if he's day trading, then why's he trading on down days if he knows (at least id hope he knows) that his system doesnt work in down markets?
Way to go Neke! Shoot for the moon. Six figure weekly gains are on the horizon, but what about seven figures, do we dare!
Weekly Update for week 29/50 ended 08/01/2009 Moderately positive week. Up 5.6K (1.8%). Should have been a decent week, but gave back most of that on Friday. The bias for the week was bullish in the market, making a number of purchases of SPY and SPY options for my discretionary trades. Unfortunately hit a bad patch on Friday. First lost 13K on ill-timed FSLR puts following their earnings; should have made some money holding till end of day. Lost another 6.6K trying to fade the move in WTFC - could easily have been worse if the stock did not retreat at the end of the day. The week was salvaged by my automated trades: made 12.3K from 31 trades. Looking forward to next week. Code: Opening Balance: 306,347 Net gain for the week 5,554 ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance: 311,901 Number of Trades 46 Number of Profitable Trades 27 Since Inception of Thread 01/10/2009 - 08/01/2009 Opening Balance: 320,064 Net loss (Less Margin Interest) -8,163 (Down 2.6%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 311,901 Number of Trades 743 Number of Profitable Trades 459 TICKER ENTRY DATE/TIME EXIT DATE/TIME QTY PURCHASE AMT SOLD AMT GAIN/LOSS TYPE SWGHU 2009-07-30-09-55-54 2009-07-30-10-45-32 20000 46000 52400 6085 SPY CALL BIDU 2009-07-27-09-43-08 2009-07-27-09-59-49 1000 363000 368000 4977 SHORT SPY 2009-07-27-10-59-02 2009-07-27-14-45-16 3000 292350 294600 2228 LONG --------------------------------------------------------------- SWGHU 2009-07-30-13-32-57 2009-07-30-14-20-47 20000 49800 46200 -3915 SPY CALL WTFC 2009-07-31-10-10-53 2009-07-31-15-52-59 21963 574651 568206 -6572 SHORT HJQTK 2009-07-31-09-32-57 2009-07-31-10-44-33 18200 143840 131040 -13104 FSLR PUT
I'll state again. And this will be my last and final post on this topic and this journal. Stick to / refine / then leverage your Automated trading systems. Discretionary directional trading is a long-term losers game. The volatility is good to get the adrenaline rushing, but it's the quickest path to the poor house. ( Discretionary efficient trade execution based trading is a whole another subject ) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2437840#post2437840 05-23-09 02:52 AM If you lack discipline, AUTOMATION is the holy grail. The Chart is a classic EW formation down to 200K. Ouch. He's now inside the blow-up danger zone for discretionary traders. On every trade his brain will switch to Revenge trading mode. The solution is simply to step back take a vacation. Oh, and he seems to break the cardinal rule. Never average down. It works well, but the one time it doesn't work is the one time needed to blow up. Trade with the trend and average UP. Easier said than done for discretionary traders.
That part (discretionary trading being a losers game) is very wrong. It is true there are a lot of personal prejudices and dispositions that may impact performance, but the aim should be to minimize or eliminate them. One way to minimize the impact of psychology is to make the conditions for action as objective as possible. With all the recent set-backs I suffered, the discretionary element is still a huge part of my overall performance in the market. My recent emphasis on automating things is to reduce the pressure to look for home-runs in my discretionary trades: suddenly I discover that instead of being glued to one position and trying to make a profit/home-run of it, I can actually make several smaller gains in the automated area, while capitalizing on the big moment when it shows up (when I can commit bigger capital and hopefully make bigger gains). There is no way automation can totally replace my discretion.
That was a quick one on +AIGTY (In 3.50 avg, out 4.30), 200 contracts Now in +SWGHV (300 @ 1.90). Waiting for the rebound in SPY