If I said I am wore out and ready to sleep for four days it would still be an understatement after today's trading. Firstly, Can't seem to be able to get tradestation to work for more than about 10 -15 mins. rebooted and updated many times. damm thing just fails on big days. I also have blocks scanner and that works great. It was an interesting walk talking to myself as I came into the office today. Basically committed myself to good trading and keeping the size small. I did not come in trying to make up my recent losses right away. I did have some some signals for scalping so thats what I worked on. all my trades today where of smaller size and I am glad to say that I did not swing for the fence on anything. I did however have a very big and crazy day due to the amount of volatility. UAUA + 1315 scalped CEG + 3167. This one scarred me and that says a lot. I watched it go from about 35 to under 15 per share in about half an hour. at 35 it was already down for the day by a wide amount. I did end up with about 4400 shares at the extreme and seeing it go from my average of about 28 to sub 15 made me really question if this is for me. As I watched it go down I really was convinced it was the market makers and other traders gunning for the stops and total panic setting in. I did not think the value of the company really changed that much and so I held on for the ride buying on the way down. That easily was the biggest rollar coaster I have been on. I would have made a lot more money had I not been so conservative but staying in the game is priority one. AMR + 216 scalped AMGN + 228 S:H AIG + 2237 scalped and S:H turns out I just had my second best day in terms of closed out trades. Still have GE IBKR and RICK holding my account down but they are off the lows of yesterday. Very near or possible record number of shares traded for me today as well. I was actually surprised my the days results as I did not follow it very close today. I was too busy trying to get tradestation working Gonna go home have a heart attack and be ready to go at it tomorrow. + 7165 for the day - 10063 for the week - 33919 for the month 125,074 shares 794,321 shares / mth
Thanks for the well wishes and I am pleased that you enjoy reading my journal. Best of trading to you Bob
Very nice and inspirational post. Thank you so much. It's funny how you know in the back of your mind how money is made and lost but it really helps to have it in writing in front of you. My game plan today was to trade small and trade conservative. I also know that today is only the first day of this test and as a trader one must always stay focused in limiting size. I am trying to focus on what I have done right and wrong and avoid those landmines as much as I can. Especially after a string of gains. Thanks again Bob
Hello Jegnyr, Thanks for taking the time and effort to share your observations which are right on the money. Wow, you must really be paying close attention to what I am doing as your right. The LEH was not fully qualified to enter in during the close before the large drop. I also went in very huge size and beyond the amount of the system. Today was funny in how it gave me confidence (after the fact) in my systems both in results of the PnL and that it kept me in CEG when it went against me so much. Thanks again for your kind words and I will do my best to make your prediction true in being able to reach the next level. Respectfully, Bob Thanks for the journal, it has taught me more then the literally hundreds of trading books I have scoured........... Jegnyr
Kinda a tough day today. Watched my holdings of RICK, GE and especially IBKR fall and fall in the last few days. decided to close out about 60%ish of the holdings. As a result today looks a lot worse than it was. Not that today was a good day. MS, traded it very well at the open. bought near the low and rode it up for a nice gain. Stayed small in size. When it fell again I bought again but bought in too soon. then traded it to the point where at the end of the day I still made money. All in all a good trade considering that I did not use size to trade it. + 239 AIG, tried to scalp it today. Was so fed up about how trading in general was going I just decided to close it out at the loss when it was down near the $2 level. Of course that was right before it moved higher. oh well. -464 RICK, standard swing trade. I think its still a good stock just getting caught with the rest but want to keep the losses manageable. Still long and only sold half. - 643 IBKR, another standard swing trade just getting crushed the last two days. Really feels like I am selling at the bottom (didnt sell all) but if the market is on the edge of a 1987 type crash i want to be mostly in cash. - 7195 GE bought and sold. brought average down - 677 Actual net value of the account is not down that far as much of the losses where already there. My charting with tradestation is still not working right. Glad my account is off the lows of the day and it appears I am faring better than many. Lastly, I think with the market down like this and for so long the amount of shorting overbought stocks is going to be small. I will be also buying oversold stocks like I did today with MS but with very small size as I am worried about jumping onto another CEG or the like. I suspect I will be doing more scalping in relation to the normal trades I do. I did trade AIG during afterhours yesterday and made about $700 and sydney for about another $90. They are not counted in the monthly totals - 8740 for the day -18803 for the week - 42659 for the month 38698 shares 833019 shares / mth
1Reason, First of all, you are 1 million times better than myself as a day trader, I'm not qualified to discuss any technical issue with you. But I still feel it is necessary to remind you that you didn't follow your previous winning style well for the past couple of days. For example, the overnight hold of AIG, LEH etc doesn't make any sense to me. Use more discipline please! Happy trading! Sc85
Would you mind posting a chart or two of your recent losing trades with annotations justifying why you entered or exited the trade? I don't mean to sound cynical, but you started this thread with "+ 42751 for the year" and now stand at "- 42659 for the month". If it took you only 15 days to lose what it took you nearly 5 months to accumulate (this thread was started in May), I sincerely believe there is something really wrong with your system. If you like to discuss the matter in private, feel free to PM me.
Hello Sc85, Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to post your thoughts. AIG, i didnt hold overnight at any time. AIG has been a very profitable net trade. I did give back some gains today. Mostly by just quiting. I didnt feel I had the right attitude and stopped trading for the day at that point. LEH, Should not have entered into the trade at the end of the day (I did correctly trade it earlier during the day on Wed) upon seeing that it was the end of day I should have closed out and took the small loss. My second mistake was holding overnight. During the premarket I saw that LEH was down over two dollars. In very much total shock but having delt with crazy premarket trading I decided to sell off about half and take a shower hoping that it would recover. Checking it again (still premarket) it fallen another dollar to around the $4 range where I started buying some shares. This story continues with me buying and selling in a scalping fashion with actually being successful to a limited degree (with more volume it would have worked as I was buying lower than I was selling for) At this point I really have no reason to be in the trade again overnight but I did receive an oversold signal (intra day only type) so I stayed with it. Friday I repeated basically what I did Thursday refusing to let go. I did write $4 calls against LEH so at least when it died on Sunday I didnt take the full loss. I made so many mistakes on this trade that it could be used as a case study of what not to do. In a book I read (I think it was Vic) the author talked about being in a bad trade is like being eaten alive by an alligator. He first gets your leg, as you struggle and struggle trying to save your leg you allow him to be able to grab your arm as well as your leg. As you continue to struggle and not letting your arm and leg go the gator is able to get your other arm and so on and so on. That is exactly how this trade went. I hope that by dropping my pants and being ashamed and naked to other traders that someone new may be able to side step this huge landmine that gets so many of us. I have largely avoided this problem in the past, off the top of my head IAR and UAUA come to mind in trades that I did cut my loss much sooner. Respectfully, Bob
Hello Saliva, Actually took me less than five months to get to where I was when I started this thread. This thread is a continuation of my first journal thread "record of my trades" Actually I am disappointed in myself in that I can not think of one big loss that would have been that large had I followed the rules of my system. At the same time some profits would be gone as well as often holding overnight in a losing trade meant large gains the next day. With that in mind LEH should not have been entered into as the entry signal was not valid during the time I entered into it. The other losses that I took with GE, RICK, and especially hard hitting today IBKR where trades not based on signals but rather my own 'feelings' on value. Wanting to cut my losses in case the wheels fall off the apple cart i moved to cash in large part. So what am I doing about what happened? 1. closed out a large amount of my long holdings. 2. If the long holdings continue down I will close them out all the way 3. will be trading in smaller size until my capital is built back up so that a trade can not be a killer 4. no overnight holdings 5. strict time limits with signals 6. adjustment to entry that will let me pass on the marginal signals and only trade the best and proven signals I have developed. I look forward to the next few weeks in building up my capital and surviving this crazy market. Thanks again. Bob
As a student of market timing, I can certainly relate to your devotion and dedication to finding those elusive market tops and bottoms. Since I have no idea what your system actually uses to find these inflection points, I will only share what I know that have worked time and again in my short but fruitful life as a trader. First, reversals don't just happen in random. They occur at very specific price levels, which are better known as support and resistance. However, it's worth noting that support/resistance shouldn't be seen in isolation. Second, draw a trendline and see if it converges with either support or resistance. Third, note that price level alone doesn't mean anything. For example, what's the big deal about ES trading near the previous support or resistance level? What should really matter in my opinion is how and how fast it got there. There is an important difference when ES is meandering near its previous support for the last 30 minutes and when ES is testing its previous resistance after shooting up more than 10 points within the last 10 minutes. All three components can be neatly summed up in what I call "payment" or P.M.T (short for Price, Momentum, and Time). These three ingredients are vital to achieving a successful trading career in my otherwise not so humble opinion. Just my worthless 2-cents.