Neke, Just curious, where did you learn to trade? books, seminars, mentor, or trial and error,? if so, which books, seminars, etc.? How many years have you been trading? Besides your job and trading, do you have other streams of income?
Trying and failing initially. If you read prior posts, I mentioned how I started off in Dec 1999 as the NASDAQ euphoria was peaking, brought in all my savings of 16K, and withing two weeks lost over half, even though the NASDAQ index over the same period rose more than 20%, and I only knew how to go long! Over the years got to read some books like the market wizards, rule the freaking market, the Darvas book, and many others whose title I do not remember. I came out with the conclusion I have what it takes to beat the market, with discipline. (But that later aspect, the discipline has been a journey in itself.) Hit my lowest cummulative equity level in Oct/Nov 2004, and started my upward journey. I regard that as a four/five year college degree that cost a total of about 54K. Thankfully, I recovered all that tuition and more in just one year of hitting the bottom.
Weekly Update for week 37 ended 11/09/2007 Great week, up 78K (45%) Pleased to have the many opportunities that showed up in the market this week amidst the turmoil. Now we have a market that is no more uni-directional (at least for the time being). For the week made 22 profitable trades out of 30, which for my system is very good. Lots of single good trades, with only two awful trades which I could have avoided (described below) to report. Just took a look at CROX, from which I realised 18K on the put last week. The NOV 55 PUT is worth 16.50. Had I stayed I could have made an extra 42.5K. Oh had I known! Made good gains on FSLR after their nice earnings report, buying 50 of the NOV 220 CALLS for $10, sold 30 at close of day Thursday for $18, and the rest at $11 on Friday before the market took everything down. Yes those earnings were really nice. I know the concern is about valuation. But I reckoned with those projections we could see next years earnings revised to above $3. That should give a PE ratio of 70. Not cheap, but better than the forward PE prior to the earnings of 100. And with the momentum in that sector I felt it should go higher (that was before the Thursday/Friday collapse!). On Tuesday morning saw BIDU take a plunge of up to 20 points in early trade on heavy volume. Thought the correction is finally going to happen today, and bought 25 NOV 390 puts at 16.50. It was not to be as the market rallied, and so did BIDU, forcing me out with a loss of 11K. Just checked back NOV 390 puts, and the last trade was $52. If I had stayed I would have made 88K. Oh no, had I known! Really tried to buy the follow on fall in the market on Friday in the early morning, scooping up BIDU options, and selling for 17K after about an hour later. Came back in the afternoon and thought surely the market must rally to the close, buying GOOG 680 CALLS. Saw a paper gain of 12K before the market sold off precipitously at end of day, handing me a 25K loss to end the week. Add back that amount, and I should have finished the week on an even more spectacular fashion. Glad to be at about my previous equity peak (carrying though a loss of 6K on an open position till next week). Code: Balance B/F: 172,376 Gain for the week 78,035 Cash Withdrawal -10,000 ------------------------------------------------ Balance C/F: 240,411 Number of Trades 30 Number of Profitable Trades 22 Since Inception of Thread 2/25/2007 - 11/09/2007 Balance B/F: 76,636 Net Gain (Less Margin Interest) 234,775 Cash Withdrawal -71,000 ------------------------------------------------ Balance C/F: 240,411 (Adjusted balance before withdrawals is 311,411, up 306% ) Number of Trades 1007 Number of Profitable Trades 572 Expected Balance at this time to be on track for Year-End Target : 371,016 Status: Behind Target (Based on adjusted balance before withdrawals) Top/Bottom Discretionary Trades for the week TICKER ENTRY DATE/TIME EXIT DATE/TIME QTY PURCHASE AMT SOLD AMT GAINS/LOSS TYPE HJQKD 2007-11-08-09-35-32 2007-11-09-10-32-28 5000 50000 76000 25894 FSLR NOV 220 CALL BDUKG 2007-11-09-09-36-44 2007-11-09-10-31-09 3000 39000 57000 17934 BIDU NOV 340 CALL GTXI 2007-11-06-08-38-43 2007-11-06-16-51-10 10000 161227 171750 10460 SHORT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- APVKQ 2007-11-08-09-40-35 2007-11-08-15-30-37 5000 25000 17000 -8095 AAPL NOV 185 CALL BPJWR 2007-11-06-10-54-18 2007-11-06-15-46-52 2500 41250 30000 -11308 BIDU NOV 390 PUT GOQKP 2007-11-09-13-19-04 2007-11-09-15-50-05 6000 72190 47050 -25261 GOOG NOV 680 CALL (Before Interest and Other charges) TRANSACTIONS ANALYSIS FROM 2007-02-25 TO 2007-11-10 Current Week | Since Inception of Thread | Method Gains/Loss No Of Profitable | Gains/Loss No Of Profitable Trades Trades | Trades Trades Automated AutoTrade1 0 0 0 | 5652 208 116 AutoTrade2 0 0 0 | 3372 12 8 AutoTrade3 0 0 0 | -4523 3 0 AutoTrade4 0 0 0 | -15301 3 0 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Total Automated 0 0 0 | -10800 226 124 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Discretionary Long 11000 4 3 | -48384 265 155 Short 40855 10 9 | 50601 276 161 Options(long) 26210 16 10 | 244078 240 132 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Total Discretionary 78065 30 22 | 246296 781 448 =========== ======== ============ | =========== ====== ============ Net Totals 78065 30 22 | 235496 1007 572 =========== ======== ============ | =========== ====== ============
I am just curious...are you cash withdraws just for personal spending or to service debt? If I remember you have a full time job os it's not for paying yourself Eh?
It is to pay myself. Yes, I have a full-time job, but it feels good to have an extra buffer. Year end is still coming, and I know I will still have to bring out much more for the government: I won't do that without paying myself first.