Hello BostonKiller, Thanks for saying so. Very nice of you. Best to you and glad to have you in the chat Respectfully, Robert
Hi Nod, Thanks for the post and I am sorry for the late response. I spent much of the weekend working on the new computer and setting up the new monitors and nothing went fast. I hope you have a great trip !! Thanks Bob
Hello ytr30, I use stockfinder and Tradestation to backtest. I also backtest manually trade by trade. I think there is value in looking at each trade and how it would play out. It takes a LONG time to do it that way but I think its worth it. Best to you Robert
NTY continues to be a thorn in my side. Moving higher right from the open and moving pretty far. The volume in NTY totally dried up while the price moved higher. Was expecting a price drop today based on past data. This appears to be about the only real ââ¬Ëleakââ¬â¢ in my trading and the source of about 90% of the stress. Luckly the solution is pretty easy. Donââ¬â¢t trade gaps aggressively and walk away if things donââ¬â¢t work out well. This has been about the only thing since march that has caused any losses and all the sizable ones are a result. After yesterday I thought I would be able to trade through this stock and end up flat either today or tomorrow. Thtats a little difficult when the stock only moves in one direction. After a few hours NTY did finally start to fall back down again and I started covering. by the end of the day I was out of NTY and looking forward to NTY -10283 I had some nice trades as well. In fact other than NTY it was a fine day. TWC 772 SGR 203 MEE 425 LIFE 191 DWA 73 CVH 112 CTV 2879 CERN 2136 CEDC 148 CE 1610 AMG 951 ARW 97 - 678 Day ~ 86 K Shares Booked a loss for the day but net asset value is a little bit better than yesterday. With NTY cleared and flat other than hedged swing trades I am looking forward to closing out the week and month with a strong gain.
Last day of the month and as I come into the office I have high hopes. My hopes are put on hold as I fight with Tradestation for quotes and scanning. During some of the best minutes of trading Tradestation is down. I guess it happened to many as others in the chat experienced the same thing. I missed out on some nice trades in the early action but was able to take advantage of others once Tradestation started to work again and after firing up stockfinder as my backup Went heavy with SBUX and had AMG really run but other than that it was a pretty standard kind of day as far as the trades go. TTEK 28 SBUX 2555 OI 175 (Thanks MadBadger in the chat room for this one) IRM + 1599 FLS 274 CNQR 650 BGC 109 AMG 254 + 5647 Day + 56987 Month ~ 50 K Shares
End of the week and start of a new month and I was ready. Even Tradestation worked well today. I had some nice trades and I had a loser. I was able to see where I could improve my setup signal and worked on that for much of the day. I am carrying over much of ANR as I was looking for a better price than the market was offering at the close. Some of the changes I made to my signals will keep me from entering a stock Like ANR as early as I did. I found a hole in the price action algorithm as I followed it today. Its actually something I have been thinking about for months today was the first time I actually watched it happen. I took a hit with it today but don�t expect it to be a repeat. I still have to make it through the open on Monday with my carry over but barring a major move to the upside I should end up with a relatively small loser in this trade. ANR - 1252 MCRS + 607 FISV + 1751 FCX + 409 FCL + 41 BTU + 178 BGC + 3290 + 5026 ~ 75 K Shares
Hello Michael, Thanks for saying so. Really is nice to hear. I didn't forget your question/post but I needed some time to be able to answer. I also thank you for letting me know about the blog having an email issue. I probably should have figured it out by the fact I was not getting questions anymore but I had not noticed. Thanks It took me several tries to become a full time trader. My first was when I was about 21 and I traded mostly futures and options on futures. I was short the dollar against the yen in 1989 when Tienanmen square happened in the summer and I blew out my account with the flight to dollars (not a lot of fun to be right but to have a short term black swan event kill you) Shortly after I bought a business and was a serial enterpaneur until 2008. During that time I tried to do both, trading and running a business but found that task too much to do if I was going to do them right. In 2007 I started to trade again with ideas that I had left off on in 2002 and was able to develop some trading ideas that seemed to pass the backtesting I was doing on them. Over then next few months I made some huge improvements with the use of new software that was now available to me (Tradestation, ninjatrader). In April of 08 I sold my company and was trading full time that continues to today. It was a long road to get to consistent profitability with many bumps on the road. I think had I worked for and/or been around other traders that path would have been a lot more straighter but I was left for the most part to my ability to be self taught. Not the easiest and almost for sure not the best way. Last year after I was long LEH and some other trades really came together to bring my account down I was actually talking to myself as I walked from my truck to my office in the morning. I needed to remind myself that if I stuck to the trading plan I could come back. I have more than tripled my account size since those lows and find myself a much better trader as a result of being more humble about the market and more scared of losses than of wanting gains. I keep having set backs mostly from trying new setups which generally work well until it doesn't at which point they often REALLY don't work for me. As a whole though being a full time trader is both very rewarding and very stressful. There is a reason for the high burn out rate and managing the ups and downs maybe a bigger challenge in the end than being able to make money in the markets. Time will tell and hopefully others will be able to take something useful from this post. I do believe with increasing conviction that trading too small for your account is a much better mistake than trading too large. I just had my best month last month and on track to having a very good year. Of course as a trader your results are highly volatile and gains are non linear (unless your Madoff and we know how that ended) so I have not spent like I have earned it. The only thing I have done so far is to look at some rental property as a hedge against taxes should I end up with a good year. Best to you as well as your trading and have a great weekend. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions Robert
Hey NYOB, Glad to hear that, good work !! I hope that the scalping is treating you well. I have backed off from it after the SEC raised the tax rate. I am still hittting 100 K share days once in a while but would prefer not to as it adds up. Best to you Robert
My day starts out with a car crash on the way to the office only to get worse from there. On my way to the office a car turned left in front of me and I had the green light. Not a good idea to do in a small compact when I drive a big SUV. This caused me to rush into the office and I could hear my computer ringing the opening bell as I unlocked the door. Now I also have to get my truck fixed. Not to mention I was pretty shook up after the crash and even as I start to write this post over three hours later I am still on edge. It appeared that no one was hurt in the other car so that was good. ANR the stock I even covered by paying up in after hours trading on Friday because I didnââ¬â¢t want to hold overnight. My worries came true as ANR punished me even more. ANR it appears is my largest loss this year.cor ANR - 50839 (first failed B6 signal this year and most likely over 8 months so I am not too upset) Still on track to having a good year but this was not a fun setback todays trades PLCE + 134 CCL DS, + 11 ASH + 5 (bailed early due to ANR ) TDC B6(unqual) + 495 HLF + 34 EL +941