UAL -$6 One of the right stock that I got into today and not many of the right that I got in for that matter. XAL ripped right at the open because of some bad news in the oil sector. Got filled at $13.60, the stock went as high as 66c, before the sector started to come in and I got out at $13.61, LUV $93 Got a better move out of this airline stock. Bought it at 9:38 at $&18.37 when a 14000 offer at 37c slowly got chipped away, after the offer was lifted the stock spreaded up to 50c. Stock went as high as 62c, before 1000 shares offer came in at 60c, XAL was starting to turn at this point and I got out, which incidentally is about 1c below the high of the day. TER -$1.5 Not a big fan of semi but some good news from DRAM prices and I picked TER which had a 10000 shares bid at 30c, I got filled at 37c. A very choppy stock to trade, the stock went as high as 39c, before coming in and printing 31c, bid was still there but just 6900 shares left, went back to 39c, and came back into 31c, but this time the bid at 30c was gone, so when the stock printed 39c again, I got out. Which was the right thing to do since the next time the spec bring the stock down, it printed 18c. Should have traded NSM, a more liquid stock as Mr.K made $700 trading it today. COF -$122 Picked the wrong day and time to trade this stock today. At around 10 a.m. BKX did a squeeze and I thought the market was going to bounce. Went long at $52.60 after a 29000 offer was taken out with 2 prints at 70c. Bid stepped up to 65c on 500 shares, 10000 printed at 70c again and the 60c bid was gone. I think he might have bought market. It is time to get out, hit the next closet bid at 55c and I got out with minimal damage as the stock went as low as 20c afterwards. Bought it again at 12:37 ( lunch time not a good time to trade stock like COF ) when I saw 500 shares bid at 52c. Got filled at 56c, the stock went as high as 56c and after 53c was hit with 300 shares the 5000 bid at 52c was gone and next bid 47c for 500 shares. Low liquidity and I have have to hit the bid to get out. The stock went as low as 40c after that. What posses me to get in again at 12:45, I don't know, got filled at 45c, when I thought I have a 1200 shares bid to lean on at 41c, put my stop there somebody hit it for 1000. I just paid the spread for nothing!! SGY -$67 The worst trade of the day, at one point I was down more than $170 on this stock. Again this is a very thin stock and the complete absence of buyer made this stock very dangerous to trade as I learned later in the day. Bought it at 10:56 when XNG was ticking up a little. Got filled at 83c, and the next bid is 200 shares at 82c. I thought this should be fine since the sector is moving up and SGY follows it pretty closely. The stock went as high as 96c, and out of a sudden 200 shares printed at 93c and next print 16600 shares at 50c!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the !@#$. I held my stock as I thought the spec. just wanted to go super long, I waited for like 1.5 hours before giving up and get out at 73c. The stock actually went as low as 30c, before rallying to the close. The fact that I was down $170 out of nowhere really affected my trading as I went into one bad trade after another. STR $59 Bought this at 10:58, got filled at $24.88, about 15 minutes later the stock broke the fig. and traded as high as 10c. All of a sudden bids disappeared and the next bid was at $25????? Because of the SGY trade I didn't keep my cool and I hit the $25 bid and I got out at 02c. The stock went as low as 95c and then a 25000 print at 96c and the stock sling shot to $25.25. I have to figure out a way to monitor the stocks that I traded and have gotten out, so that I can get back in when the time is right. APA -$36 Tried another XNG stock, got filled at 44c, with 3800 shares bid at 39c, the stock went as high as 60c, and started to come in, I knew that this stock can go up fast with the sector but it wiggled a little too much today, the 39c was finally taken out with my stop on it and traded as low as 35c before going back up for good, again my timing was off and I need to see where the stock is trading after I got out so that I jump on the stock when it finally go back up. GSF -$41 A stupid mistake, tried an oil stock even when the whole sector is flat lining and not going anywhere. With the bad news, the sector is not going to rally up, especially since it was around 11:30, time when all the buyers are out of the market. Got filled at $28.02 with a 2000 shares bid at 99c, one minute later a 500 shares offer came in at 03. The stock traded down as low as 90c, and I was lucky to be able to get out at 99c, the stock went as low as $26 later in the day. MXT -$1 Another bad trade, bought this at 12:25 ( not a good time to trade ) at 90c, after 1 15000 offer started to get chipped away, with a 14700 bid at 89c, I thought this was a pretty safe trade. The stock traded as high as 97c, before a 14700 printed. This was probably the bid that was sitting at 89c. A sign to get the !@#$ out, 96 print for 300 shares and next print 87c. I didn't panic and the stock retraced and when 10000 shares came in at $25.00 I hit the 97c bid and got out. I thought I did good, but a minute later 54000 print at the fig. DAMMMMMM..... I tried to chase it and every time ( 4 times ) I got in I lost the spread and I ended up losing all the profit on commissions, what a way to churn. Text book case if you want to know how to lose money. CRA -$91 Worst trade ever, BTK was flat and I tried to pick a bottom. CRA is a thin stock to begin with, and couple with all the selling and the fact it was 1 p.m. I was asking to be spanked to go long. Got filled at 15c, with 1300 shares bid at 13c. Someone hit the bid for 3000 shares and the rest of the big was pulled !!! dammm, I should have gotten out right away at 09c, and 08c, since there is no REAL buyer in this stock, I hesitated and next bid 01, 1000 shares showed up at 99c, and I put my stop there right on the trap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE triggered me and later ripped the stock up to 25c!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!! PD $71 I traded 5000 shares on this stock today, nothing but churning, I was up $40, $50 and then down $20 on a 15c spread and so it goes. I finally couldn't take it anymore and went to lunch at around 2:20 and when I cam back, the first thing I do ..... went long PD !!! Why? There was a 5300 shares bid at 74c showed up. that's it !!!! Even when aux was flat like a pancake. Got filled at 76c. went as high as 80c, when a 15000 offer came in at 80c. the 74c bid GONE!!!! 70c print, 60c print. Why I didn't get out I don't know!! 57c, 56c, bam 50c printed for 1500. and I got out!!!!!!!!!!! Just like that I was down $150 in like 5 minutes. Went back in a couple of times and luckily there was some big buyers the last 30 minutes and I was able to ride it for 40c profit !! PHEW!!! ADP $92 Market is rallying, go long anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was a little concern since I was already down $350, the last thing I need is another fake run up, I get in and then the stock spreaded 50c!! I eventually went long ADP at $58.30, at 3:26 scalp it for 10c, and get back in again after the stock sliced through the 50c mark and sold it at 67c. The stock went as high as 75c but I didn't care as I have made almost $300 in the last 30 minutes of the day. Luck cannot even begin to describe my trading today. I have done everything wrong and I was so lucky to pay just a small price for it as I ended up the day down $50. At one point I was down more than $350. Some of my mistakes today. 1. Totally overtraded today. Did something like 22000 shares, quite a heavy volume for me. Not good since nothing was going on until 3:30p.m. 2. Churned myself to death by trading around noon time as the market was totally dead. No liquidity whatsoever and when bid got hit, stocks got spreaded down 15c. 3. I went back into some of my losers and make it a bigger loser. 4. I went back into my small winners and turn them into losers!! A no no!! 5. Lost my composure after one bad trade and let that one trade influence the rest of the trading day. 6. Did not let any of my winners run. Get in and out too many times. I hope I will have a better day tomorrow. I was happy to go through what I went through today. Get my psyche spanked a little. My biggest mistake was letting the SGY affect my trading, and I let the revenge factor clouded my exits on my other losers and make me desperate to make my winners bigger even when there is no reason to do it. SOMETHING THAT A GOOD TRADER WILL NEVER DO. Am I a good trader??
I have to disagree with you Hitman... your results from 2001 suggest that you ARE indeed a good trader... but, yes, there is room for improvement in ALL of us.
stokk- i've had those days too...over traded when there was nothing there. then i remembered a quote, I think it was from george soros or jim rogers, i forget... but it was something like..."everyday i go in and expect not to trade" i think it was referring to the idea that you should only trade wheni ts right there in front of your face and you have to take it part of the discipline i guess. anyway , keep up the journals...and good luck this year uptick2000
I think I am going to faint. I can't believe someone on this board is trading gold stocks. Nice going. NEM is my favorite. I hope you are watching spot gold trade when playing the gold stocks. Next time, show some balls and buy 10k shares of DROOY.
It was meant as a rhetorical question Candle, Thanks for the vote of confidence. Uptick You are absolutely right, but at my level I am not sure I can see an easy touchdown even if it is right in front of me. lol.
Stock, I read in one of your post before that you had problems trading PD. May I suggest that you stop trading it. PD is not a gold stock!! It does not trade with XAU. This company is a copper producer. PDG ABX and NEM are gold producers. I trust that this is helpful. Keep up the good work..... Tony
http://www.phlx.com/products/xaucomp.htm I must have mistaken PDG for PD. Thanks for pointing it out.
Does anyone have a specific strategy or method that have helped them take a big chunk out of a winner? Which is very important because all it takes is a couple of big winners a day to make it worthwhile. I think one of the ways is not to watch the tape too much, (which is hard for me to follow as I am very risk averse, hence I always get out prematurely ) look at the chart and be aware of the natural price levels, ie. 25, 50, 00. etc. Any comments are appreciated.