Trading Journal +1R

Today was a mixed day, I've been following some stocks in the morning, but most of them changed direction on me so I kinda lost interest, but after a while I found a few trades, but still managed to only do +1R, nothing more..

I'll only show one graph today:

OMRI gapped up this morning, and therefore went into my watchlist, I almost deleted it from my watchlist when it went down at 10:30, but I stayed put, and waited for the 11:40am base to break, so I decided to buy it afterwards.

Thats it for today.

Money Management

Today I'll be talking about money management, which is the most important aspect of trading as far as I see it.

The most simple act in the world of money management is simply to put a stop loss command, which means you will sell the financial instrument you are holding (for instance A stock) if it will fall 4% for example. Explanation - That if bought a stock for 100$, and decided that you are not willing to lose more than 4%, you should either wait for the stock to fall to 96$ and then sell it, or put a command into your broker’s account telling him you want to have a stop loss 4% below purchase price.

I usually don’t risk more than 2% of my money on any single position I take, and even that figure is too big and should be minimized, that is used to protect me from having spikes in my equity curve, thus using money management system that limit your account from market crashes like 2008 one. Could very much save your entire account instead of just let it free fall. Image having 100,000$ under management, the stock you picked it priced 50$, and your target price is 58, you want to protect it with a stop loss at 48$ (4% below), how do you choose how much quantity of the stock to buy? Should you use your entire buying power and put 100,000$ at risk? That would be much of a mistake, looking at it in a money management perspective, since 2% of 100,000$ is 2000$, and by putting your entire account exposed to 4% downfall of the stock from 50$ to 48$ you could lose 4000$ on that deal alone if it would go wrong, which means double the amount you wanted, so good money management system protects you from doing such a mistakes, telling you that the maximum amount of money you could allow that position is 50,000$.

Another important money management rule is to cut losing eras short, we as traders tend to be a bit of gamblers in a losing streaks, thus if we start losing, we keep trying to put another trade, get that position that our system is telling them that will not likely to be a profitable one, in order to get out of the losing streak, but as the old saying say, “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”. My advice is to stop trading by the end of the month if you see that you have lost 8% of you capital in that month alone, it’s obvious that either the environment that you are trading have changed, your trades are going wrong, or maybe you start buying the no-good positions that normally you’d never take.

Please tell me if you like it, and which other subjects do you want me to cover.

Trading Journal +2.5R

Today I've had a decent day, I caught the change in trend at 10:00am, and thus was able to make some bucks out of it.

PETM is a stock that have been on my radar lately, and I saw that it reacts almost the same as the NQ, so I decided to buy it long after I saw accending triangle, and it worked nicely, not so much profit on the R side, only 1.5R, but then again that is nice as well.

Here is the chart of today's best trade:

Sorry for posting so little, I'll get back to fully posting soon, it helps me with the proccess of learning the stock market.

Blogging and more..

Who said working nine to five is hard? I think that blogging is hard as well, committing to a blog is a difficult thing to do, and while trading wasn't so bad lately, I've decided to get back to blogging and posting my results, as a continuation of my trading journal.

So what have I been up to lately? I've been trading mostly gaps as always, and was doing pretty nice job in that, I've finally became profitable, and had a profits of 482$ net in October, I know it's not much, and it's not something one could live of, but it is nice to start being profitable, and I'm glad it finally happened, that's it for now, that was my short update, I will be updating more often from now on.

Daily Journal Break even..

Today was nice, it felt in control, I've risked only 20$ per R, which means that I was gross positive, and NET break even(tiny on the positive side).

I've made my research before entering the markets, finally things slow down at work, so I had some time to do my research, then I had my entry triggers, and I took them as planned, it's difficult making any money with this 20$ = R, but I'm sure it will allow me being more relaxed in my trading.

I might higher my R, but only in a little bit, I don't want to get crazy with highering R too much, since I don't want it to be a psychological stress for me to trade, I want to make trading fun again, like it did before I went trading with no plan and no rules.

One of my trades which I didn't like so much today was SQNM, I took it on a mini downtrend, which made me loss after a short while, I shouldn't have taken that trade.

Anyways, nice day, no money made, but I'm getting my confidence back, today was pretty much in control, and very patient, waiting for signals and executing the plan just in time. I just really god my mood down after SQNM, so I stopped trading, right on time, I'm learning lately that there are times on which you shouldn't trade, like if I'd keep trading after SQNM, I would take non-setup trades just to "make up for the loss", and that's the recipe for a blow up day :)
Blow up skipped, ThX for my studies on the market.

Have a nice day.

Sec Isn't shortable..

Is me or every stock that I'm watching isn't shortable? today I've found many nice short opportunities and they all just weren't shortable, when in the world AMZN isn't shortable? we always have stocks of AMZN for short, but not today!

I've given up for today, I don't want to wait for the reversal, if it will happen anyways, I came too late for some long opportunities that came around 9:45 today, so I'll just call it a day, PNL = 0 on 0 shares traded in case anyone wondered :)

I'm actually glad that this week is about to be over, it's one of the wieredest weeks lately, my boss was out of country, and I just did w/e I wanted, came in hours that are convinience to me and left whenever, that didn't help me from getting stuck until 20:30pm yesterday, I just have tons of work, which saddly enough I'll have to carry for the weekend (yes, they give you laptop in this job so you could work from home :( )

Anyways I'm going to enjoy this weekend, and hopefully do more of this:


One more trading day to go for this week!

Update of the 17 Sept..

I'm actually not as bad as I thought! After I've talked with a friend of mine (Eitan from the links menu on the right), I've decided to put the charts of today's losers (3 of them), and found out that I'm actually closer to "The holy grail" than I thought, I was really about to "Stop digging" and give up pretty soon, since there is no one really that encourage me to stay in the game, and I keep losing money, even if it's small money (only 65$ today), it's frustrating to lose day after day.

I've written everything about each trade in the graph himself, notice to my readers, please let me know:
1. If the way I put on charts is convenience.
2. What do you think about my losers of today.

AAUK:



ESLR


CEDC:

Trading Journal -1.5R

Stuff aren't going well, I mean.. I didn't have a profitable day in the longest time, part of it because I don't have time to trade, and part of it just because I suck lately.
After breaking down, it seems that I finally don't make mistakes that concern not being loyal to my trading plan, I truly am loyal, I'm not breaking the rules and it's an improvement.

So Why do I lose money? I think I've came to a place in my pocket where I'm trading scared money, and as we all know, scare money is losing money, I just trade a size that is too big for me, I've decided to lower my R to just 20$, until I have 2 consecutive months on which I acually am profitable, otherwise what will it bring me, to lose big money, the highering R system will work only once I become profitable.

So what will happen now? I won't be scared to lose money, and I'll finally gain some, very small, but some indeed.
Hopefully this bad era will end soon, because I'm starting to be a bit frustrated on the Trading side.

Trading Journal +0.4R

I've been a bit busy at work lately, so didn't really have much time to trade, but I'm still here, alive :) and that's a good thing.

I only made one trade in AMZN today, and it was a small trade, which went well at start, but then delayed on the 1R mark, so I took partial, and sold the rest at about entry, so with commissions it meant I made only a little less than 0.5R.

I've been utilizing methods I've learned lately, about mood in trading, and it shows results, usually when I trade but don't really feel like it, it causes me to force trades that aren't necessarily that good, and furthermore, I've discovered lately a bit more about my self, I saw that when I have a losing days, it's usually consecutive trades, which I take as "half revenge trade", because I want to make up for the lost money from the last trade, therefore I would try not trading for about 5 minute after a losing trade, so the emotions won't sweep me to take the next losing trade.

That being said, I've to get back to work, good day and good trading everyone :)

Daily Journal +1.3R

A nice solid day, I've only made one trade today, and it went nice indeed.
I just need to keep trading like today, calmly, and I'll get somewhere, I finally took full size even thought the stop was a bit tight (22 cents), and also I kept my trading rules finally.


Here is how today looked like:


I took ppdi at an early base and break, after I saw that some other stocks that were on my watchlist like clne biod were breaking up, the market was weak but gap is gap, so the stock ignores the rest of the market and run it's way, I've set a stop loss 22 cents aways from entry, and got about +33 cents out of this stock, finally I took it in full share size so it did make something nice.

Usually I tend to take some trades in less quantity of shares, and thus win less money, but the losing trade I do take in full size, so I win +2R(lets say R=30$ but I took it with R=15$) for example on a half share size stock, and lose -1R full size which equal let's say -30$, this takes me no where, so today I finally risked the proper amount of money, only to have a winning trade, I'm glad that happened :)

That's it for today

Can't trade.

Hi everyone, today and tomorrow I cannot trade, seems like I'm too busy at work lately, having meetings right into the first 1 and a half hours of the stock market, Yesterday I went flying with a friend (right into the start of the market), his wife gave him a suprise present for his 30th birthday, to fly an airplane himself, of course the pilot did most of the work, including the takeoff and landing, but he did get to touch the steering stick a little.

Today I've learned another lesson about being patient, I was racing on the parking lot, finally to by-pass the slow driver, only to "show him he is wasting my time" or something, and then I put on a reverse, to park, and I swear, lately I had been parking perfectly, and thats what I said to myself yesterday, so I was overly confident, putting the reverse, and so I started parking in a nonchalant way, and then it hit me.. I mean.. the wall, it hit me, I hit it, never mind, my car has small damages right now, and it sucks, because it's a new car (2008) and I really like it, and now it looks older because of the damage.

So.. all in all, I learned to be more patient, nothing would have happened if I'd let the guy go without passing him, and also, I should stop being over confident in my driving, everyone think the way they drive is the best, but we should all stop, and just drive safe, not "the best".

Well that's it for now, I've got to go to a meeting, at work :(

Daily Journal -1R

Today I took two losses, and as you can see they combined to make -1R, since in one of them I took smaller size, and in the other I lowered my exposure after it bounced back to my entry point.

I'm finally starting to control my down days, I'm actually "glad" that I didn't make money in the last two days, yesterday I had some mistakes, and today I was able to overcome those mistakes and lower the exposure when the trade isn't going my direction.

Of course that ultimately it would be nice to make money, but as they say, easy come easy go, so when I was beginning to day trade I made about 10R or so, easy, and then it went down and I'm in losses now, now that it's hard, and I better appriciate every winning day, I think it's time to make some money.

I missed an opportunity to actually make money today in AMZN, the stock that I'm watching closely and I can predict a little, when the day started the market was going down, and then the market broke up, so I put a buy order in AMZN as soon as it broke up as well, but I put it about 2 cents below the price that it was traded at and it made me miss the opportunity to make about 3R, the lesson here is not to be greedy, those 2 cents wouldn't mean much, I should of put the buy order in the price that I knew I could enter with, and therefore be on the wave of the winning trade.

Speaking of waves I went surfing today, only to discover that there are no waves, so I didn't even bother getting in the water, so I went away, and then I read in the forum that we'll have waves satureday for sure, so then I'll be at sea :)

Another thing that was good today is that the first trade I took, distructed my mind a little, I was a little less sharp, and the second trade was a trade that I already prepare so it was taken with trigger, but then I noticed that the first trade kept ringing on top of my head, so I knew I shouldn't take any other trades, I didn't even bother looking for them, because they are what we call "revenge trades", I'm glad I finally start trading by the rules, and stop trading in bad moods

Tomer

Daily Journal -1R

While it wasn't the best of days, it was a really productive one, I've actually learned from the actions I've made today and I'll detail the lesson.

SQNM:

I wrote it all in the graph, but the key note is that as Stewie says in the headline of his blog "Trader - Knows that winning trades work almost right away, which in my simplification I think that if trade went your way, and then went down, you should lower your exposure by selling half or more of the size when it comes back to entry point, because now that the trade didn't go your way, it can even go down to your stop, and we all hate losing a lot of money :) so I'll be lowering the size to lose half of it.

XCO:

XCO is the perfect gapper I caught in days, I got into the trading session kinda late today, so I spotted it a bit after it broke the nice B&B, and got in on the low of the up trading channel, the mistake here was that I didn't partial out, I quit full size which cause me to gain less than I could (problem of rich people hehe).

CLNE:

Just not a good trade, and again I should of limit the exposure..

So the lesson from today is about exposure, we want to be the least exposed to the market as possible, I didn't lose a lot of money today like I got used to (-6R and stuff hehe), so its a good thing, I'm still learning a lot, but I'm getting there :)

Have a nice day,

Daily Journal +1.6R

Finally pumping some more profits, today was a day that went well for gap up breakout plays, I've had so many opportunity, if only I could focus more on trading than I did, I'd bank coin.

It was pretty simple, 1 winner 1 loser, I'll show you the winner since it was more educational, the loser was a play that I made in AMZN since the market made an attempt to go up, and AMZN usually go in co-relation with the rest of the market.

SRS:

That's it for today, simple and short post, SRS trade last less than 2 minutes, aggresive aren't we? :)

Daily Journal -0.45R

Almost half R down and I'm disciplined, in July a day like today would of end up being -4R or something, because I was out of control, I'm feeling the confidence coming back up, and I'm glad it happened.

BTW I've had a car accident last Friday, nothing serious, a toyota rav4 got into me after I stopped the car on the middle of the road like everyone else since there was a traffic jam.My car got a little damaged so they are fixing it right now, need to replace the trunk and rear bumper, at least in Israel we have a law that whoever hit you from the back is due to pay for damages (for insurance that is).

I'm safe and all, and got myself a sweet replacement car with sunroof and stuff so I'm good :)

Today I couldn't trade the morning session, so I traded mid day, which was pretty dead.

All of today's actions in one graph:

SNDK, 1 loser trade, 1 winner trade (that was smaller than the loser)

After this trades I just called it a day.

Daily Journal +0.35R

Slowly but surely, I'm gaining confidence again, after reading http://theimpatienttrader.blogspot.com/2008/08/position-sizing-finding-your-max-pain.html by stewie, I decided that I could higher my R by 5$, I am trading good lately, no critical mistakes, and I intend to keep it that way.

After such a long time I'm posting charts! whenever I post charts I trade better, so I will post more charts from now on, today I've made only 2 trades, both were positive overall (but a little), I put my stops too low, I'm not sure why, so the results are small profits.


NVDA:

I saw NVDA breaking yesterday's highs, so I immediately took whatever position I could once I saw it, but I put the stop below the day's low, which was 60 cents away, on a 12$ stock it means my profits will come only if it will make a $+, which is 9%, very unlikely, but happens, anyways here are the charts:




CTRP:
It was #1 on the gappers list, so I saw it early, and I liked the fact that it keeps going up, at the time I saw it, it seems like there's no stopping for it, usually it keep going, and I'd hate to miss it :)
This one is most frustrating, even though I only took 30 shares (lack of confidence in setup), it went so high once I sold it. I sold it after being impatient.


That's it for today, feels like I started trading again, as a new man, without those fullish emotional trades that I made, I'm gaining confidence in myself again and that's the best thing, after seeing all of those big # on DT's blog, I still think its the right thing to do (to trade), I've had my doubts, but I think that once I'll master it, it will be a nice source of income that suits my lifestyle :)

RC Helicopter

Finally I had some time to fly my RC Helicopter:

Daily Journal +1.25R

Building confidence back from scratch, today I took two positions early, when I saw 2 stocks getting near their gap up base and break, and it went well.

1 of the positions made almost 2R, and the other went up almost 2R, but then reversed so I sold it when it went back when I entered it, so altogether I've had a +1.25R today net.

I'm glad it happened, I really didn't have a green day for such a long time.
In the future I will ride the wave of a green day, but I just wanted to set my mind a nice pivot point to know that I can have green days also, I've had a traumatic month of almost only red days, because of lack of discipline, so right now I'm glad I could go from there to being green.

Usually when days like today happen I should trade more aggressively since I've had another "almost entered" positions that were supposed to be profitable, its just that I was afraid a little since I was insecure.

Confidence is high right now, but also my competence, I will not make fullish mistakes thinking "I must be always right", and follow my rules regarding trading.

I didn't break any rule today, and it is what matters most right now, not the money, or the R results, only the rules, if they will be kept, I will make money long term.

I'm happy right now, and relieved finally from the burden of the losing period, I finally broke it, and even though its small, I am glad its there at all:)

Now lemme go back to work, I wish this day would end already and I could go back to my house flying the RC Helicopter I've got, I'll post video of it flying on youtube and add it here.

Tomer.

Daily Journal -1R

Well finally I'm coming back.. I'm currently working on developing my attitude towards the markets, and I didn't find many gap b&b opportunities, so I took a position too late, and didn't take the small profits while I could (less than 1R..), so it went down on me, right now my R is 25$, so I'm kinda playing it safe.

I had a lot of disciplne today, and thats a good thing, I want to develop my mind to work on every condition, I knew that if I'll take another trade, it would be a revenge trade, since I wanted to take exactly the opposite of the trade that I took, and it did went my way eventually, but my stop was too tight since I took the position too late as I already mentioned.

Today I didn't brake any rule, I didn't make any money, but I managed to limit a losing day, three weeks ago a day like this would have gone to -4R when my R was 50$, losing 200$ in one day is dangerous to someone with account value like mine (less than 10K$).

I saw this blog : http://blog.tradingrm.com/ in Obat(http://onebadtrade.blogspot.com/) blog, and it seem really nice, they seem to know what they are talking about, so I'll be following that blog for a while to see if it has more good stuff to say, I really didn't knew about how I was approaching day trading, and about 1 star days, 3 and 5 stars days, today for example was a 1 star day for me, since I didn't really find any opportunity, so I played it safe, and managed to lose minimum amount of money.

Have a great week everyone!

Update about recent absente..

I wasn't posting lately because I had a shitty time in the markets..
I've lost too much money lately to be able to call myself "Day trader", trading have been extremely difficult, or should I say.. gambling...

I wasn't really trading, after looking at recent results, I clearly saw that I'm breaking virtually every rule I've ever made, and that I'm impulsive as I was at the time I was trading futures, this led me to posting the rules, that I follow from now on, and also led me to conclusion that I need to lower my R size back to 25$.

I simply cannot afford to lose 3R x 50$ everyday, so I put trading back on the 2nd gear, to slow things down, I practice being rational in my trading, thinking before I enter trades, having a clear mind, and not breaking any rule, after all I've written those rules because they are acually lessons from my trading.

So I'm now going to get back to normally blogging, since this is my trading diary and it really helps.

I've lost about 50$ this week, trading lightly, not doing rules breaking mistakes, only picking the wrong stocks acually, but at least I pick them selectively and not impulsively and irrationally.

That's it for now.

Good day everyone.

Trading Rules

Trading Rules

1. Only take trades that are suited (entry point is logical), and if my mind is clear (didn't revenge trade).

2. I take my stops when I'm supposed to.

3. If I lose money twice in the same stock, I stop trading it for the day.

4. Exit a position if I'm negative after 10 minutes.

5. I'm done for the day if I have 3 consecutive losing trades.

6. I'm done for the day if I am down more than 2R.

7. I sell partial upon reaching 2R.

8. I higher my stop to entry point after being +1R.

9. I take the first trades with smaller profit, 1R-2R more or less, to build confidence.

10. I don't leave a position open un-noticed.

11. The trend is my friend.

Refocusing...

Lately my trading was mixed out, and that caused some losses, I hate the fact that I'm losing money, and it's not something I want, I was profitable from the first month, doing stuff according to the rules, and only when I "outsmarted" the rules I started losing money.

So from now on, the rules are holy, the boss have gone to a business trip and will give me a hugh bonus if I'm keeping the rules, and not upon money results.

Thus, I decided to lower my R size from 50$, back to 25$, so I'll take things easy, I'll do that for 3 weeks, and I am sure that it will show a positive results, I'll focus on the method of trading more than on the money returns, I'll take good trades, and make money.

What's left is to post the trading rules so everyone could see what rules I'm talking about.

That's it for now, progress is in the making :)

Surfing, drowning, and more..

This weekend was fatal in the sea of Israel, 5 people drown to death, there was a strong erosion in the Mediterranean sea, it was sad indeed, 4 of them drowned in -non decalared- beaches with no life guard, and 1 was having a cardiac standstill in a beach with a life guard, but there was nothing he could do, overall life guards saved 70 peoples life, so next time, go to a beach that have a life guard, even if it'll cost you some money, you don't want to pay with your life.

In the other hand, I went surfing Friday and Saturday, and I'm actually getting better at it, but After the fourth time surfing I actually got the hang of it, and it's fun, every wave I caught was a "great success", even thought I wasn't able to stand on the board for more than 2 second, I still have got a lot to learn, but I'm making progress, after the 2nd time going to the sea I wanted to give the board back to the shop, but now I see that it's just a matter of practice.

Anyways this has been my weekend, today I've got my birth day present, the honey bee king 2 rc chopper, I'll see if I like it or not..

Have a great week everyone!

Daily Journal -4.36R

Well well well, it's starting to be somewhat normal that I lose a big amount of money, I think I won't get my bonus after all..

If you've read my last post, I suggested putting a firm trading rules, and pretend having a boss which is abroad, that will give me a big bonus if I'll keep up with the trading rules, that means I wouldn't get my bonus if I keep up like this.

Trading rules broken:
1. Only take trades that are suited (entry point is logical), and if my mind is clear (didn't revenge trade). - I revenge trade since I've lost money on a stock... bad for business.
2. I take my stops when I'm supposed to. - I took stops after I lost a little more than a R.

3. If I lose money twice in the same stock, I stop trading it for the day. - I lost money twice in AMZN and kept trading it.

4. Exit a position if I'm negative after 10 minutes. - I waited longer than I should have in VDSI.

5. I'm done for the day if I have 3 consecutive losing trades. - I did have 3 consecutive losing trades and I still didn't finish the day.

6. I'm done for the day if I am down more than 2R. - Looking on my daily journal, I did lose more than 2R didn't I? twice as much? more? ....

Looking at things, it seems that I had all of the reasons to quit, and yet I didn't what a shame.. I'll be printing my Trading rules so I'll look at them before each and every trade I make, I guess any one of those rules could of helped me not losing 4R, I could quit before but I just had to "play with luck" and prove again that "I must be right".

Toasted today..

I will trade tomorrow, only with paying close attention to my Trading rules, the boss won't be happy if he'll come back and see that I kept breaking the rules every day.. he might.. fire me? (or I might just blow up my account hehe).

Hope everyone else had a better day,

Tomer

Daily Journal +1.86R

(warning - long post)
Ahh.. finally an up day, lately I've been having some bad time, my R became higher (50$), so also my losses became higher, and my profits weren't, so I'm glad today went well, and hopefully I'll have better days in the future.. where are the days where I've had +4R and so on? :)

I've changed my "Trading guide" file and made a "Trading rules" file, since the guide was only a guiding line, and rules is more stricked.

I've read once in Alexander Elder's book that one of his friends once was trading for a firm, and made that firm a lot of money, so he decided to go lone wolf on them, and try his luck profiting from the same method he have learned from that trading firm.
Of curse he was losing money, and then he researched what was he doing wrong.. he was trading the same as he was with the firm, but kept losing money. so he figured out that "not having a boss" is the reason for his failure, he was having hard time following all of the rules, and bent them as wished, which caused him to lose money.

He then figured out that having a boss is acually the only thing that have changed after he left that firm, and so he started trading as if his boss is in a vacation abroad, and the boss will give him a big bonus only if he kept the rules, and not by out well he was doing.
Having a virtual boss acually worked for him, and so I think I'll have to adopt myself one.

Here are my trading rules, I will have to follow the rules, so my vacationing boss will eventually give me so bonus for following the rules :)

1. Only take trades that are suited (entry point is logical), and if my mind is clear (didn't revenge trade).

2. I take my stops when I'm supposed to.

3. If I lose money twice in the same stock, I stop trading it for the day.

4. Exit a position if I'm negative after 10 minutes.

5. I'm done for the day if I have 3 consecutive losing trades.

6. I'm done for the day if I am down more than 2R.

7. I sell partial upon reaching 2R.

8. I higher my stop to entry point after being +1R.

9. I take the first trades with smaller profit, 1R-2R more or less, to build confidence.

10. I don't leave a position open un-noticed.

11. The trend is my friend.

Another thing about today is that I noticed that I'm starting to familierize with AMZN, I've been having -120$ in the beginning of the day, and then I've made about +220$ in AMZN alone, with 3 trades I think.. meaning that I start feeling when AMZN will go up or down, and sometimes when I'm wrong I get days with -150$, so I'll have to limit my trading in AMZN to until I have 2 consecutive losses in it.

Daily Journal +1R

Monday.

Well not reall +1R number wise, since I higher my R to 50$, but I only risked about the amount that I profited from.

I had to leave early today, and my mind was distructed because of the preperations, so I only traded 1 stock.

BRL - dummy gapper of the day:

Daily Journal -6R - BLOWUP

How to blow out your account, true story T.t

Well, First trade I set a stop at -45$, which is my R, and got out at -63$, market orders suck right? well the next trade I put a stop at -45$ again, and got out at -87$ !!!! Now that's pissing off!!
After I've had those two very traumatic trades, I wrote myself a memo - "Never trade in OPEX, Never trade in OPEX".. and kept trading.. well you don't really call it trading, it's more like "Revenge trading".. so at one point I was -400$, fucking frustrated, and feeling pretty useless at the time, in Israel it's about two weeks of minimum wage, I just wasted it in about half an hour, so.. I told to myself - "Well.. what have I got to lose? I've lost so much already.. let's trade saint..", so I initiated some "smart" trades, and got it to -234$ gross, and -270$ after commissions, which still sucks, but under the circumstances, I haven't got much to lose..

I'm sure I learned from the mistake, and added additional rule to my trading rules, which is to stop trading if you've lost the first trade with slippage, and I think I'll also add to stop trading if my mind isn't really focused on trading, and more focused on how much frustrating something (like losing 87$ instead of only 45$) is.

Now I've got to negative, my account value have dropped below where I started it back in May, 184$ losses.. well well.. I'm still learning.. I've also added money from my MBT account, to support higher R's, since I only plan to risk 1% max on each trade, and my account value is so small..

The good thing is that I still think positive, after looking at DT's blog, and seeing how some ACE is making 42K$ a day, I still believe that I could make a modest 1000$ a day trading, and be free from a day job, even after what happened today, ah and moreover, I wasn't panicked at any moment, the revenge trade have clouded my judgment, but after I saw how bad I really am doing, I started recovering a little bit.

BlowUp day today, I hope everyone else was doing great!

Good day,
Tomer

Ahh and for sure I'm taking a break tomorrow, to clear things out..

Daily Journal +1.42R

Today I've been doing the sort of trading that does work for me lately, and it is trading lightly, and quit as soon as I got more than an R. why am I doing that?
Because lately, every time I reached +1.5R, I just went down to -3R afterwards, when I said "1.5R isn't enough", but the way I think about it, if I keep making 1.5R a day consistently almost every day, that means I get about.. 10R a month, now it's not much, since my R is 45$, but when my R will be 400$.


It'll mean I'll be making 4,500$ a month, working about a hour a day, which rocks! since I could tend to other ventures and do the thing I love doing, I could virtually work from everywhere, and therefore fulfill a long wished dream of doing a winter season only snowboarding! that's one of my dreams, and I think that I'm ready to fulfill it.


I'm not trading really for the money, money sucks, I trade for the freedom to have time for myself, the way I see it now, I'm at work 9:30am until 6pm, or later (software companies..), then I go to the GYM 3 times a week, that means that my day really starts at about 8:30pm, I spend most of my day stuck at a place, not living life, just working. I'll start surfing in the mornings when there are waves, like next Sunday, so it'll be a nice addition to my day.. waking up at 6:30am..


I honestly think that people who are stuck at the whole working environment are missing out life, I see them talk about work all day long, when they come back home, they check emails, in the weekends, they don't do anything special, because they are stressed of what will happen at work when they come back, I don't want to live life like that.


In Israel we must recruit to the army when we turn 18 for 3 years, so we really start "living" at the age of 21, which sucks, so we all work for some time, and for a "after army trip", at least most of us go, they go to Australia, South America, and other exotic places for about half a year or so.. I went to Thailand and China for 4 months, and caught the "travel bug", it really opens your eyes for the world, you meet new people, explore the cultures, I even studied a bit Chinese because it is so difficult to get around there, so what I'm trying to say is that after that trip, and my 2 months trip to the USA when I was young, and other assorted amount of trips, I really like being "on the suitcase", and going from place to place.

I even match my trading style to that, I trade with 1 screen setup so when I'll get to travel, I could carry a laptop everywhere, I trade only a hour a day or so, again, so I could have more time for myself, and less "screen time", I do everything to get to my goals of "financial freedom", and what I like most about trading, is that it's still is exciting, and not as mechanic as everyone say it is, when you trade less, you don't have much time accumulated and not get bored.

Anyways, I hope things will turn out right, and I'm glad to say that after 2.5 months day trading stocks, I'm still profitable, hehe, well that's after losing money day trading futures against the odds, so it's ok. coming to think about it now, it seems like forever, day trading only 2.5 months, I thought I'm trading for about 4 months, damn this day trading is extensive..

Have a good day everyone! :)

Journal

Yesterday -2.65R, today +0.5R

I'm finding it hard to make money lately, I keep getting up to 1.5R in the first two trades, and then it's going all the way down to -3R and such.

I've decided to change my style of trading now for a more defensive trading since I lose money lately, Yesterday I got back to break even on my account Value..

I will be focusing on making my R higher, and in the meanwhile, I'll just trade lightly, much less per day, since I don't wanna be losing all of my money, so, from now on I'll call a day with +1.5R, and I'll try not to lose more than a R.

I calculated it, and it mounts up nicely, saying my R = 45$, and I get 67.5$ on a nice day (1.5R), and I get net gains of 12 days a month, I still get 810$, which is better than braking even..
I higher my R each week, so eventually my R will be 400$ or so, and it'll mean I could possibly get 7200$ a month, which is very nice for me..

My goal in trading is to be financial free, free of work, which means I can work one hour a day, and then go surfing / snowboarding / replace this box with your favorite thing to do - the rest of the day. Of course that I'll want to open a business one day, so I could get some "real money" and buy myself a Porsche, but for now, just having money and not working on a day job will own :)

I'd like to say thanks to all of my friends on the blogosphere, you are all being supportive, and I appriciate that.

Surfing..

Well I'm not a pro surfer like our dear friend DT, but I always wanted to surf, it's funny that I started snowboarding before I started surfing in the ocean, but it's just that I never really knew where to start.

It's not that common in Israel, even though there are many people who do it, I personally never encountered anyone who surf , except for one, he even promised to teach me how to surf, be he left work so we're not talking anymore..

Anyways, yesterday I finally fulfilled a long time dream, and bought my first Surf-Board, Spider 6"3 board, nice one for my 5"11 height, and I went to the ocean with the guy from the store.

My first thought were: "ahh, that's look easy" when I saw other people surf, but when I tried, I was a mess, I could only stand after the wave already passed by, or sometimes I get into the turbulence of the wave and get sucked right into the ocean floor, and the funny thing is, that I didn't swallow so much ocean water..

Anyways, there were so many Jellyfish since last week, that I didn't even saw them and I still all stinged out, all of my body hurt, my chest is full of bites, my hands, I can't move my pinkie finger, but I still have a smile!

I fulfilled a long time dream, and I will be actively surfing through the warm summer of Israel, before or after work.. I work close to the beach, so it fits me well.

Trading Journal +0.7R

Profitable day, but I've had it...

I mean.. whenever I scalp trading, I earn money, but whenever I really wait for the setup, and it shows, the trade goes up just little before 1R, and then gets back to hit my stop..

Either I'll change my style completely to scalp trading, or I just continue being patient, today everyday was with setup, hard stop, no foolish mistakes, and yet it didn't work, my max up today was +1.5R.

So I took a risk, and bought 200 shares of BEXP, which caused me to lose almost a R as a result.. and the trade was so close to being very profitable, I was almost about +1R on it.. I'll give normal trading another week, and if the style of normal doesn't suit me, I'll develop into a scalper..

Or mixed scalper and normal trader like nowadays.. I need to find the best combination..

Daily Journal -3R

Today sucked, I'm not sure why, but it seems that 1 trade cause all of this, all of the other trades were fine, nothing big really, but there was one trade I couldn't handle..

I took AMZN with 200 shares, which about the max share size my R=40$ permits, and I was suppose to sell it when it went down 20 cents, but.. I had to "prove that I'm right", and wind up losing about 150$ on that trade alone.. I never saw my PNL in stock markets go down so much, so I immidiately shorted AMZN for a 50$ gain, coming to think about it, it was stupid, and very emotional, but I think it was so many trades that slip away...

Yes Asaf, I'm waiting for setups, but they come so "rarely", and I always miss them, so I take stupid trades with "no setup" that usually works, this time AMZN proved me otherwise, but I was frustrated that about 3 breakout trades slip away from me, that I had to take AMZN... this stock and V are always moving somewhere :) and I like joining them on whichever direction.

Overall I'm a disappointed, I truly thought I went trough this emotion thing, but I guess the way for being "a machine" is still infront of me.

Daily Journal +1.5R

Yet another profitable day, goody :)

Today I had something wiered going on.. I nailed V twice, and didn't extract even 50% of the movement. take a look at this:

I managed to scalp my trades, I was trading scared.. all of this trades were after a losing trades, which means.. I should probably detach my emotions from trading, easy to say, hard to do.

Other than that, today was crazy! I didn't find so many candidates, but all in all there was action, I missed APWR at 25$ in morning session, I mean.. I didn't really missed it, I decided to "Paper trade it", since I didn't believe anything can go up in the downtrend we had in the morning, I didn't want to trade against the trend.. well the trade did work for anyone who took it.

That's all for today..

Charts!!

Well even though it was a losing day, I learned from it, I'm not trading that bad acually :)

I logged every trade of the day for educational purposes,

I don't have so much power to introduce each and every trade, it's all written in the charts, so here goes:

AMZN 2 losers one small winner:

V - Winner of the day:

Calm - miss of the day- should of given it more space to move:

WMB.. :

AMGN - Another small loser:

EZPW - The savior of the day :

Daily Journal -1.5R

The bottom line of today is.. that "it could have been worse", I was one point at -100$, and then had 2 nice trades (1 scalp other small gainer) that just made me finish with a little more respect..

I traded AMZN 3 times today, not sure why, the first two times caused me losing a R each, and the third time I've had a small winner which didn't help a thing..

I think I'll upload some charts later on, I've gotta go from work right now..
I hope I'll have time to post charts, they are educational and will help me ,and hopefully you guys improve.

Later...

Daily Journal +0.7R

I didn't see so many opportunities in the pre market today, so I took V in the morning, for a fast gain, then it turned around on me, so I quit it for the modest gain of +1R.

Then I bought the break of SPWR but it hit my stop and kept going up, my luck was that I took a small quantity because I didn't want to risk anything, today smells strange to me, so I don't wanna be trading today.

I came back after a week of not trading, and I have a small win day, it's nice, I'm glad I'm starting the week positive. I higher my R +5$ again, and I still manage to think clear when I trade, I think this small escelation is nice, and only doing good, hopefully I'll get to my first milestone very soon, which is having R = 100$.

Right now my R = 40$, and I higher it +5$ each week, but after I'll have R=60$, I'll higher it +10$ each week.

Meanwhile, here is a nice video clip to keep me motivated:

Week off..

I took last week off, I had a course at work which was just on the times that the stock market was opened, I had some time to refresh myself from the high speed of the markets.

I'm planning to approach this week with new powers, the break was a bliss..

I have a birth day this saturday, and I sure hope the weekend will come already, there's a lot of alcohol to drink and a nice bar bq to do :)

Update..

Haven't posted lately, all graphs seem the same, breakout, buy, after a while sell, etc. so I didn't want to bore everyone out, or myself for all I care.

I see a pattern because I write a detailed journal of my every day trades, it seems that I keep having a few small up days, and then a big one or two down days, which sux, so I have to limit those down days.

I was breaking even 3 weeks ago, since my initial R was 20$, and then I higher it to 30$, and lost few days one after the other with the new and higher R, last week my R was 35$, and I made about 3R or something, since I didn't trade all week, this week my R will be 40$, I'm getting used to the higher risk reward slowly but surely, when I'll have R= 70$ I will need to re-finance my account, since it won't be able to support the high R.

right now I guess its more of a practice, because I really don't make much money, and I just want to see that it is consistent enough for me to re-finance the account, the first milestone is still R = 100$, I'll get there in a few months time, but I'm confident that it will be ok, as things go now, it seems that I'm getting used to trading, and it starting to become a part of me.

A month ago I was still trading with a chatroom, which has many good people in it, and even better calls of stocks, but I realized that it wasn't for me, their talking affects my trading, why? because when I'm long in some stock, and someone tries to scalp the same stock for short, I hesitate in my mind against my own trade, and sell it, only to see that it keep on going my way (long), and also, some why I have too many "available trades" there, so I take a lot of them, and overtrade.

Good day :)

I've added two new features to my system:

1. First trade of the day, take profits on 1R more or less, just to get the ability to have 3 losing trades making the day -2R and not -3R.

2. Be flexible, sell fast - if the trade isn’t going your way after about 5 min more or less, just sell it for a small loss, instead of waiting half an hour for it to hit your stop.

I utilize both system rules today, here are the charts, I've done a modest +2.4R today on 3 winners and 1 loser:

Here is rule no'1being realized on CXO:

Here is rule no'2 being realized on GLBL:

Here is the loser of the day NOV:

And for the winner of the day MVSN:

That's it for today, hope you guys had a good day aswell

Oh and btw, I've higher my R from 20$ to 25$, and next week its due to be 30$, I'm going slowly but surely..

Recently..

I've decided to thin the blogging, since there are not so many replys and it sux just writing stuff without getting feedback, so I'll just post charts from time to time, just so I could look back and see what I've done and know how I felt when I took the trade.

My performance haven't been so good lately, I finished last month only about +4R, and I am looking forward for this month, which started with about +1R of yesterday.

Lets see how it develops...

Need Improvement.

I was just re-thinking my trading on the past 2 days, and I found few things worth mentioning.

I need to trade less, I mean.. I take too many trades, and its just not the way, I need to concentrate on quality, not on quantity.

I need to utilize the R method better, in the last two days I was just slacking, I always took trades with 100 shares, and that means that my stop was always 20c below, which isn't that good, since some trades took more space to go, and others were winners that needed only 10c stop which means I could buy 200 shares and make twice as much money, so I really need put my focus on quality of a trade, instead of just trading whatever moves.

The markets make your mind blurry when they are open, so I need to make a mental preparation before the market starts, and be just fluent when the market is open.

I hope I'll utilize the stuff I write here on my trading, that way I'll get better.

Daily Journal -1.5R

Beginer's luck gone! real life is here :)
Well not really, today I lost only 15$, so it's ok, the fact of the matter is, if this is a losing day, its great! in my Futures times losing day would cost me 200$ or so..

I'll be reviewing the trades I made today, I don't think many of them were that bad, I just think I had too many of them, again I had 1 stock making me about 5R and few others losing like falling birds, I need to find that stock that does 5R, and only trade it and 1 or 2 more, like on the days I'm profitable.

As I said before, I see a pattern, losing days tend to be more aggressive, many stocks are being trade, while in winning days I trade a few, and make it fast and well, I should think again before I take each and every trade, and maybe limit myself to trade less amount of stocks, more quality.

Hope you had a better day than I did,
Tomer

1 Chart..

Nothing much to say, I just wanted to cheer myself up so I put the best trade of the last few days..

I think that the faster the trade goes your way, the better it is ranked by me, and this one was very fast going..

LDG 22 May:

Daily Journal -3.2R

Today I have had a bad day, that happens too, it's part of the business of the stock market.

Some key points from today:
1. I came to my father's home at north, and the trading system wasn't ready, my whole enviroment wasn't ready and I only finished making it ready by 9:30am, and then started to acumulate watch list, etc, but when the market is on, the mind is disturted, so I didn't really have a real watch list.
What should be done? I should only come 30 min before the market open and get ready, this week I had a day where I wasn't ready, and I just didn't trade, this what I should do.

2. I traded A LOT today, something like 18 different trades, this is too much for me, my trading style works mainly in the morning, and today, I didn't have so many good setups in the morning, I should do like Trader X is saying and come to the market thinking "I don't really have to trade today", and ignore the bad setups.
I also thought about a new rule, whenever I have 20+ tickets of buy/sell, I should watch my PNL, if it's +1.5R, I'm doing ok and I should continue doing what I'm doing, and if it's less, I should stop trading for the day so I won't have a very bad day.. only a minor loss..

The system is all about taking small losses and big winners, you can't beat the house, and I intend to be the house :)

I have got to admin that today I took about 2-3 trades without a signal, I just wanted to be in the stock for the pure gambling of that, I guess that's what happens when your day start going wrong. I'm glad I didn't have a blow up day, and I didn't lose all the profits I worked so hard to accumulate in the past 3 weeks.

Bottom line, I'm still profitable, I'll get ready for next week, and after that goes well, I'll higher my R Size by 5$.

Daily Journal +4.85R

Today was the fastest day I've ever had, after trading for 27min I finished, I don't want to give back anything to Mother Market :) so I just called it a day.

I'll detail the trades with charts later since there were only 3 of them, 1 loser (ESLR) and 2 winners (LDG, FLIR).

Yesterday I took a day off, I was too "overconfident" to trade, I didn't want to have a blowup day, and also I wasn't prepared well enough before the market was open, mentally and technically.

I want to keep things like this for the next week, and then higher my risk 5$ a week, if I'm losing some week, I'll lower it by 10$.

Have a good day,
Tomer

Blog?

I'm not sure if anyone is reading my blog, since there are no comments, but I think the blog serves a purpse, every day when I finish the day I automatically report the results for this blog, this way I finish the day without making foolish mistakes.

I found that my style works best at the first 1 and a half hours, so I trade at that time, I saw evolution trader's post where he said that he too finish the day at about 10:30 - 11:00, I don't see any good reason to trade after that hours, and also I've got tight schedule in my life so I don't have any more time..

My focus now is on 3 milestones:

First milestone - To get to a point where my R(risk) is 100$, this should be tough, since my R now is 20$, I plan to higher it by 5$ every week starting two weeks from now.

Second milestone - To get to a point where my R is 200, it will be hard since I don't have th capital yet to support such a move, so I'll have to dig into my savings to find it, or just earn it on the way to the point where my R is 100$.

Third milestone - To get to a point where my R is 400$, this is the ultimate challange, as I see it, I can make about +2.5R on a winning day, which means that once my R is 400$, I can possibly make 1000$ a day, which is my goal for now, I'll see how it develops, but I think that 1000$ a day is very good, especially if I wanna do "around the world" travel while trading, I could work few days each month, and it should be sufficent to "fuel" my trip.

So again, why blog? I have all of the information in excel sheets, well I blog because it's one way to keep me disciplned, and it give me a routine to do everyday after I finish trading, it's like signing off trading, I post Daily Journal, and then I cannot put another trade, because then I'll be only misleading myself.

So, I'll keep this blog up to date, until I see that I can be disciplned without it.

Oh and did I say that today that Disciplne is the key in trading? well it is, you have a method, and money management, but the third piece is disciplne, it is the key to make every thing work best, without foolish mistakes, we all should aspire to be highly disciplned, I hope you guys are.

Daily Journal +2.8R

I'm starting to think trading is harder than I thought..

Today I had a hard day, I took so many losers, it was one of those "lose" days, but somehow one trade changed it all, DRYS just went about a dollar my way, so I said "thanks you god", closed other losing position, and called it a day.

I'm not sure exactly what my trading style is, I know it's fast, and I know I need to interrogate some of today's trades, they came off too much impulsive, yesterday trades were "clean", I took them right on the break, today was.. as I said before, HARD.

Good day and good luck trading,
Tomer

Thanks Asaf!

I'd like to devote this post to a dear friend of mine, Asaf, he also has a blog at http://stockhunter-dt.blogspot.com/ , but he doesn't update it anymore, so I acually have to talk to the guy each time I want him to keep me updated.. that sux :)

Long long time ago, we met at some Israeli forum, both swing traded, and did well, after some time, we both realized that swing trading is so slow, but only he had the capital to Day trade, so he started..

He learned the way, made his mistakes and profits, and after gaining much confidence in his trading, he stopped posting, but he is still activly trading, and doing great, at that time I day traded Futures and lost so much money, I could have had fun going to a stripper club and tip all of the girls instead of losing the Futures money.

Anyways, he helped me improve a lot, and be in the position I am today (started day trading stocks two weeks ago, and hve 7 winner days and 2 loser days), so I just wanted to say "Thank you", even today's trades were his stock picks hehe (except for SOLF, which I have an affair with lately :)

I wish you well, and see you when I'll be a bit richer and start my "Around the world" trip !

Charts!

I Finally got the time to put some charts on..



Here are two good charts from Friday 16th May:

BMC - The mistake of the day.. how not to trade:

SOLF, Educational of the day, I exited the stock in 3 different spots:






And for Today's Charts (19th of May):

LOW - How to turn a loser to a V.Small winner :



And ACH - Winner of the day:



I know I don't write much in the post, it's because the whole explanation is inside the charts..

Daily Journal +3.4R

Hmm ok, so just a reminder, R is the amount of money Risked per trade, in my case it's only 20$, which means I've "earned" 68$ today, net, after commissions..

I see a pattern in winning days, they have less trades, I'm risking less, today I was at a stock which went a little lower than my entry (higher since it was short), but I got out of it at a small gain, instead of gambling whether it will continue or not.

Winning trades go fast, they start fast, if it isn't moving, it means it's a medium / bad trade, so I just quit it, what I hate in trading is losing money, and today I had 3 winners, and I really don't need more than that to "call it a day" and stop trading, I'm actually very busy at work, so it's a good thing that I'm not trading out of boredom, it took me a hour to generate 3.4R, and if my R will be 100$ or more, a year from now, I'll have 340$ for a hour's work, sounds damn good to me:)

Gotta go,
Hope you guys had a good day,

Tomer

Daily Journal +2.25R

Well well well.. not easy on the market today..

I started by making a 60 cents loss on 100 shares mistake on BMC, the stock moved down while I "gave it a place to grow", how silly from me, and so my market order caught it -60 below my entry.. not a fun way to start the day.

I was going no where with NOK, trying to short it at the beginning of the day, lost only 8 cents there since I saw that the just isn't working. again went no where with SRCL, losing 6 cents while the stock just did NOTHING. today really was frustrated for me in the morning, at least I caught AMLN for a ride at about 10am.

I will post charts later, promise!

Thats it for now, I'll go eat something, this spicy doritos I ate while trading doesn't count as food.

Daily Journal -1.5R

I'm not sure what happened today, but I see a pattern, whenever I'm due to have a losing day I trade like 6 different stocks, and whenever the day is good I trade fewer.. lets see where this develops..

Anyways, I did get 1 stock that got a 1$ gain, and still got to the point where the day is negative, I'm glad I stopped before it went bad like it usually does on losing days..

At the end of the day I said to myself "lets take this trade, and see if it gets me to be break even", the trade did make me NET positive, after partial, but the other half was brutal, it just went down so fast that my market order hit and gave me slippage, I hate it when that happens..

Charts will follow later..

Hope you had a better one,

Tomer

14 May Charts JASO, YGE

Charts Charts Charts...

Well I'll post two of them, I think that they are both solid, not over the head, I didn't make 1$ in any of them, but the few cents that I did make were worth it anyways.

JASO -Fast phase trade that became boring :





YGE - Another dummy trade:


I also traded ESLR, nothing special there..

Daily Journal +4.1R

What a nice day! 3 winners, +4.1R net, I couldn't be happier :)

I think I'm starting to fall in love with trading all over again, I mean.. damn it's fun, it's fast, when you have a loser, you cut it fast, when you have a winner, you let it grow, see how much you can extract from him.

Today I finally have been highly disciplined, followed my plan, didn't over trade, utilized the R system completely, took partials on 2R like my friend have taught me, everything just blend perfectly, I think it was my day trading at it's best.

I took a step back from the 1min charts like my friend said about yesterday's trades, and moved higher to 5min and 15min charts, and it went just fine..

The philosophy I like best is what Trader X wrote in his blog, come to the markets with the mindset of "I don't have to trade today", and that way I don't take mediocare set-ups, and just went for the best I could find, I finished the day as soon as I saw that the next trade will only going to ruin things, if after 3 winners I'd have a loser, I'll think "ahh, I've made 3 straight winners, I can't be wrong!", and keep eating my profits lose after lose, so I just realized I should stop trading since I've had enough R for today :)

Hope you guys have a good day yourself.

Daily Review

Today's special, All of today's trades charts in one post !

But first, little statistics : 4 winners and 2 losers, worst loser -3.5R (slippage of market order), best winner +2.5R.

HUN - The first loser of the day:

As written in the graph, the stock seem to not have volume at the time of the "breakout", so lesson learnt for next time, I will only trade stocks that have volume when I trade them..

SYMC - The almost perfect trade of the day graph wise, the only error I had here was that I didn't take partial:

SNDK - The one that got away easy.. I exit the trade too soon without any good reason:

BYI - this one I have question for you, take a look at the graph, and tell me if I should have waited for a cup and handle to happen, or should I re enter maybe? :

GIGM - The one I got bored with, should I really have exit it?:

FWLT - The one who got me losing 3.5R out of slippage, bad market order and slow reaction:

Sorry for the long post, but your answers will be much of help to me :)

Daily Journal +0.5R

Hmm.. I'm not sure whether to be happy with the results or not, I've been day trading stocks for about 5 days now, after 8 months of day trading Futures, so I know how to trade, but this stocks is a whole different thing.

I've gotta admit that trading the Futures sometimes bore me to sleep, honestly, I slept few minutes before a good breakout came many times, since it's that boring, all I did was looking at the same graph of the NQ all day long, and nothing really happened, except for a few magical times. When you day trading stocks every thing moves! and fast, sometimes I miss good trades, other times I miss bad trades and feel thrilled with luck that I missed taking a bad trade, but mostly, IT JUST MOVES!

I'll get used to it in a couple of weeks I guess, but for now it is strange, and fun at the same time :) I'll post later about the stats, and some graphs so you could see how coward of trader I am :)

Take care and good luck trading.

Daily Journal -106$

Ironic enough, this is the whole gains from last week :) I think I'll retire.. Not!!!

Before I review what I did today, I'll give you some stuff from my trading plan.
Since I've just started Day trading stocks, I'll utilize the R system, and for now my risk per trade, is 20$, my daily stop loss is -3R, which means -60$, and I set myself another "anti blow up days rule" which is to quit trading after 3 bad trades in a row.

So what the hell went wrong today? why didn't I just stop after losing 60$?
First of all I'd like to say that I'm very proud of myself, for one thing, I KEPT ALL OF MY STOPS! meaning, I didn't make the mistake most people who start trading do and "prey" the stock will go my way while losing tons of money on the process, every time a stock went -20$, a market order was hit and a small slippage occurred.

So again, you're asking what the hell is wrong with me? OVERTRADING, yes yes, I've gotta admit, I over traded today, thinking this will help me get out of the hole that I dig myself, but it was just the opposite, last week my Win/Lose percentage was 70% win 30% loss, and today alone it was like 14% win and 86% loss, so.. this should teach me a lesson-

"After a 3 losing trades, I should always STOP trading"

The mind is so upset and clouded by the fact that you have lost, and the next trade you take is just random, and not because a good setup (of course at the time, every trade looks like the perfect setup).

Even if YHOO just announced they are planning to buy google (LOL), I'm not trading, today it was really funny, I had 1 stock that immediately failed and gave me about -23$ in PnL after commissions, and 2 others which got to +1R, so I set the stop to the entry, and then they both stopped out with small slippage which gave me to be -30$ total on the day, which is -1.5R, that's a good "losing day", and not -5R like today.

I hope this will not happen anymore, I know that you've got to learn stuff on your own skin, even if I read it in many books, it happened to me, now after the damage I've caused to my small account, I'll take the lesson with me and more forward.

Have a nice day,
Tomer

ATPG and YHOO 8th May

ATPG:

What is the setup? - Nice B&B with large enough stop.

Entry and stop are in the graph himself:

YHOO:

What is the setup? - Whole number breakout

Target and stop in the graph himself:

Daily Journal +5.5$

Today was one of those days I usually get punched in the face when I used to trade Futures, the stock market was friendlier..

Considaring the fact that I entered and exited 14 trades, I still managed to be positive in the NET side, and it's pretty amazing.. I totally overtraded today, but it's only because I was so convinced that "trading is easy" :)
I even got to catch TRLG on the 22$ break, the best I could find today, but I only rode it like 40 cents, instead of the whole move..

I managed to handle 3 positions at the same time, using Stops etc I was able to do so, and I'm glad I didn't lose money doing some foolish mistakes.

I need to orginaize my trading this week end, and see how things go.

Have a nice weekend !

Daily Journal +66$

Well again, it's not alot, but it's good to start day trading stocks with such a "begginer's luck" as I have :)

I hope I won't get the trading high, get into god mode and think every trade I make is a winner from now on, because when that's happen, you start losing X3 more than you win in avg day...

Today I had 2 trades, both were base and break setup, and I'll post charts later..
One thing I did wrong today, in my YHOO trade, I had 10 cents stop loss, and my R right now is 20$, but I took only 100 shares which means I put a different R, 10$ one, and that's not a good idea, to adopt such a bad habits, as my friend (and only reader of this blog?) told me, the customs I adopt now will accompany later on my trading carrier, so I must obey the R system.

Charts will be upped later today,

Daily Journal +34.5$

Hi all,

I know it's close to nothing, but I think it's impressive for a first trade..

I saw ERES on the most gainer stocks of this morning, and thought that while it went out side of range, and it's forming sort of base and break, it can very well be a nice first trade to take.

What is the Setup? - Gapping up outside of range, and B&B.

Where is Entry? - Higher than the B&B (Base and break) 14.47

Where is the Stop? - Lower than the last swing low at 14.23

Where is the Targer? -It wasn't predefined, I know I wanted to get between 1.5R to 2.5R

ERES Trade:

And for the mistake, the market is still on and the highest point(it's 10:10am now) of ERES is 15.24, so I could take more profits, but I really have to go and I had no time to wait..

Hope this continues like this, I really enjoyed trading today, and seemed like I picked a stock that even when the market was going down, the stock went up, so I'm happy with that :)

Have a nice day,

Tomer

Evolution of a day trader.

I must admit, I did lose money trading futures, you can't run from the truth, so after saying that, I'd like to talk about it a little bit..

I think that trading the US Futures markets, YM (Dow jones) and NQ (Nasdaq) is really like basic training in the army, and I served in the Israeli army so I should know what they say there, they say "Hard in training, easy in battle", and I think that trading the US Futures markets was really hard training, I'm not saying that it's going to be "easy in battle" when I'll trade stocks, but I think that losing this amount of money, knowing I won't get it back, controling my emotions when I lost sometimes, and mostly just doing foolish mistakes, got me better prepared for trading stocks :)

So what's next? I haven't lost faith, I still think I can do this, I have the belief that I can trade the stock market and make money, so I'm going to Day trade US stocks.

The evolution went from Swing trading profitably US stocks, to day trading US futures since I didn't came to the 25K$ criteria of the pattern day trader, to now, day trading US stock market with starting amount of 6K$, under LLC firm so I could day trade with less than 25K$ (which I currently don't have).

I'm currently in the process of learning a lot, I have set my LLC account last week, but still haven't made a single trade, not even a test of the new broker, I'm reading all of the methods, trying to see what trading style suits best, I've grown up from being impulsive and "just put on trades and pray", to wait for until I learn as much as I can, and only after doing such a research, putting on a trade, and not even hoping for it to be successful, in the perfect world I would like every trade I make to be profitable, but in the trading business one must know that he is in the business of making money, but in the trading business there is never 100% profits, and I think that having "the beginner's luck" might make me over confident and cause me to lose money..

I'll update about the method that I think that is most suited to me in the next few days, and hopefully have a better third time trading (swing, futures, now stocks). :)

Wish me all luck, and I hope you guys are doing great yourself.

Tomer