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.