I had previously been a retail broker for the last 15 years, all the while trading my account, but not actually daytrading, more like positioning and swing trading. I was quite successful at both. I decided to leave the retail game and joined the RBC prop desk. I initally put up $50k with the usual 20x match and pay .0075 and work on a 95%-5% split. Here are my results and afterwards my thoughts. August: I got caught up too much with what the other guys were doing. They were going for chops here and there and that was way outside my comfort zone. I would normally buy a position and park it for a few days; that look good technically and looked like it might have a nice move in front of it. I really didn't care about the minute to minute moves. Needless to say, when I tried to take trades for a chop, and the fact I was new, I couldn't handle the small swings down. I was selling stock down .10 from where I bot them. That, coupled getting my lungs ripped out on a UAUA short, I wound up losing $12k in 2 1/2 weeks. It was not fun. What did I get my self into I thought. September After examining my approach, I went back to doing what I knew best, that is holding positions for a few days, and trading off of news. I am heavily into gold and gold stocks, and felt a big move was coming. I was heavily loaded into gold stocks and caught a huge move up. Combine this with a few chops here and there, catching some stocks off news gave me a very nice profit of $35k for the month. I got this trading stuff down, I thought to myself. October, November, December.... Very tough months in the market as everyone here knows. I caught some nice trades, wasn't patient in some others, made some stuuupid trading mistakes and for the three months ended up relatively flat. So, at the end of Decmeber, I ended my account with roughly a little north of $49.5. I truthfully felt that as a rookie daytrader, given the horrible markets, this wasn't a terrible performance. If I had given myself a little patience in some stocks, I would have had a bigger profit. January: So far so good. I am up about $5k. But I am still lacking in patience, probably taking profits too early and taking losses when I don't have too. For example, yesterday I bot X and $108.20 at what I thought was good entry point. The stock cratered and I wound up selling around $107.25 when the market tank. I felt it was prolly dumb to sell here, but gotta protect the capital. Sure enough, the stock rebounded and could have sold the stock for a point profit if I was patient. It is things like that, I feel that are holding me back. Another example, is on Thursday, I saw that OMRI got an FDA approval for something. I bot some shares at $34.12 and the stock flew, I put a sell at $36.59. The stock hit $36.30 and came down. Now I knew I prolly should have dumped it there, but didn't. Long story short, I broke even on the position. Again, things like that are killing me. I realize, that these are experience type of mistakes and hopefully in the future, I will eliminate them. I have been trading anywher between 300sh-1000sh lots. I am very careful to limit my exposure and the most I have ever carried on my $1 million bankroll is slightly up $200k, so I have the risk aspect nailed down. One other question, anyone know some good psychology books on trading. I appreciate any and all comments. thx
Many of the months you mentioned as being "tough" were actually incredible market conditions for daytraders - the type that come a few times every few years. I fucked up in november and disregarded discipline even though there was tremendous opportunity, but Jan, Oct, November, August were the best months a daytrader could ask for.
He is working at Burger King accumulating money for his second account. He will be back with new money. Maybe he forgot his password and couldn't log on to post. Or he became exceedingly rich in the past few months short BSC and long crude oil and has retired to Florida
For all you wise asses out there who thought I met my demise, since I made that post in January, I have been doing pretty well, especially the last three moths, which have been lights out. I, knock wood, have pretty much shed the rookie habits of selling at the first sign of a loss instead of waiting for my stops to be hit, and letting my profits run. Again, knock wood, look forward to being in this game for a long time. Also, remember, I was not a total newbie to this, I was a broker for over 15 years and always traded side by side with my job, just not day trading.