25th Full day of trading. Been holding ideas more. Letting stocks breathe. I will invest in a chart/scanner program to find potential setups I like during the day. My ideas are good, the overall execution and trade management needs work. Some slight adjustments could make a big difference overall. Need to focus more on trades with conviction. Let them work. Trading vol today 135K. Reference point for a month or two from now.
26th Full day of trading. System went down while I had 3 positions on. Support was slow to respond. I am thinking it is time to shift to another platform. Got the scanner program. Needs tweaks. It is good at finding some decent ideas. My biggest problem is not holding positions longer. Trading vol 60K (due to system outage)
27th Full day of trading. Lack of idea flow today. Recognizing this, I had to take a step back. I did trade some AAPL, which has reminded me that I ought to be trading it more. SHOP is a mover and unfortunately that spread is a bit too much for me at times. Ditto for TSLA. I do think there will be shorting opportunities in those names. (I know, genius analysis on 500 and 700 dollar stocks) Vol today was extremely light at 20K. Able to tweak the scanner to filter out the garbage. That's nice as those zero volume tickers were annoying. No market stuff now until Sunday evening when looking at some charts. Time to focus on other projects while in isolation mode.
Didn't trade today for a full day. Won't bother counting it. Concentration levels like crude oil - negative. Tomorrow will be an excellent day filled with pristine transactions.
@JoeF, good thread read. forgive me if I am missing the theme of the thread. myself being a retired senior has seen 50 years worth of market events, learned lots & I ask you 'what are you trading'... equities, forex, futures? are you trading in volumes 1-10 trades/day, week,mth? is the name of the game income, gains.... what? do you need to trade daily or slow & sure or aggressively? being old'ish I look at life different than when I was half my age- both in whats around me - stock markets. I'm zero emotional trader/investor. I try successfully to beat the market, pleased with myself that I can achieve 10% yoy ... doing simple few trades & consider myself a dull, uniteresting trader.
That's the great thing about the markets, which you are proving, that you don't have to phase out at a certain age. Nor why would you if you enjoy the process? I trade equities. NYSE and NASDAQ. My trades are probably closer to 30 trades a day (with lots of partials and scaling in and out not included in the tally) The name of the game is progress and long term longevity. I was in the game for a decade and then out for a few years with a few false starts. I'm somewhat wiser now. I get aggressive if there appears to be opportunities where I feel I ought to get aggressive. I try to trade in a vacuum and observe the order flow and forget the fundamentals and the news. Well done on honing your process and hitting consistent gains. That's precisely the goal. Overall I enjoy the process despite everything.
28th Full day of trading. Worst day of trading yet. Last trade of the day was mitigating the losses but reversed hard and got stopped. I will be switching up my strategy for longer holds. Need to be fully engaged in the process. I am thinking that the new scanner is providing a distraction during the day. I will relegate it to after hours research only.
29th Full day of trading. Rough start but battled back. It's been a tough week so far. I need to trade smaller size. Trading bigger size works well when the trade works but it doesn't fit into what I really need to be doing. The results are proving that larger share size is not producing better results. I will likely reduce my account size to limit buying power until it makes sense otherwise. Am looking at longevity and sustainability. Tomorrow I will limit the watchlist and trade with clarity.
Stopped trading early today. Every single trade taken did not work. Will trade tomorrow just 100 shares at a time and reassess. May even take the day off and come back next week fresh. The clarity is not there right now. Still up for the month but that is very much in danger at this rate. Still have next week to turn things around.