Day 55 I must WIN by staying away... I must PRESERVE myself, my bullets etc etc for the whole day by WAITING PATIENTLY, and letting the market to COME TO ME. Don't chase. I should trade to WIN, to make money.. & I need to put together a string of positive days.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I decided to breakdown my $1 million in 5 years goal into achievable/realistic chunks. Yearly Goals: 2006: +$25,000 (+250%) 2007: +$50,000 (+100%) 2008: +$125,000 (+166%) 2009: +$300,000 (+150%) 2010: +$600,000 (+120%) Total Account Value at the end of year 2010: $1,100,000 (after ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well its a good thing you are being realistic! Dude you dont even know how to read your brokerage statements and you are forecasting an average annual return of about 150% over the next 5 years. The only question about this thread is how long it will take you to quit/blow out.
Yeah, I kind of agree with you there. I liked the Ripley threads of the past much better when he'd put up charts of his trading day. "I took a $5k advance on my credit card, time to take care of the YM! Here I held on to a losing position way past where my stop was and I kept averaging down." Use the search to find those, they are either funny or horrifying depending on your sense of empathy. Edit: Here's one of my favs: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49314&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 Sorry for hijacking the thread, but this is relatively relevant. Back to your regularly scheduled Ripley!
Day 56 i LOST my FOCUS today... I take out my living expenses out of my Swing Trading account. And I have $10,000 in that account. I have $5,000 in my brokerage account, and the $5,000 of that is kept in my bank. Thus, that margin call necessarily wasn't a margin call.. but, just switching funds back and forth between accounts. Anyway.. I was day trading well.. up +80 pts etc etc.. Keeping my eyes on my bagholding -$2,500 swing position etc etc.. Well, I was up +$700 in that swing account recently before I took the losing position. Thus, I thought I'll get out around when my bagholding position is around -$700 so that my account is even. Then I wanted to go for an even number.. I wanted to keep a bit in my account. I wanted to get out of my losing bagholding postion with a loss under -$500... .......and I had a chance to DO it at 11,172 (today's low tick for the day). I could've got out with a loss of -$490. But, I wasn't able to. Thus, the -$500 is -$1,000 now.. Well, that made me feel so bad that it made me lose focus on my day trading today. This SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.. Horrible.
Well, sorta, but not necessarily always. I think you're still missing why your reasoning is flawed there, but that's kinda the point.
No. You said "Thus, I thought I'll get out around when my bagholding position is around -$700 so that my account is even." Why on earth would the size of your account have any relevance as to where you get out? What would ever make you think that? I think it would have relevance as to setting a stop for sure (eg a hard stop set at 1% of your capital or something), but when you are already stuck "I'll wait for it to come back up so that my account is even." HUH? I think this kinda goes to show that all these platitudes you put up here don't mean too much.
Day 57 VICTORY in defeat I got out of a trade with a loss of -$ 420, where they would've margined me out with a loss of -$ 2,500...: VICTORY.... The way I handled this trade was really good, because eventhough I was unhappy with what happened to me, and I would've tried to get out a bit earlier by adding to losers etc..which is only adding more risk. But, I managed a losing position right, in a way that it would make me proud. And, finally I accepted a loss and moved on. Today was such a boring day to trade. Then, all of a sudden evertything started to break lose... and such huge moves. Fridays are boring to trade, or such range bound days are so boring without much movements, but HUGE MOVES can happen anytime. Thus, you must pay complete attention all the time. You cannot take a day off because its going to be boring.. you have to give it ALL, each and every single day, second and minute. I took so many trades that I shouldn'tve took. Because I thought such a low volatile, and rangebound day was a bit different and felt, I should just jump in. That was not a good idea. What I should've done was to stand, watch.. and make my move when the opportunity is there, rather than trying to make things happen. Let the market make it happen, you just watch and go along with it.