Trader Ghost

Trading Journal +1R

2008-11-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

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..

2008-10-30T01:45:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-09-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-09-18T07:39:00.001-07:00

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..

2008-09-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

Finally I had some time to fly my RC Helicopter:

Daily Journal +1.25R

2008-08-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-08-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-07-28T02:15:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-07-27T00:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

(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

2008-07-22T05:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-17T07:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-17T00:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-15T07:29:00.001-07:00

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..

2008-07-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

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!!

2008-07-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-07-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-06-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

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 :)

2008-06-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-06-03T00:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-27T08:30:00.001-07:00

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..

2008-05-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-22T07:08:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-05-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-13T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-13T08:09:00.001-07:00

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$

2008-05-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

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$

2008-05-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

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$

2008-05-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

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$

2008-05-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-03T09:34:00.001-07:00

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

Getting back to trading.. -59$

2008-03-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well Today I've lost 59$, but I followed my rules..

So the trade was just breaking of the trendline, and then 2nd bounce of it, I thought it would go up, but it showed me soon enough that I was wrong, and trading with the trend is better, I should remember that "the trend is your friend", but I always forget.

I am just getting back to trading so it will be hard, but I know I will eventually be profitable, I will continue as planned, and the money will come.

Here is how today looked like :

Blogging..

2008-03-11T03:14:00.000-07:00

After losing yesterday more than I should (116$), I think I'll have to start blogging again.

Why? I'm down 250$ this month, and if I won't say it, it will continue, I remember times like October, where I had a great month, and why did I have that? because I was keeping a diary, analyzing my graphs, and just keeping my spirit up.

Lately I'm not, I'm just coming to the market each day, in a hurry, trying to make a killing, and get out, and it's not the way to do it, in October I just took small winners each day, something like a trade a day, and it worked.

Yesterday I traded impulsively, without thinking so much, or a certain method, and it was bad, the results show that it was bad..
Friday, I was +60$ up, and I manage to finish the day down, not down by a lot, but it still stupid to finish the day down after you have something in your pocket.

Today I decided to try something different, I must just watch the market, take paper trade when opportunity is perfect, and see the results, after yesterday's impulsive behavior, I must take some time off (like today) from real trading, and see what happens.

Tomorrow I will be allowed to trade only if I didn't trade today.

From now on I'm back on blogging, I will be accounted for and therefore will be pushing myself into results.

Snowboard!!

2008-02-20T01:21:00.000-08:00

In Israel, we have one mountain that have a ski resort, only one! but it ours! so I just come there every weekend in the winter, why? because it's fun!!

Here I am dressed like a proper snowboard boy :)

On paper please..

2008-02-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

Well, haven't been posting lately, since I wasn't really trading, I've had some personal stuff that kept me out of trading, but I didn't forget about the stock market, I was just acually not trading..

I have been paper trading for a while, and came up with a nice technic for figuring out real and false breakouts in NQ, you all know that NQ future is my speciality, and I intend to do "doctorate" on the subject :)

My new finding, or should I say method for breakout, is as follows:

1. Wait for a breakout.
2. Mark the pivot number (the closest to the trend line).
3. Wait 1.5 NQ points higher (or lower in short).
4. If price level hit 1.5 NQ points higher, put a buy order on 0.5 point higher than the pivot point.
5. Take profits after 2.5-3.5 NQ points.
6. If price stays within range in the following 2-3 5min bars, sell immediately at the most convenience price.

This scalp is very nice, remember that I'm a bit under capitalized so I take profits fast, and also stops are -2 points for me, I cannot afford to lose more.

Revelation

2008-01-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

Today I'll write about a revelation I had a few days ago, the best month in my trading carrier yet was October 07, and the way it happened is making about 1.5R a day, and that is how much I earn in avarage a per winning day, even thought I'd like it to be more than that, when I try to do so, I just end up messing it all up and either from 4R I get down to 1R, or I go on to losing money.

So my new plan is all about K.I.S.S (Keep it simple, stupid):

I'll just get to my trading day, after my initial trade, I'll put a stop loss, as always, if the trade goes against me, I'll call it a day, if the trade goes my way, I'll take the money, and put another trade, lets say now I'm +1.5R on the day, or even on the border of +1R of the day, I'll put on another trade, now I can lose twice as much (since it will result me to be -1R), if I fail, I finish for the day, if not, good, I've earned money, the key change of this method is, that I don't risk more than 1R a day, which means I can finish the day after losing one trade (not two, since it's too much for futures).

Have a great week!

Ahh and on a personal note, I've just recieved a brand new Mazda 3 phanton blue mica colour, just like this:

I'm so excited, having a new car (replacing the Hyundai getz) is a bless.

Lately..

2007-12-31T10:41:00.000-08:00

I wasn't posting lately, so I just wanted to write my 50 cent for the last few trading days and post some charts..

So what did I have, a very bad time during december, I lost some money, but still lost about 50-100$ a trading day, so it's in the borders of logic, thursday was a great day for me, I made 178.5$ and returned the confidence to me, it was after some time which I didn't trade since I had to rest from trading for a while..

Today I had a bad day, lost 128$, at one point I was -205$, but I recovered from it a bit, anyways I know what my problem was, I didn't put auto stop loss, so I've lost a lot in the first trade, and then I had to "recover" so I lost more, anyways, next time I just need to remember to put stop loss each time I trade, I used to do it automatically.

One last thing, in addition to what is taped to my screen, I'll be taping "always take the first 40$ out fast", since I think it will help me, I see that many trades I take come 40 dollars up, and then lose, but if I'll start positive, I think I'll have better chance to end the day positive.

Here are some trades:

Struggle..

2007-12-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

December isn't going so well, and I keep figuring out the hard way, stuff I already figured out in the past.

For example in the last trading day I've had an impulsive rush to just buy something, I didn't wait for a clear long term nice signal, I've just traded by the 5min chart only, without confirmation from the 15 min chart, I think that I'm doing bad lately because I'm kind of in a rush to trade, whenever I'm not in a rush to trade I either earn money, or just fall asleep, waking up to see that my signal could have been a 100$+ winner(on 1 contract).

On the positive side, didn't have days where I lost more than I allow myelf lately, no blowup days, so I think that I'm in the right way, I just need to tape to my screen : "Only take trades with sound signal that you had to wait for".

Trading stocks is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I hope for it to also be the most rewarding thing I'll ever do.

Some thoughts..

2007-12-05T00:41:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to go as a comment reply to my good friend Asaf (StockHunter), which is doing so well lately, but I decided to write it as an entire post:

It is so god damn hard!! sometimes I get such a frustrations like when I get out of trade that minute later is going my way HARD!

I think that I understand now how trading is gonna be like, I used to imagine it as a fast phase action that last the whole day, but then I realized that it's too stupid to "trade on instincts" , so I set myself the rule of not trading before 11am (so I could see nice setup intraday), and then the rule of trading at home so I could be more focused.

Now I see that I just need to wait, most of the day, for those 3-4 setups that we are so familiar with, and only when they come I should take them, not before, trading impulsively = big losses, trading like an experienced poker player is what I should do, "Fold" most of the day, not being fooled by the market noise, and just wait for clear justification that the trade that I took should work, and take it, get the profits fast, and wait again.

About last month, November, I finished it down, it was a -563$, I've had 8 down days, and 7 up days, but my down days were uncontrolled so I lost more than the 100$ which is my daily stop loss in some of them, it was a month that gave me a wake up call, after being +451$ in October, which was a great month, I felt in god mode, and just ruined the beginning of November, which made it hard for me to recover from the losses, I was actually at -620$ one point in November.

Let's hope December will be better, goal for this month is modest, only 400$, nothing more, little by little, after few up months, I'll higher my contracts size which is 1 right now, I just need the confidence first.

Yesterday -94$ today +37$

2007-12-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Well, today I wasn't such a nice day, but it ended up positive, which is better than negative, I had 1 missed opportunity that could have given me +100$, I was already in the trade, but 20 seconds before it went down sharp, I decided it might go against me, and settled for +10$ :(

This is one of the trades I made today:

Yesterday I was out of focus, I should never trade on days where I'm out of focus, at least I didn't break my daily stop loss rule yesterday.

My goal for december is only 400$, nothing more, I just need to assure myself that when I'm not "testing stuff" or making foolish mistakes like losing 300$ one day, I can make money on the long term, I must provide myself with the proof.

Tweety animation!

2007-11-28T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hi!

This is why I was away lately, I've been doing animation of tweety for some competition, it was a bit difficult to do animation after such a long period of time on which I didn't touch 3d animation at all, Hope you like it:

-87$ one of these days..

2007-11-21T00:07:00.000-08:00

Well I'm glad it has only been -87$ down day, instead of what happened to me Friday which was losing 154$ (54$ more than my rules say).

I started the day with a loser(1R), then a winner (1.5R), and from then it got messy, I kept trying to bet where the bottom will be, and go long, instead of just going with the flow, and short the market, I'm not sure how many times can I read the basic rule "The trend is your friend" and still not follow it, unpredictably enough the only good trades I made were on the short side..

In days like this, what I should do it stop try to fight the trend, wait something like 40 to 60 minutes recap myself, and begin the hunt for a good trade, today I was focused too much on the same false breakout, trying to win it all over again, and it didn't break the upper trend line of the downtrend.

Overall I wasn't in sync with the markets today (forcing long trades in downtrend), and I hope to do better tomorrow.

P.S - Tweety animation is coming along great, I'll post the result in the next few days.

+100$(net) means a nice day..

2007-11-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

Today I had a nice day, starting with an initial losing trade, and then a streak of 4 profitable trades, while some of them could have given me more profit, I took minimal profit from some of them because I wasn't sure what the market will do.

I like days like today, where everything is sain, all rules are kept, finishing the day with profit.. that's the way it always should be.

I stopped trading early today since I'm currently working on some 3d animation I'm doing to try and win free ski vacation (maybe in the alps!), I love snowboarding and I love 3d animation so the mix is perfect, here is a WIP (work in progress) from my animation:

About -150$(net) - why?

2007-11-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

I seem to be going two steps forward, and then two steps backward hehe.

Look, there are some days where I just shouldn't trade, and today is one of these days, I was having a nice start as always, but then I had about two or three bad trades and I just couldn't stop, I think the commissions I'm going to pay to MBT today is about 50$, which is way too much..

What happend? I wasn't in sync with the markets, I was taking impulsive trades, keep hopping from one trade to another, and two times I was about to get out of the minus, and had a trade moving 90$ my way, but then I let it turn into a loss!!!! that's why I said yesterday that I should always take about 70$, stop with the greed already! I should have had a good day if I would have sold some of the positions earlier..

Well now I feel crappy, I'm acually flat since September, all of the time spent learning the markets, trading, having the familier andrenaline rush you get when you trade impulsively(like today), having some quiet days like yesterday where everything adds up and is fine, and still, I seem to not be able to control my bad days.. I'll write myself notes from today and put them next to my screen..

Note#1 - "Stop with the greed, take minimal profit while you can (70$ / 3.5NQ pts).
Note#2 - "After having a bad trade, step back from the screen, don't get rushed into taking another trade so quickly".
Note#3 - "Always obey to the money management rules, if you are close to expose more than 100$ to the markets just finish the day, you will have a better day tommorow".

That's all for now, need to think more positive, and the results will come..

Moving on..

2007-11-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

Well after a short absence I'm back, And what was my lesson from last week:

Things can go bad after going good.. October as a fertile month where I made 8% of my equity, but then started November and after a week or so I was down -9%, right now I'm -6%, but it's still negative number, so I'm not happy.

Why did it happen? because I didn't follow my daily stop loss rule, and lost in 1 day more than what I make in a few, which sux, at least it happened to me only once, so I know I can control it from now on, and I will not do it again.

Moving on to today.. +152.5$, finally profitable day after some time.. Monday for example I made 1.5$ after commissions, which is ridiculous but still it beats losing money :)

What I've learned this week? my risk number for now is 40$-50$ per trade, so when I say I'm up 3R today I mean I'm up 150$, so after playing with this technique for a week I saw that it really helps keeping track of your result.

What I came to realize from the experience of trading the NQ, is that I usually can risk 2 points(which is 40$, but 45.5$ after commissions and sometimes 50$ after slippage), and gain 3.5 points many times after a short period of time, so instead of trying to search for the holy-grail which we all know doesn't exist, so instead of trying to pump 5-10 points out of every 2 points risk trade, I'll try to get out after humble 3.5 points profit, and that way I can come faster to my desired daily profit.

Desired daily profit I said? well for my account anything from 120-150$ will be good, weekly desired profit for now will be as low as 300$ since my capital and experience is so low, it will get higher as I grow as a trader.

Today's action..

I'll put three trades, two winning and one losing:

Winner#1 - Speed!
I came and go quickly, as soon as I saw the downtrend channel break up, I went long, putting a sell order on my desired profit(3.5 points) and let the market work for me ;)

Loser of the day, even with slippage :
The call was right, the the uptrend did break and my short would have work should I take enter it again, but I came 4 minutes earlier, and my stop was too tight..

Winner #2 - It will go higher :
This one I took after I saw that the channel broke upward, I initiated long position with sell order 3.5 point higher, but as the market went, and as the other indices got up, I know NQ have to go higher, so I closed the sell order of 3.5 points higher, and put stop loss on the entry, and let the trade go, as it went by and started losing speed, I put sell order 4.5 points higher, and it got hit :)

Weired day..

2007-11-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

I can't complain, I'm finally up today, +126$, let's try to use the R system, I risk about 45$ each trade, so I'm up 2.8R today.

I'm too tired to post charts, but they aren't that bright anyways, I took two trades today, and missed 10NQ points (200$ on 1 contract) short at 12:15, I wrote in my charts "paper trade short 2210, stop 2212, and it could have been the trade of the day, but I just couldn't pull the trigger, the problem was that I was right twice before (on paper too hehe), and couldn't believe I'm right again, so I just put another "paper trade" but this time it was very good trade :(

Well I'm glad I was profitable today anyways, ahh and a new rule I've got, since my money is running low I'll only risk 2R each day, which means 100$ max after commissions, that's why I quit yesterday when I was at -58.5, I couldn't take another trade because it could lead me to losing more than my daily stop loss.

I'm glad I'm finally obey my rules fully, I think I'll add some money soon so I could trade more than twice each day before I reach my daily stop limit, being under capitalized sux :)

At least when I started day trading I had what I call "tuition money cushion" which means I had a lot of money to throw away on stupid mistakes, and now that I'm smarter I think I'll refill the money.

Out of Sync lately..

2007-11-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well I'm out of sync lately..
Friday I was "trying" ES for the first time, and man is it fast... I managed to lose 179$ in a matter of seconds.. too bad I took a wrong trade..

Today (Monday) I was just out of sync, I'll need to focus for tomorrow if I wanna be profitable.. I took 3 trades today, the first I quit fast since I went to eat, and had a "gut feeling" it was wrong, it turned out to be a 10 points trade, but I quit after getting one point since I didn't believe in the trade:( and the rest of the trades were just silly.. nothing to go on too much, the third was on the right direction but then flipped and I already put my stop on the initial position, so I didn't lose too much money..

PNL today -58.5$, sux, but I'll live :)

Hope to do better tomorrow

-143.5$ Losing day

2007-11-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, So today I've lost money, the reason being was that I was too anxious to prove that I'm right, I entered almost at the same place (just before the collapse) and went long, losing 88.5$ combined, and then when I had the "guts" to go short, my stop was to tight.. so even though my call was right this time, I couldn't join it again because of the limits I've set to myself, which is while having this small account, never risk more than 150$ a day.

I'm Glad I've got to listen to my trading plan, and don't feel bad at all about losing this money. long term I'll still win this game :)

Swings..

2007-10-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

I said I closed some swings before the FEDs, well I've closed all of them! and it turns out that since the FED cut interest they all kept going up, but I have no regrets about closing them.

I'll show you a winner and a loser just so you'd get in proportions how my swing trading looks like, I usually go only long in market condition as this (going up!), I look for strong stocks, that doubled at least the last year, and I try to join them when they make a new higher low.

BIDU +13%(best from my swings hehe I'm just showing off all of the others did like 4-7%):

CPHD -2.73%

Great day! +238$

2007-10-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

Monday was a great day for me, I sold all of my swing positions due to the FED coming soon, the market has gapped up and my stocks did very well, sold most after a nice solid profit.

From now on I'll minimize my "overnight risk" as much as I can, I see that swing trading has given me 1/3 as much profits as day trading futures has given me, so I think that I'll stick to disciplined day trading.

I took only 1 day trade Monday, for a profit of 4 NQ pts (+75.5$ after commissions), I'll post chart later when I'll get my Internet connection home up and running.

Update:

This is the trade I took, I went long NQ at 2217 since I saw that the line I draw (lets call it intra-day resistance) was broken upward, which signal me to get long, I don't think I'd go short on 2214 and lower since it didn't seem like the time for short looking at the other indexes(s&p and djia).

I somehow knew the market will hit the resistance line there at about 2222 so I just sold for a minor profit, but still, profit is a profit :)

I start to see that I'm evolving my own style, or method, w/e you call it, I wait everyday patiently for the best setup I can find, and I take it, usually risking 2 NQ pts to win 4++ points, this is some nice risk reward ratio, and statistically long term the method should work, so some day I'll lose 40$, maybe 50$ after com's and slippage on one contract, but long term I don't need to be right more than 50% of my trades in order to make money (due to risk reward ratio Begin higher than 2:1).

I hope my positive attitude over trading will finally pay off, right now I'm in deep losses due to the initial mistakes of my day trading carrier, and I know that there are a lot of mistakes I shouldn't make again, and this "1 trade a day" method is the most relaxed I can, and doesn't encourage "overtrading", if I'll keep it going well until the end of November I'll start higher my size, and trade more contacts.

Trading is all about discipline, and patience, trading is the best field in the world, you discover yourself everyday, I really love trading, and sure glad my account had enough cushion to land on when I first started day trading and lost Hugh sums of money :)

If my plans continue accordingly I will be able to quit my job about 3 years from now, it might sound far, but I'll only be 26 by then, and hopefully a bit "richer" than today.

Weekly review

2007-10-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well this week I didn't put on new day trades, just followed my swings, didn't have time nor did I have the mental power to trade, so I didn't push myself to trade, today I even had a "signal" that could have gotten me a lot of money, but I missed it and didn't feel like trading, next week I'll come with new powers!

Swings have made me +120$ this week, even after the gap down of VDSI, so I think I'll continue swing trading until I see if it fits my trading style.

Hope you guys had a good week aswell.

Gapping down :(

2007-10-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Quick update:
Today my swing position of VDSI have gapped down today and is now -33.95% only today, this have been my biggest nightmare, usually stocks gap down 10% max, and it is ok since other swings are winners and overall I'm usually up, but this is too much, the last straw? might just be.
I'll be thinking about it this weekend, I hate it when stuff like this happen, after I'm finally up 327$ on my day trade, which used to be harder for me than swing trade, I'm almost break even on the month results because of my swing trading.
Also, I think that I didn't day trade in the last few days because my mind was too busy thinking what should I do with the swing trading..

I think that swing trading is too stressful for me, and today's gap down have shown me what I hate the most about this style of trading, this unexpected stuff are terrible for business, in day trade you don't hold positions over night and therefore you go to sleep with the profit / loss that you had that day, and when you come back to trade a week later it remains the same..

I'll think about it over the weekend, any thoughts from my 2.5 readers?

Nothin' much..

2007-10-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

I didn't trade in the last few days, didn't find the time, today I'll arrive home late, I might try to trade a little when I come back.

I found out that trading require maximum concentration, so I won't trade while I'm at work, and I won't trade if I cannot focus on it, I think that tomorrow will be a nice day to trade.

Taking things easy, this means I don't rush myself into trades I don't feel sure about, I've found out that it's the best way to trade, but I've found it the hard way while losing a lot of money.
Yesterday I looked at my "expectations" xls file, where I fantasize about great results, and my "take is easy" way have conquer it too, I finally not putting too unrealistic results there, for example I want to make only about 300$ this month, sum of money which can be made in a day, right now I'm up 238$ this month, due to the crazy swings actions, if I take for account only day trade I'm up 327.5$.
And still, my expectations are that in about 2-5 years I will be able to quit my job, which means I'll have enough confidence and money in order to trade for a living, now that is a nice goal to aspire for!

Also, I'll try to test if my swing trading is good for my style of trading, I cannot afford myself making money day trade NQ emini and lose money swing trading, I'll give it a go for the next few months, let's see how it develops.

The market is going random!

2007-10-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

First of all I'd like to admit that I don't get the stock market sometimes, today for example I started -200$ on my swings, and after about 25 minutes in I was up already, I'm not sure how can it be but.. I'm happy anyways :)

Today I went to a wedding so I didn't trade, only to come back after hours and see that AAPL is going +11$ after market, so my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if it hit my price target.." and it did, my target was 180$ and the stock is up to 185.9, so I just sold my position as described in the following screen shot:

Weired day today, but I'm happy I've got to earn some bucks after all of the harsh time that the market has put us through.

Weekly review. +55$

2007-10-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

Well nothing to brag about, this week have shown me that when I obey my rules fully I can make money, while I know that 55$ doesn't count actually as money, it's still not losing money.

I think that by limiting my losses I can actually concentrate on maximizing my profits, but for now I'm happy with the results, my stats for the last two weeks is about 40$ a day on 1 contract, doing the same trading lets say 5 contracts, means making 200$ daily, that is a nice figure right there, but I won't increase size until I will be consistent with my profits for about two months, and then I will only increase my size by 1 contract, taking it easy, I cannot afford such a stress.

Some more personal stuff:

I'm about to buy mountain bicycles Saracen Ariel 2, I'm finally about to be cycling again, didn't do it since I was like 12 or so, last time it was in China going to far away villages, seeing how they live, I love exploring cultures..

Friday skydiving was nice, I did the Fourth level successfully, had some fun in the skydive itself but landed so far that they had to come pick me up with an ATV :) other than that I just relaxed a bit, thinking again about the stuff I wanna do with my 20's.. what I mostly want is to use the time that I don't have real commitment, wife, kids and stuff to explore the world, have fun traveling and seeing other cultures etc..

Have a good week.
Tom

Wondering about trading..

2007-10-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been wondering a lot about trading, whether it's possible to have consistent results or not, if it worth it or not, and such.

I see that two of the bloggers (tyro, phileo)quit day trading for a while, and it makes me wonder..

Why do we all drawn into trading? well that's easy, it promises big money with little amount of effort, well the truth being is that it's "enough money" with "a lot of effort", just face it, we all go through a long journey before seeing the real money, lately I've had some consistency and it's still not enough to pay any of my bills, but what my advise would be to gain confidence in your ability to trade, save a lot of money working for a regular paycheck, and only then start trading for a living.

Trading is a style of life, and while it doesn't offer the same challenges as you have at your work, it offer something else, it offers freedom, yes, you've read correctly, freedom, and that is the ability to do your job (in our case trade) from anywhere on the planet, and be able to make as much money as you do at work and more (if you play your cards right), trading doesn't seem like a gamble to me, nor does it seem like something that needs luck, it's just a calculated risk vs calculated profit, you need to love it in order to dedicate a big chunk of your life into it.

I guess trading doesn't suits everybody's lifestyle, and it might be psychologically difficult to handle with days like last Friday (down day for all of the swing traders since the whole market went down), I still believe that if you think positive enough, you will be able to generate a positive results.

+60$ NQ, -230$ swings hehe

2007-10-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well swings positions are not closed at all, but they made me undesireable "unrealized loss" of 230$ today, I guess it wasn't so smart to take positions one day b4 options expiration day.

I call it a good day since I was able to make money in the NQ's. Anyways I'm glad I'm building my Futures day trading confidence, in the long term I can always decide which style suits me more, the reason I left swing trading a few months ago is a days like this, where all of the market is down and I only have Long swings, which are all red for the day, I had it happening to me many times and decided it is better for my health to day trade, not leaving money on the table over night.

But lately I saw that my day trading has developed to such extent that I can also continue swing trade and make some money "on the side".

Today's trade wasn't so exsiting so I will not post a chart, but again it was in one trade, bahh if I would just short at the beginning of the day and cover in the end... ez money lol :) but no one could have guessed the market will act so bazar lately.

Have a greet weekend,

And on the personal side, I've made a good skydiving jump today, I need 4 more to complete my AFF course and be able to jump out of airplanes alone.. (hehe I think all of us traders are a bit of andrenaline junkies, take dino for example surfing them waves : )

+105$ and loving it :)

2007-10-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ok you guys, I finally feel more optimistic about my future as a trader, it doesn't mean I will not take precaution steps to avoid being in a "God-Mode" and thinking my trades will always go my way, but I'm starting to trust myself again, and truly believe in myself, and as they say, "with success come confidence", this time they are right :)

What happened?
A recipe for a good trader - First, lose money doing foolish mistakes, and promise yourself you never do them again, Second, lose even more money doing the same foolish mistakes, over trading, thinking "the next trade will save me for sure" and take trades without proper setup, try to scalp your way up, higher your quantity before you can handle 1 contract in NQ (or in stocks 1000 shares instead of just 100).

And Finally (step 3), after you promise yourself you wouldn't make mistakes again, lose enough money that will make you reflect on things for a month, and tell yourself "It's either I survive in this game, or go bust in less than a month..", and trade well, stop losing money, and even start making some.. just a little thought..

So you're asking what happened? I bet you do.. well I believe I'm in step 3, I finally lost enough money to shake my confidence in the business of day trading, and started actually to become cautious, I start following my trading plan by heart, disconnecting emotion from trading as much as I can, and cut losses so fast that two days ago I lost 70$ on 3 trades (2 losing 1 winning) and just finished the day, I cannot afford myself to lose a lot of money in one day, and that is the mistake I made in the start, I could lose 1000$ in one day (on small account!), now was I stupid or what?

Well enough with the educational part about losing money and stuff, and let's get to the report of the day:

Arriving home late after a relaxed day at work, I got back just in time to "miss" the 14:15 short, well at least I think it was a nice setup breaking the uptrend. I saw it with my own eyes, but wasn't able to take the trade since I still have some self confidence issues..

So I waited like a hawk, stocking his pray, which in this case was the NQ Future, and at 14:54 I decided I saw a setup of a double bottom and that the market will break up and took a long @ 2201, setting my stop at 2199.25 (below latest swing low), soon after I took the trade I had a little "heart attack" when NQ went down to 2200.

But hey, it's only a point down, so I stood my ground which in this case was the stop loss :), after seeing the NQ perform well, driving his friends the ES and YM up I figure it would be nice to set what I call a "stop win" at 2203.25, below the next swing low, and after a while (16 min in the trade) I sold at 2106.5, for humble 5.5 NQ pts, it's not a lot, but hey, it's money! :)

Here is the visual:

Oh and did I say Thank you NQ? ahh no, so 10Q NQ ;)

Have a nice day everyone!

Btw - another "1 trade a day", I think it's enough for me to find one good setup a day..

Things look better +130$

2007-10-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

Woopy! a profitable day with only one trade!

Today I've made only 1 trade since I see that whenever I overtrade I lose money, so I just took 1 trade and it's enough for me for today, I couldn't take the morning breakdown because I was at work, but at least I got to take the reversal.

At 14:26 I took 1 long NQ@2163.75 , which I took since the downtrend was breaking down and the 2nd resistance point of NQ was hit, also I saw that during the last few day NQ couldn't go lower than that point so I figure it is a strong support, soon after dealing with my "greed" issues, I sold my position at 14:42 @ 2170.5, which is a 6.75 NQ pts, give me this "much" points everyday and I'm happy, for now I trade only 1 contract, but in a few years when I'll have enough capital 6.75 pts with 10 contracts will be 1300$, which is almost half of my monthly salary today hehe :)

Notice it's not the end of the trading day just yet, but after a nice "performance" as this I'm finishing my day early, going to eat and stuff,

Have nice day

Yet another losing day -70$

2007-10-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Today I've made some mistakes, but I'm still happy with the result, let me explain..

Ok so the first trade I took was stupid, but it was stopped right after losing 2 NQ pts, and then I made another trade and decided to sell on profit after 2 NQ pts, so were even now right? Nope, commissions make me be on the downside at the beginning of the day.

Then I had spotted a beautiful setup, took it, and it actually ran 4 pts up, and I really wanted to sell 3.5 pts in up but greed have made me not to, I saw that the direction of the trend is changing against me and still waited for the initial stop loss, not good, at one point I wanted to quit at the entry and just be even, but stupidity didn't let me.

As for the rest of the day I had spotted two 5pts NQ moves and froze before taking them, so I decided to just quit the trading day very early, and put myself into a test, when I first day traded I would open my trading platform after saying I wouldn't, but nowadays I do all sort of thing in order to avoid it, yesterday I just went having fun with friends, and today I tested my self control and stayed home, with the computer, and yet didn't open my trading platform, that is why I said up there that I'm still happy with today.

Hope to have a better day tomorrow :)

Monday trades..

2007-10-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

The PnL for today is -8.5 NQ points and here are the mistakes.
First of all I traded at work even thought I have a rule against it, so the trades were stressed, and not nice.

Since I'm new to NQ I didn't put myself auto stop loss like I have 10pts in YM, so after investigating the charts I set myself a rule of risking only 2 NQ points each trade, unless the market volatility grows (happens rarely).

You know what is freefalling? this is what I did with the futures today, just letting them fall on me, it's not good for business, also I traded against the main trend, even thought all markets confirmed that there might be a direction change.

The second trade was stupid, I didn't know how exactly should I risk so I just went on with the trade, and quit too early, it was eventually to be a winner but I sold at it's weakest point.

Note to self - next time you don't have time to trade, just don't.. you need a piece of mind in order to trade.

+5 points at NQ..

2007-10-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

I feel like a changed trader, lately I take my trading in a more mature way, I don't over trade, and I feel my confidence is building with every success I make, and I don't get arrogant after a winning streak, this was learned the hard way, after believing so much in my "good calls" for trades and going without a stop.. so this is what I did today:

At 12:47 I thought the market will continue his rally up, and took a long position:

soon after taking the long position I saw that the market breaks down and figured it would be a nice time to sell my long for a small loss(1.5pts) and join the bears with a short position two minutes later (at the same price that I've sold my long position).

It looked like this:

After that I had enough of real money day trading for the day, and put myself a "paper trade" of long 1 @ 2185.5 at 13:30, I'm happy it was a profitable call, even though it was only on paper, I still happy with my result.

Overall I had a nice day, my swings did nice today and once I'll see some of them I'll put on charts and investigate how I reacted with the positions.

The market did well today

2007-10-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't take any trades today since I freezed over the first ideal trade (1 pm), I didn't take the short like I should have, and then I had regrets and wanted to take long thinking it would continue up, then when I saw that I did 2 mistakes, freezing and then making a false call, I just didn't feel like trading for the rest of the day, so I didn't get in sync with the markets today.

I know it will happen from time to time, and I just need to think positive, it's was for the best that I didn't take long thinking the market would continue his longer term trend, but yeah, I could have made some nice money shorting today, lesson learned, do not hesitate, usually my calls are correct, and if not, so what? losing 50$ for winning 200$ is a good deal., even if I lose 3 times I still get to earn money in the long run.

This is how the first set up that made me freeze look like:

Good trading day today!

2007-10-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to say that today I finally got it right, after a long time of losing many trades for the "market noise" in YM, since I'm well undercapitlized and can't take such a big loss, I finally did the right thing and moved to trade NQ.

I got back from work (Israel.. I come back at about 12:30am your time), trying not to think about work too much, too many strange things happen lately, boss being bitchy etc, so after eating dinner I went to look at my stocks screen, which I'll soon cover (fairly simple), and lurked the futures good.

After watching some cool skydiving videos I saw that ES is about to make a move, and the volumes of NQ confirmed, so after my market compass (ES / YM / NQ) which was ES this time showed me that there is about to be a move, I looked at NQ, and figured I can risk 2 points to see if the market really changed direction in the second half of the day.
I tried buying NQ@2186 @ 13:45 but couldn't get a fill, I wanted this trade badly since ES was really showing it's about to change direction, so I put an order @2187 and got instant fill, had a small heart attack at 14:10 since NQ moved down to 2185.5, but then continued to trend nicely until I had enough and got out at 2192.5 (+5.5), I could of stayed in this trade and make more bucks but I had to go so I just sold as high as I could.

NQ Chart:

ES my humble market Compass of the day:

Swinging again!

2007-10-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

After almost half a year of only day trading and mainly losing money, I'm glad I decided to mix it with swing trading as I think my day trading became more controllable and the less I trade the more quality I find and make more money.

VSEC did great for me today!

I hope my swing trading will improve with time, now that I'm posting I'll share my success and mistakes as I like learning from other people. just so you know I trade des woodruf style, after watching his videos I was inspired by the simplicity he put things on and a week after watching his videos I opened my own trading account :)

Trading lightly lately..

2007-10-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

I had some Internet connectivity problems so I am not trading too much lately, maybe its also a way for me to relax and reflect on the past 4 months that I've been day trading at.

First of to summarize the last 4 months, "I have learned a lot!", I never thought it would be so difficult, I've lost a lot of money, but I call it tuition money, maybe it was too much ,but at least I learned from it, I got to know myself better, what kind of trader am I, I set myself more realistic goals than I did before.

Friday was a nice day, I didn't pull the trigger at the beginning and missed the first breakout here:

But later in the day I did take a trade and got 4.5 NQ points, lately I switch from YM to NQ, I see that YM is too volitile for my small capital, I still follow NQ ES and YM at the same time to confirm my signals, so finally I'm up 90$, hehe long time that I didn't trade.

Have a great week!

Holidays in Israel..

2007-09-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

It's the Holiday season in Israel and we have a Jewish Holiday of the new Hebrew year.
I'm excited and happy to go to vacation from work, It's really about time to relax and enjoy.
Recently I've found the following forum post:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=27286

There are so many good insights there, the guy who wrote it is a great man, and I feel as if he was talking exactly to me, he keep saying "This market will be here long after you and I will be dead, so there is no need to rush in and try to get all your money back in one day", which I totally agree with, in the days where I lost a substantial amount of money I thought I'd get it back all in the same day, and just winded up losing x4 more.

He also talks about the simplicity that trading should be, following a trend and making money while going with the flow, no fancy methods are needed in order to make money, and I totally into it, I don't over-analyze the market, and just tend to swim with the current trend.

I've realized something that happens to me lately is that I don't have time to trade (only about hour or so a day), so I try to get into trades without good signals, which is so bad.. so starting next week I'll go to the GYM before work, and leave enough time for trading so I won't rush into trades.

I really think I've grown as a trader and I'm much more mature now in my trading than I was 2-3 months ago.

I stopped doing mistakes like losing more than my daily stop loss, I don't take trades from other people, I don't trade when I cannot follow the trade, that's the latest improvements in my trading.

Need to improve:
1. Stop buying on spikes or when market gets crazy.
2. Start reading books or so while trading, otherwise I get bored and fall asleep and miss a good trades like yesterday's 50 points move.
3. Stop overtrading, the less amount of trades is the best usually.
4. Take time from trade to trade, otherwise you just take impulsive and bad trades.

Hope to get back on my feet soon,
Have a great week!
And to the Jewish folks reading my blog:
Shana Tova !

Busy month..

2007-09-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

I moved apartment, changed place at work, rethink my life, and traded only 10 days of the month.
I think I'll try to make more time for trading, since I've finally started trading with discipline, and that is of course the most important thing in the world of trading.
I haven't got much to say thought, I think that being in this field of day trading 3 months have taught me a lot, and I am finally starting to see the light in the end of the tunnel.

Setting life goals, that is what important, and my goal for the next two years is to master the art of day trading so much that I could trade from anywhere on the planet, and have myself an endless "vacation", travel all over the world, see all the nice places I wanna see, and basically just have fun while I live..
In two weeks I'm going to skydiving course, which will be so much fun, I just need to overcome my fear of heights and it'll be good :)

As for my trading, it's ok, I put myself rules, I start following them, and now only statistic will tell if I'll make money in the long run or not, I decided to stop trying to reach impossible goals, and just take day trading a day at a time, believing that the odds(statistic) is with me, and basically have faith.
I'm tried sick of saying "today I must make 200$!!", this is not the way to do it, I'm not dependent on my trading for a living just yet, so I don't really have to make the money, I release the pressure of seeking "fast gains", and put myself a goal to really learn the art of day trading, only when I make it, I will think of quitting my job and start day trading for a living from everyplace with Internet connection on earth.

Have a nice week,

Slowly but surely..

2007-08-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to focus on quality now, and not on quantity, therefore I'm taking less amount of trades, to make sure I'm not overtrading, also I'm happy with last Friday, which I stopped exactly at my stop point and lost money that day, I'm even more happy for that than I am happy for ending up with profits today and Thursday.

Let me explain why, in winning days, you are happy for being profitable, and it makes your account grow, but on winning days, usually what happens is that I look back at my big winning days thinking I'm going GOD MODE, and then I say to myself "nah.. I can't possibly lose money", and then a chain reaction happens that triggers me to just overtrade, taking every stupid setup I can think of, and then I lose x5 as much as I intended to lose, therefore I glad more for having a tight losing day, than a profitable day.

As for today, I made some money, and then noticed that the range between the high and low in the 15 minute chart is just too big for me, 40 points just going sideways is too much for my tight 10 points stop loss (YM), so after having my small share of profit, I just left the markets and watched a movie. I think that it's the smartest move I've don't in weeks, after I've had the nice winning streak week (triggering me going on "GOD MODE"), I kept thinking I was right all the time, and could just trade every market condition, well let's face it, I can't, and after realizing that, I decided to just earn my money day by day.

Today I've followed my plan well, made only 4 trades and finished profitable, I hope it's the beginning of a new era :)