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 :)