great advice, becoming consistantly profitable is my goal for 09 and my half-ass record keeping isn't gonna cut it. what do you include in your trading log? entry/exit time, # of shares, stop/target, reason for trade, stock sym, .... what else would you include?
I've had a number of requests already for that exact info. I go into surgery in about two hours or so (nothing major) and should be back home later today and hopefully well recovered by Weds or so. At that point I'll put something together showing how to keep one, or at least how I keep mine.
Oh dang it, I really messed up! My guru money making potential sucks and I just took a major guru creds hit here. If I had a half a dang brain about me I would have replied: "Im so glad you asked that, I've already had 142 requests this morning for just that info. I'm such a busy guy that all I was going to do was write this report, but I can see that so many of you need help that I just couldnt live with myself if I didnt put out this new $97 course on Keeping a trading diary for fun and profits. CLICK here to buy it now! PS, If you like the fun and profits report, you will really like the wiz bang boom easy profits course. I usually sell it for $497, but because your such a swell guy I'll send all six CD's to you today for the special discounted price of $299" If you say yes, perfect, check out and wiz bang boom. If you say no, then, if I had half a guru trading promotor brain left in my head, I'd say that's ok, I understand not wanting to spend all that money. Here's what I can do for you. I really want you to have this course, and my most successful students have all bought it. I have a digital edition that you can download RIGHT NOW. Since I save a ton of money on shipping and printing I can sell it to you for only $149 right now. When you signed up I'd also include a free 30 day trial to my $49 per month newsletter. I'm only half being a smart ass on this, coz that is exactly how the proper selling and upselling process would go IF I WANTED TO MAKE MONEY of you guys. If I went through this process, wrote this report, distrubuted it all over the place etc...I could probably sell about 100 of my $97 courses this week. Lets look @ these numbers "just for fun and profit!". Id make $9700 right off the bat, and it probably would have cost me about $5000 to $6000 to get very good distribution of the original article (complete with spell check and grammer check too boot!). Of the people who buy the $97 course I could count on about 30% to buy the first upsale at $299 ($8970 (30 sales at $299). Of the people who said no to the first offer I'd probably get about 30% of them to say yes to my downsale, so that's another $3130 (21 sales of $149). I could probably count on about sixty people to stay with my newsletter for an average of four months each, so that's another $11,760. Grand total for me would be about $33,560. Of course I'd also now have a "hot list of buyers" which I could promote other affiliate programs too or even better yet come out with my own big $1000 program and sell several of those as well. All told I'd bring in around $33,500 Gross for about 2 hours of work. My total cost would probably run around $8000 to $10,000, so lets call my net for the total thing $20,000. I know that some of you are batrillionares, but where I come from $20,000 for a few hours work aint too shaby. So, for all of you wondering "why would someone teach if they can trade", well, you have the numbers in front of you right now showing you exactly why someone would do such a thing. Brandon PS, the above course example is not real. The numbers are pretty close to exactly what I would expect to get, but I'm not going to sell it. I'm going to go ahead and put together the traders journal info in the next week or two, it will be free. If I had half a brain I'd probably do exactly what I said I should do above, but as ZZZZZZZZzzzz has kindly pointed out the chemo has probably scrambled my brains, so I'm not doing that...I'll be giving it to you for free.
Hi Brandon, once again "good luck with your health".... Not needing guru's is good advice, but let me offer something slightly different. "Leading by example" (yes, as my brother and I try to do) is completely different than "selling a system" or "preaching a method" as so many tend to do. Interaction and inclusiveness is how we continue to grow and thrive. Not a week goes by that we haven't thought of ways to help our traders. The online groups of mentors has really helped in our case. Having successful traders work with newer people has really helped....especially when the "tutors" are actually trading live. We all know that there is no "system" or "method" that will work for very long...the market is constantly changing and we have to adapt on nearly a daily basis. It's a different world when a trader can use our money to engage in strategies that tend to be lower risk, higher reward, but capital intensive (repeating myself, slow day, LOL - as openings, MOC imbalances, pairs, mergers etc. vs. trying to pick stocks or pick market direction). We try to emulate the Trading Floor experience, only we now can do it in cyberspace (or in the office). Now (with a big ol' smile).... plural means more than one. Possessive means "mine mine mine" or "theirs theirs theirs"....LOL. Now, we can get into "plural possessives" next time. Feel better Brandon.... Don
Can't wait to see the journal!! I kept thinking at the beginning of the thread, "What information do I keep track of?" Look forward to it! Hope you recover well from the surgery!
Hey Brandon you are cleverly advertising yourself here. Why is it your thread titles always have the buzz word GURU ? Because you know it attracts the novice. I have no problems with you posting your opinions about this business or this and that but dont take us all for a Guru ride, its quite offensive. Thank you for your time.
Don wrote ""Possessive means "mine mine "" Here's an example of quasi-plural Possessive Emphatic. "MINE MINE MINE!!!!" Daffy Duck, circa 1948 Thank you Brandon! Hope you can at least have 1 cute nurse, and some fun with the pain killers. Can't wait for your diary entry lists. Ian
You can be offended all you want. I clearly use the GURU tag because it draws eyeballs to the thread. You can see that, and so can anyone else. If you think I'm here to sell something to newbie traders though your a <b>J</b>enious (with a capital J), because thats the last thing on my mind. If I was to decide that I wanted to make money off ET's users I would do what I have always done in the past, pay Baron and become an advertiser. A trading product is not part of my "master plan" over here though...sorry.
If I was so clever I'd make it pretty easy to find my URL. As it is, you have to go back about 70 posts to find it mentioned once, and thats the only time you will find it. I'd also use spell check and grammer check so that I wouldnt look like a kindergarten drop out.
Maybe you are PLANNING something despite the FREE flavour, Brandonf ? (besides the email's you are capturing on your blog) Something HUGE ? Please, let us in on that secret ..