Tried to do this. but the biggest obstacle is that I have no programming background. And I think I will figure out trading faster than i would figure out any sort of programming. So I abandoned going down this road
Lost some money on that one too. Pretty close to the same prices and situation. Struck me as funny. Back to the question...
Im pretty determined, but will never get that exteme. For me My kids and family are no 1 priority. No amount of money will change that. I willing to do anything other than shortchanging my family to succeed.
Iam very passionate about trading. Thats pretty much all I think about all day everyday. I do get lots of ideas. Iam actually pretty decent with picking stocks. My weaknesses are staying disciplined and being organized. thats why i want to make a schedule and stick to doing same things routinely so i can get more disciplined.
Very insightful post. When I started out it was very hard to take a loss and admit I was wrong. I have improved quite a bit with this. But there are still 2 or 3 times a year when i find it hard to abandon a loser and it bites me. There are time when I do want to be perfect and sit around not pull trigger on few stocks and usually regret this as the stocks usually do well. Then there are times when the market is usually euphoric and i get suckered in watching everything go up only to get in at the top and hold the bag when everyone runs to the exit hmm I just realized most of my problems are all psychological. After I make the mistakes Imake the effort to correct them but months later I forget the lessons and do the repeat some of the mistakes. I think I need to spend time psychoanalysing myself and see what i need to correct
Ace, earlier I said my question was whether you had a useless method or you were useless at trading your method... ...you wanna tell what on earth you were thinking of when you bought and sold asti? The Green is where I think you bought and the Red is where you sold. Tell me what you understand of market structure - even simple things like support and resistance? Tell me about Buy and sell signals like tails and engulfing candles, broken trendlines and pattern breakouts. Tell me your thinking - for it sure has me stumped. If you'd used Millard's software it would have drawn channels and cycles for you and a prediction of the next direction - but even without that this chart is screaming. You're hit rate is just above breakeven - I think you're about to tell me why!!
and here's the weekly with a Bol Band. tell me what you see and why you "watched" it run to 24! You wanna learn psychology or learn to trade? Coz if you don't learn what you're doing wrong, better buy lots of books on positive thinking
At the time I was very bullish on solar stocks. It looked like Asti was about to break out. If I remember carefully The reason the stock took a dive was becuz Lock up period for the insiders was lifted and they sold their stock. I had no way of knowing this. Other solar stocks were running wild at the time and i obviously picke the wrong one.
I would say based on this you already have a fairly decent system in place (at least a good start at one) there one major thing to tweak immediately. The 29 trades between (4.9% and neg 4.9%) pretty much cancel each other out. If you can eliminate those 11 big losers you will start to build your account much faster. You are averaging roughly 2 swing trades per month so pulling the trigger on entry isn't the issue. You have to get better at pulling the trigger and getting out of losing trades faster. Yes it sucks to exit a losing trade only to have it turn and go in your favor but it's better than losing 1/3 of your account on 1 trade too. had you eliminated those eleven 5% losers (even IF they turned and went in you favor afterwards you would have still had the 21 big winners carrying you through. The other aspect of eliminating those losing trades is to analyze what went wrong. Looking at the ASTI charts I assume you bought the stock around 7/17/07. If so, the previous high swing was only up to $11.34, then it sold off to $7 and had rallied back to $10 when you bought it. In hindsight you bought it at the end of the rally just as it was coming up to a resistance level. This stock wasn't a stong signal buy until it crossed above the 11.34 mark on 9/18/07. On that date it broke it's resistance and had good volume coming into it. Knowing this and watching for this in the future should also help in not making that same mistake again. So in short I think you have your entries pretty good, your trigger finger is ready to go, your for profit exits are workable, the main focus right now should be the loss exits. If you can master that you will be profitable. Then begin to hone the entries and for profit exits to make it even better. Just my 2 cents.
ace, you've been a pretty humble and honest guy and if you're teachable then those are great qualities to have - hats off to you mate. But if that's a full and complete answer to my questions... you just failed your most basic traders exam! I'm not being a smart ass here - honestly - you get 0/10 You acted on what was happening in the sector and didn't qualify your trade. There are a bunch of screamers here, and if you don't get a trading method I'd be really, really surprised if you survive.