The treacherous path to $200k a year

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by coolweb, Jun 12, 2005.

  1. Cluseau

    I'm going to be trading smaller, I think what I'll do is
    trade smaller each time I lose in the day.

    Thanks for the advice.
     
    #31     Jun 23, 2005
  2. why did you lose $1200 today ? I see you have some winning days of 2-4 hundreds good, but you can't afford to lose 1K in a day. Should be in those proportions: + 1K, -200, otherwise believe me with commish this thread is gonna be the "treacherous path to -200K in a year"
     
    #32     Jun 23, 2005
  3. Farside

    Farside

    Coolweb, try using a stop, or cover quicker. I lost $400 also today, due to horrible INET fills on BRCM.
     
    #33     Jun 23, 2005
  4. Trading smaller after a loss is a losing proposition. Rethink what you state above. If you train to be an intellectual athlete at trading you would not suffer as much. One more thing, this is for everyone; If you only trade NASDAQ stocks then you will never be able to fully develop into a trading titan. Stops are useless to me. If you can't switch hit your position on a dime you best rethink your approach. Also, there is no one market maker that ran ADSK when nasdaq broke. They all repositioned while you were barreled over the falls. Being early has it's advantages but in your case it is a losing proposition because the amount and increment wipe you out. If you are new to trading it is best to avoid volatility and opt for predictability. But then again i know nothing about your make-up so it is a guess at best. Study.

    be good.


    alex
     
    #34     Jun 23, 2005
  5. Cluseau,
    Well , I can opt for the same position size for each lost, but I seem to have a string of bad luck/bad discpline here, so I think lowering my position will let me lose less, until I get back to track.

    I only trade nasdaq stocks becaxuse I find it hard to follow one market let alone two, how do you follow two markets manually?

    For each market I have to find stocks to work with, so thats

    1 market to follow
    2-3 stocks to find and follow

    So if I add in NYSE
    it'll be

    2 markets to follow
    4-6 stocks to work with

    6 things to watch, I only have two eyes :D
    Finding good setups takes a lot of time as well


    About ADSK, My stop should have stopped me out, that was my fault so not much to talk about there, don't know repositioning or whatever they want to do they can, I should have just been in 2 or 3 stocks and be stopped out on ADSK, Oddly the stock I decided to go full blast on is the stock that has to do a 1.25% rally when every single other stock goes to the shits.

    All I know is if a stock goes above 0.30% above my entry point , it usuallyt means my entry point is not correct as I thought it was.



    Always another day, And a day to correct mistakes and perfect techniques.

    Always another trading day!

    My confidence has shrunken to a pipsqueak level, I think I may be trading @ $30k tomorrow :D
     
    #35     Jun 23, 2005
  6. You do mention study,

    I was trading a lot better when I had minimal information 8ma stops, short below low , long before high , simple easy to follow.


    I think over the past month I've been reading a lot more, lots of knowledge, now I have more information on how price action moves, I need to simpilize down , keep things simple , stop the information overflow, get down to the basics, build add a little by little.

    I will be trading with $25k tomorrow, I need to

    1) Raise my win ratio to 51%+
    2) Make sure my new knowledge of the markets is actually correct, It was so easy shorting below low , long above high, now I have some extra detailed, short below low but not before doing an expansion bar between 1:00 - 2:00 , which blah blah blah blah

    Time to K I S S

    Any advice is appreciated from everybody :D

    Thanks!
     
    #36     Jun 24, 2005
  7. Moreagr

    Moreagr

    coolweb,

    with your QCOM was it a market order for 3000 shares or did you scale into your position?
     
    #37     Jun 24, 2005
  8. If you like to short, then today should have been a big money day. Coolweb I think you need to look at stock selection. In any given week, I only trade maybe four different stocks. In a six month period I only watch and research 20 different stocks.Most of the stocks I trade are name brands, particularly on Nasdaq. If you are trader, you do not have to be a stock picker. Stocks which make good trading stocks may look pretty boring. But there are people making money by trading the boring stocks every day. I could say that I do not trade stocks as much as I trade the market. What I mean by that is, that I want to trade some stocks which allow me to take advantage of market moves. I have never heard of the stocks that you mentioned except for GOOGLE, and I would never trade a 3 digit stock. I have stocks that I like short and some that I like long. When I saw the possibility that this was a major selloff this afternoon, I wanted to make sure that I chose a stock that had not reacted to the selloff and had some downside left. One of my choices was CSCO. It is a pretty good stock to trade, it is relatively cheap and easy to get executions on. It was trying to stay over 20 which was a major technical. But you could see that it could not hold 20 in such a powerful downturn. I took 3000 shares into extended hours and made an extra 11 cents in addition to another 25 I had made earlier and that was not my only winning short.
     
    #38     Jun 24, 2005
  9. So, out of 20 stocks to short you chose CSCO today for .11 cents. Tech's were the last to rally; INDU broke as soon as techs stood up. I would be short stocks that ran too far at the NYSE. I would be short for points and not cents. If you risk $60,000 for .11 cents profit then you best have $600,000 working for dollar profits. In other words, your trade is not advisable and would be a mere reposition of a larger trade.


    be good.


    alex


    EDIT: CSCO is a waste of time unless you have several million to trade it.
    EDIT: and, you would never trade it w/o protection
    EDIT: MSFT is fine to trade smaller, not exactly a CSCO.
     
    #39     Jun 24, 2005
  10. KevinK

    KevinK Guest

    Yeah, I agree stay away from the CSCOs, MSFTs--they dont move enough
     
    #40     Jun 24, 2005