Swish: I have encounter similar problem, but only it was the opposite. When I was trading real money, I was comfortable trading small share lot. My results were better and I had more confidence. When I was doing larger share lot, I got nervous and get shaken out too easily. Beside the $500,000 paper account, I also opened another paper account with the initial capital set at $10,000. I would have used the $10,000, but back then, I was showing a loss on the $500,000 paper account. I didnât want to close it, because I wanted to take this seriously and not treating it like a video game where I could reset or abandon my portfolio if it didnât go well. So I will stick to the $500,000 paper account until I recover the principal. hii a_ooiioo_a: Virtual Stock Exchange has a 20mins delay for their orders. So day trading wouldnât be possible with it. I am just swing trading with this account. It is less exciting, but the principle should pretty much be the same. I am applying technical analysis and observing the trend like I would if I was day trading.
Expect a positive bias for the rest of 2002. This is the holiday buying season. Commentaries will act like maybe this season will be different from other years. Then when markets go up they will say "well, what do you know, consumer spending bolstered holiday shopping, despite lingering worries about . . . blah blah blah"
Saturday, November 16, 2002 I just got news from an ex-colleague that some trainee traders who I used to work with are now making a lot of money at the firm. I am very happy for them and I hope they will continue to make money, but to be honest, I do feel a bit down after hearing this. Itâs not that I donât want them to make money. I do, because they are good peoples and good friends as well. But knowing this reminds me of how stupid I am and how much a screw up I am to wasted the opportunity of a lifetime. I am still unemployed, living with my parents, and carry a student loan debt. I wish I had study harder at school so I could have landed a trading job at an investment bank like some of my classmates did. They got recruited before they even graduate. Had I study harder; I wouldnât be in this position. Unfortunately, I wasted the opportunity. Right now instead of trading real money like my ex-colleagues who are making big bucks, I am trading a paper account. I feel pathetic. I guess this is life for this âtraderâ, and I know I have to accept this. Either I like it or not, this is the road I have chosen and I chose to go the distance with the market. I donât know where this road will take me. I donât know if my perseverance will help me become a winner or a loser. At this point of my life, there are a lot of âI donât knowsâ, but one thing that I know of is that I donât want to give up this opportunity, even if it is just paper trading. Virtual Trader
I just wanted to point out... that regretting decisions in your life is the worst thing you can do to yourself. if you want a lifetime of emotional torment, then you're definitely going down the correct road. no one's perfect. no one has all the answers. people live and grow. if you want to do better in school and want to trade institutional at a bank, plan ahead for business school. unless you're 50, with a nagging wife and 3 spoiled brats, you still have alternate routes for your goals, you might not get there in the timeframe you would like, but getting there is the important part right? and when you get there, you'll appreciate it *so* much more. i just hate seeing people beat themselves over things like this. i've done it before, and i know everyone has. but it kills me everytime i see people do it. DO something about it. don't waste your energies thinking of what could've been.
rebate trading seems like a rather dull game..........i'd fall asleep doing that crap- that is not where the real action is.......
momotrader: I have seriously thought about business school, but there are just too many obstacles, not to mention the uncertainties. In order to even get considered into business school, I will need 3.0+ GPA, 2 years of work experience, and a high GMAT score. I donât think I have any of those right now and I donât know if I will be able to achieve them. Even if I have overcome those obstacles, there is still no guarantee in getting accepted into the school that I like. Letâs just say if reality stop existing for a moment and the business school of my liking accepted me. This would actually mean larger debt for me after paying those expensive tuition fees. Even if I make it and graduated from an MBA program, there is no guarantee that I will get a career at an investment bank. The only things that are guaranteed are debt and the 7+ years of opportunity cost. If business school were a chart pattern, with such uncertain risk/reward ratio, I would be very hesitant to trade it. smokey_mcPaat I agree. Especially knowing that one trade may take at least 30 minutes to get filled. With one transaction, having both entering and exiting trades, it could take an hour of waiting. With small share lot, it is extremely boring. On the other hand, with larger share lot, it is nerve racking as you see the huge paper loss showing every time you get into a position. You hope and pray to whatever God you happen to believe in that your orders would get filled, either on ISLD, INCA, or ARCA. It doesnât matter. You just want out. At the end, you got your orders filled and you got a tiny bit more money in your account. Itâs madness.
I noticed that I didnât create a trading plan, so I worked on it today. I have considered incorporating more technical indicators into the trading plan, but I figured that the more indicators I use, the more assumptions and predictions I have to make and the more nervous Iâll get. So I kept it simple by using only support and resistance in my trading plan. I am looking forward to any inputs. Here it is: Swing Trading Plan Entries ·Determine the intermediate trend ·Determine bull and bear targets ·Base entries on support and resistance ·Enter a trade only when price is heading to the predicted general direction ·Avoid picking bottom/top by not being the first to get in ·Avoid chasing Exiting Strategy for Unprofitable Trades ·Stop loss will be place on support and resistance with adjustment based on intraday range of the stock price ·Once stop loss is filled, going the opposite direction will be considered Exiting Strategy for Profitable Trades ·Let profit run ·Add on 50% when the dip/bounce is returning to the general trend ·Exit when price violates the previous dip/bounce Virtual Trader
Monday, November 18, 2002 Today I closed out my position in my $500,000 paper account, and determined to just trade the smaller and more realistic $10,000 paper account. Trading the larger account was a mistake because the commission was ridiculously low. It was $29.95 per trade, regardless of the number of shares. So whether I trade 100 shares or 20,000 shares, the commission would still be $29.95! Now that I will be trading the $10,000 account, the commission would be a bigger factor in my trading decision. I would not be able to just scalp 10 or 20 cents, because the commission would eat me alive. This will be a more difficult game. Virtual Trader
Tuesday, November 19, 2002 I didnât do a single trade today. I just sat there and watched Nasdaq plunged, climbed back up, and then plunged down again. I am getting really nervous right now as I see Nasdaq forming a short-term downtrend. My 400 QQQ long position, which I bought at $25.30, is becoming a not-so-profitable trade. My unrealized profit shrunk from $400 to $140 and it hurts. Greed is telling me to get out and just grab whatever profit I can get while I am ahead. After all, you canât go broke taking profits. But then I should stick to my trading plan and only get out when it hit my stop loss, which I placed around the previous support at $24.10. Only when QQQ plunge through this support and fill my stop loss, I will know I was wrong in going long in QQQ and I will do the opposite and go short. Virtual Trader
It looks to me that you keep setting your stop loss points out of the money....even when you had a good trade that was way in the money. If you (hypothetically) are a point in the money, don't put your stop loss at break even or worse. If you are going to trade that way, you need to give yourself a much larger cushion on the downside. You are "locking" in losses, instead of "locking" in profits. Also, if your feelings have changed about the market (you mentioned that you see a downtrend forming) get out of your long position. Change with the market....what was a good long ten minutes ago might be a great short now. Nice posting so far....keep battling.