Daily Journal -1.5R

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

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

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

Hope you had a better day than I did,
Tomer

1 Chart..

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

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

LDG 22 May:

Daily Journal -3.2R

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Journal +4.85R

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

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

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

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

Have a good day,
Tomer

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..

14 May Charts JASO, YGE

Charts Charts Charts...

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

JASO -Fast phase trade that became boring :





YGE - Another dummy trade:


I also traded ESLR, nothing special there..

Daily Journal -106$

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a nice day,
Tomer

ATPG and YHOO 8th May

ATPG:

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

Entry and stop are in the graph himself:

YHOO:

What is the setup? - Whole number breakout

Target and stop in the graph himself:

Daily Journal +5.5$

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

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

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

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

Have a nice weekend !

Daily Journal +66$

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

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

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

Charts will be upped later today,

Daily Journal +34.5$

Hi all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

ERES Trade:

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

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

Have a nice day,

Tomer