 For a while, thought I didn't have to do any more ACH transfers but this time I had to do one for 150. Unfortunately due to the time needed for the transfer to take place, I will be working on the demo account for a couple days. I would say that I have improved since the beginning. It's still a long process. Sigh
A lot of negative comments here. Working under the assumption that you have a viable trading system/methodology all of the above mistakes are psychological. You do don't you? Something you KNOW is profitable when followed properly. It only has to be a long process because you are telling yourself it is so. All of these mistakes can be fixed at the next trade IF it is your intention to do so. You can wait for the proper set up, however you choose to take marginal. Mark Douglas, I think it was him, says we get from the market what we want - it has taken me many years to understand that. I didn't really think I wanted to loose money, but my results were loosing money. Thus I was getting what I wanted - my results proved this to be true. I would suggest that the long way to success seems to be the norm, but does not need to be. All you need to do is make the right choice at the point of decision, be it wait for a trade or take a stop or take profit. It is that easy. You already have a proven and effective strategy so carry it out as you know you need to. I write this as a reminder to myself. I put these positive affirmations daily in my journal - stating that I only take trades in accordance with my system, my system tells me where to place my stop, my target, how many contracts, etc. and I KNOW it works so therefore it makes it easier at the point of decision.
You're right.. emotional hinderances get in the way. I hadn't had a losing trade in two weeks which was something I didn't know how to handle because I was losing everyday before. I had a goal everyday to make a certain amount, once I got there I stopped. Being new to this game, I was experimenting with the 1 min chart again except it was with real money. Something that I need to learn from. I'm tough on myself because I want to succeed at this so badly. I also learned that the quick exit ARCA exit button will not guarantee that I will exit completely because it's dependent on if there are more or less bids on ARCA. It was a big cluster F#ck. Another hard learned lession. I do exits manually on losing trades (ie stops). There was a bunch of warnings set off in my head to exit today earlier yet I let my greed and my not wanting to accept a losing trade set in since I hadn't lost in 2 weeks. I got careless today. I was looking at the 1 min chart yesterday and really just thought there was quick easy money since most of the profitable scalps are about a minute or less between entry and exit. Had I stuck with the 5 min chart, I would've had better entry price points and more patience in knowing how seemingly bad trades will turn around. My results were much better after the first two bad trades where I focused on the setups and got rid of the 1 min chart. If I wanted to experiment, play around, or gamble I should've done it on the paper trades. Part of what I did to make gains is to not use the 1 min chart and time & time again shows why. I need to use the 5 min chart to find the entry points. I was really a cheap skate last week. By that I mean, I tried to get the best prices possible on entries and by that I missed out on some trades. However it is better to have missed out on trades than to have gotten in on bad ones. Will be back in a few days after my ACH takes place and be on the slow pace mode again of trying to make a little bit more than the previous profitable day. LOL
While waiting for the ACH to take place. Another paper trade day with 14 trades and only one negative trade. I used mostly limit orders on the paper so that's probably as real as it can be trading paper. I did this in two hours as I usually wake up later. My ammo is mostly scalps. This is what happens when you trade paper with zero fear. I definitely was not using the 1 min chart this time either. Screen shot is attached in case people don't believe me. LOL
Trading Psychology is something that most traders deal with and is one of the last hurdles to get past before one can even consider being a successful trader. Even the best traders still fight the emotions that come from market swings. Paper trading can be very effective in honing your trading system, but does not provide a proper projection of your trading skills b/c emotions are cut off when there is no money on the table. Since you're spending a lot of time on the simulator I would recommend focusing on the system you want to trade in under ideal circumstances that is profitable, so when you struggle live you know its emotions and not just a bad system. Trading scalps is always going to be an emotional rollercoaster b/c you are dealing with such small price movements which can be completely random on such a short time frame. When using the simulator, try working on extending the trades and set certain exit points including both a price target and a stop loss. While looking at your trades you posted it seems that your profit targets per trade should be a lot larger compared to your stops. Yes you only had one losing trade, but it basically offset 8 of your winning trades. Under live trading situations you can't expect to have a 93% success rate for trades. If two or more trades went bad it would have put you negative for the day. I am not sure if the trades that netted $6 are the typical trades you look for (you had 5 of them so it resembles a pattern), but it makes your job a lot harder when you are willing to take a $35 loss on another trade. Typically you would want your profit target to be at least a 1:1 ratio of your loss limit with a lot of traders having it closer to 3:1 or 4:1. The simulator would be a great opportunity to work on this. Hang in there, and things will get better. The road is always bumpy in the beginning, there is a reason it is called a learning curve.
WOW, still don't comprehend the idea of 3 cent trades (I trade futures.) This is working for you? With you methodology here you have to keep a high sucess rate going, (perhaps that is why the quick scalp - can't afford to lose) cause the losers will wipe out ALOT of prior work.
I do .03 scalps if I sense that there is not a lot of movement in my favor. I do it to just get out basically while getting out slightly ahead. If the I think it's got more room to run, I let it go a little more. Those .03 trades have saved me many times because they allowed me to get out when the direction is reversing. Believe me. If you look at the basis of my post on how I lost -240 on Monday is because 2 of the 3 trades is due to me using 1 min charts. In fact, I realized that I've never been profitable trading 1 min charts because they do not provide good entry point info. The only losing trade on that day where I used the 5 min chart is where I could've gotten out with a +.02 trade. Miscalculated the entry point but got greedy when I could've just gotten out. That is when NOT taking a +.02/.03 trade burns you and that is a prime example. I've already explained why I lost. I really don't feel like explaining it again. There is a reason for my bad trades and that is what keeps me in this. If it was all random button pushing, I would've quit already. I need to be more disciplined with the mental game. Also keep in mind I only did 2 hours of trading today on the paper trade. I don't feel like I need to spend all day on doing paper. I suppose if I did more hours, I probably would've gotten a little more as a result. The majority of trades where I lost of late where I did not use the 1 min chart, I had an opportunity to take a scalp of +.02/03 but did not. Would you've have been happy to take a scalp on all your losing trades? On the one demo paper trade where I lost, I got sloppy with the entry point because I had all those +scalps in a row. That's what happens when you win a bunch in a row. You get the itch to be not as strict with entry points. Entry points are the key. I don't know how you make per day but I'm a 99%er and I would be happy if I got 100-200 in gains per day and grow that slowly if I could. It's just paper. People can laugh at scalps but scalps add up because scalps are safer. Why was everyone on that guy Lescor's jock when most of his trades are +.05/share? That's what computer algorithms do. They scalp but in large quantities. Lescor just does large quantities where he makes 800k/year. Doing multiple stocks using trade ideas . No one complains about Lescor's scalps. I'm not even close to his level because I've only been at this for 2 months. You guys expect me to be a pro or some guru at this right away. How many people do you know that are successful consistant traders 2 months into the game? LOL I'm not trying to hit homeruns here. If ones tries to hit homeruns everytime especially if they are new to this game, they'll most likely strike out like Mark Reynolds the Hack. LOL
There was a guy interviewed in TA of Stocks & Comm magazine in June 2010 named Josh DiPietro who is daytrading for 15-25 cent moves. (Had to dig through the digital files to find his name) From what i recall he was doing many, many trades a day. I thought he was doing something similar as you but looks like he's scalping for a bit more. Not sure this is helpful in any way but thought i'd mention it.