Thanks for the input. I no longer trade off the 1 min chart. I just use the 5 min chart and will occasionally look at the 3 month one to see where the day may be headed. My first bad trade. The move was so fast up that I was surprised. By the time, I put in an order to get out for +.03, it was heading up. It did not come back down to my order point. I missed it by .01. Sometimes a +.02 scalp could be ok if it is moving quickly the other way. The important part is that it bounced off the EMA10. Something I didn't think about at the time. There will always be a bounce off of the EMA's when the price gets there. I need to remember to put in a stop when I'm ahead. The second bad trade. The sudden downturn came out of no where. I've been burned by these before and it's usually around 11-12 EST. on lower volume. In the back of my mind, I didn't think it could do this without coming back. It did come back but I exited at that point. A new rule of thumb for me now. I do not trade at that time.
+38 Lightspeed has a whole host of issues. I have call them every morning now with their system being a mess to make sure that I can trade. I have to get them to go through all my P&L and ACH to make sure I have more than 25K where I am right on the cusp. Ridiculous. I was very cautious today as I do not want to do any more ACH's. Sold Short 90.11 09:45 Buy Cover 89.97 09:47 Sold Short 90.08 10:12 Buy Cover 90.05 10:23 I didn't expect this thing to move back up so quickly. I waited for 10 min this time. I trusted that it will come back down but I just wanted to get out. Waiting 10 min is an enternity. Obviously in hindsight, I should let it ride out more. Lot of times, the longer I wait, the more quickly I want to get out. Buy 90.88 14:33 Sold 90.93 14:34 This would've been a great jump off point as the stock took off seconds later without me. I entered on the pullback. The problem is that I don't know how much more pullback there will be. As it pulls back in the other direction. It makes me nervous and set forth an order to get out with a small scalp. That's why this game is so hard. It's very counterintuitive. Do other traders experience this? Entering on pullbacks? Timing the price entry is very hard. Sometimes I want to enter at a point where the price never reaches it and sometimes I'm too eager and get in at a bad price. Again, I should've set forth a stop order when I was up and let it ride. This is a habit I need to work on if I am going to be successful.
-155 I think I'm done for a while. I'll be doing the paper for a week. I need to get certain things down such as button pushing. I'm not a morning person and it is hard for me to be clear headed in the morning. Small gains wiped out by big losses. Bought 94.84 13:26 Sold 94.73 13:40 Bought 94.88 13:34 Sold 94.73 13:40 Complete accident here. I wanted to get out at 94.88 yet I pressed the buy button instead of sell. I didn't mean to double my position. I tried to get out at 94.90 but it never reached it. Missed it by 0.01. Button pushing mistakes have gotten the worst of me. It was exited out on a stop. Since then I was doubling my positions from 200 to 400 shares to see if I could get some back. I was so used to exiting using the buy button on short positions that I reverted back to it on a long position. That is something I need to handle. Bought 94.56 13:59 Sold 94.30 14:08 I had a huge loss here but it is noteworthy. I took the position on a pull back to the EMA20. It hadn't hit that all day. However I had to leave to bring my mother to the doctor. It hit the stop when I came back and never went back up which I thought was strange. However as I looked at 3 month chart, 94.53 is around the EMA 20 and one would expect a downward bounce off it opposite to the daily EMA 20. 30 day EMA 20 trumps daily EMA 20 is what I learned. I thought about this earlier in the day that this could happen and it did. So the downturn was huge. It never came back until 15:30 to try to go back to the EMA 20 of the previous point. It never fully broke through but it is noteworthy that it tried and the top price it got to was 94.53 which is the 30 day EMA 20. So it is important to keep tabs on the 30 day chart for important points. There are logical explanation for these losing trades yet there are so many of them that make it hard to overcome. Sold Short 94.12 15:28 Bought Cover 94.05 15:29 (296 share fill only out of 400) Sold Short 94.12 15:28 Bought Cover 94.20 15:54 (104 remaining shares) I should have kept the 94.05 order open. I thought that as soon as it went up quickly, it will also come down. How much that was the problem. I just set a price and exited on the remaining 104 so that I'll net at least something if just to pay for commissions on the day. Must've netted +7 on that whole ordeal of 400 shares. Very interesting behavior today. Unfortunetly a bad set of circumstances killed me. I couldn't believe that it never went back to the daily EMA 20 like it usually does and that I couldn't believe that it tried later on also after the huge down spike. Also for GS trading, 400 shares maybe too large of a load. 300 shares might be the max to trade at one time if one wants to exit quickly. ** - Another Interesting Note. I went back to sleep from 11-13:00 EST. The fake out occurred at 11:30 EST on the money. A sudden drop out of nowhere just like yesterday. Only to reverse later. Very interesting stuff.
you need to work up to live trading,you are mentioning a lot of things that you are not sure of,these are bets you are making,with an edge it's trading,without the edge it's gambling,if you insist on trading live at this point,limit your losses to 1/12 of your acct per month,this will hypothetically keep you in the game for a year,if you've lost that amount,paper trade til the end of month and start with cash again on the first
Thanks for the input Paper trades get boring for me but that is what I have to do. I thought I resolved some of these button pushing issues for a while only to have it come back today. I'll do paper trades for the rest of the week and some of next week. There are logical explanations for the losses whereas in casino gambling there is no logical explanation (It's random). You get dealt a bad hand and you lose. All of it is gambling and speculation. However, we are all trying to get high percentage trades in our favor where other traders are on the same page as with the movement of the crowd. That is the point. I've improved in some areas but have a lot to work on.
-32 Was doing paper trades and was +28 in 20 min so I went back to the account and did the real thing. I could've scalped out on the losses but tried to hit the HR. 2 Bad trades. I'm on the cusp of blowing out my account again so why not? They fooled me to doing an ACH earlier this week due to issues with their program. It basically met the loss from yesterday. Sold Short 93.14 14:36 Bought Cover 93.28 14:55 Thought it was going to go back down. Never did. In hindsight. The measured moves were done from the downstretch. I had an opportunity to scalp out at 93.11 but I opted not to. Hoping it would come down. Bought 93.30 15:10 Sold 93.24 15:19 Well it was an upswing then I went to buy on the pullback. Well it pulled back to a point where I couldn't stand it anymore. 10 min of waiting kills me. 5 min later I could've had the chance of scalping out. I really could've scalped out today but tried to go bigger later in the day. Scalps Sold Short 93.50 12:32 Sold Short 93.31 15:26 Bought Cover 93.47 12:35 Bought Cover 93.27 15:27 Bought 93.41 15:45 ** Sold 93.44 15:50 **Could've taken a loss here but the action looked like it was aggressive in coming back up. After looking at the loss figure, I opted to take the scalp on it. Of course, it takes off later. That was part of it's expected measured move I just can't seem to time it right. At least no wrong buttons were pushed today. Perhaps I should just go back to scalping.
sorry to hear about another losses, but the last days I also had many losses on my SIM account, but only in my limits and in my stop limits. Strange days ... I would like to know more about your strategy and your money managemant. -32 sound not too much for a 25000 account. Did you thought about trading a index? I think it´s a bit easier to trade indices.
I just sent you a PM. A lot of issues and what I'm trying to do, I've talked about here on the journal. It's a learning experience for me too. You should see all my other losing days. -32 looks like a winner compared to those days. I actually had a chance to make that a small gain day but I declined on let some trades go on that became reversals against me. There's nothing new that I haven't discussed. I've probably lost close to 5 k since I started 3 months ago (so -20% so far in 3 months). The biggest loss was due to holding overnight. Never hold overnight if you want to day trade. I've also traded the SPY before too. A little safer than GS since it doesn't move as much. I don't do futures indexes as I am still unsure of all the ins and outs of doing it. I haven't gotten to that phase yet. LOL. I'm still learning to tread water. LOL What happened to your other profile?
I saw day trader rockstar on Youtube. I don't do stop losses. Half asleep when I woke up and did the trade. I had the strategy and it looked like it was going my way. since my guess was right but it didn't execute. Scottrade in my opinion just sucks for day trading. After much debate, I'm planning to switch to Lightspeed. Another loser of a day.. what else is new for a rookie I know the gains are small but I have put everything I have into a 25K day trade account. I simply cannot afford to lose even 100 bucks. Everything is tight in terms of bills. I have put everything I have into this. I simply cannot afford to take big losses.... A lot of issues and what I'm trying to do There was no way it would go up so fast without a correction. I'I waited 2 hours in line for Black Friday for a $300 46" TV at Target. m still learning to tread water. Wasn't really sure what to do. Fear is my worst enemy. Always afraid of reversals. why it takes so long to master this. I'd jump in no problem. I got careless today. Got faked out by as above. Thought it would try again to go higher but never did. I waited forever today because it was a range bound non trending day probably should've quit but how am I going to improve if I didn't keep trading. .......................................... SF, you have absolutely no clue. you think you can just come into the game and piss in the tall grass. best advice. walk away when you can afford it, go see donny bright in vegas. cheers, s ................................... this is by far the best line i have ever read......." I saw day trader rockstar on Youtube........" i am still rolling on the floor.............
-20% down in 3 months is not the worst! My email gone lost and my passwords too... that´s why I have a new profil here. The PM I have got but could not read it, because the admin has disabled it for me. I also will go back down to scalping futures, till I have more room for swings in my account. Try simulated scalping, you will get confident with your trading software and strategy. GL and HF today. be careful