Blogging and more..

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

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

Need Improvement.

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Journal +2.8R

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

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

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

Good day and good luck trading,
Tomer

Charts!

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



Here are two good charts from Friday 16th May:

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

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






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

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



And ACH - Winner of the day:



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

Daily Journal +3.4R

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

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

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

Gotta go,
Hope you guys had a good day,

Tomer

Daily Journal +2.25R

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

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

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

I will post charts later, promise!

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

Daily Journal +4.1R

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

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

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

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

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

Hope you guys have a good day yourself.

Daily Review

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

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

HUN - The first loser of the day:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Journal +0.5R

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

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

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

Take care and good luck trading.

Daily Journal -106$

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a nice day,
Tomer

Daily Journal +66$

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

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

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

Charts will be upped later today,

Blogging..

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.

Revelation

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..

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..

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..

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$

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.

-87$ one of these days..

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..

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?

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..