newbies number.

fgp

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A trading journal with EOD , EOW result showing.
Im not selling anything nor trying to help others.
I just want to see how I trade and be honest about it by showing real results.
 
balance: 30,771.60

today was a very lucky day.
 

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what a day, Thought I finished trading around lunch time. then BAM! market woke up with volatility. Took more chances than yesterday. I will have to review all of the trades but I dont think any of them was out of my plan. Just taking a chance with limited risk.

I thought couple hundred dollars a day was great when I started. But this 2days has gotten me much more. again, I was very lucky today.

note. net 41- was GS option sale that I bought last week at 3.01 so on that trade net should be 107.99.
so todays total net incl cmm should be:1186.56



today +1481.56( 300 Gs option cost back)+30771.60= cash balance: 32253.16

Never had days like this...Am I just getting lucky for last 2 days or just maybe I have something to do with it? I feel a little nervous becuase I am not used to this feeling. I will try to just concentrate on tomorrows trading for now and try to forget about results.
 
forgot to upload.
 

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OK. I am done for today. I have -365 showing on my IB page and I cant help myself keep thinking about getting it back. and not to mention todays trading was just horrible.
I started out good in the morning. Emotions was in check and all the work was done prior to the opening. I had a couple of winners and losers and was ahead +300 around 10:30. After 2 good days I must have felt the trading was easy because I was pulling the trigger left and right. When sp dropped suddenly around 11:30 I found myself getting sucked into trades. I was not going to trade after 11AM, but I seem like I forgot all of rule. During that exciting period, I have managed to make some mistakes. I went long 2000 contracts instead of 1000 and traded non-set up thinking I can make money on fast down side. while all of this was happening, I can see myself again, getting sucked into gambling high. and finally, when I found myself trying to alter set risk to give a losing trade more room, I got the $#$# out of the position and stoped trading.

So many days, weeks and years of studying and working hard saving as much as I can to achieve this dream of mine to become fulltime daytrader and financially free. I CAN NOT make it come true if my discipline is this weak. I screwed up HUGE today.

1. You have let yourself go into gambling mode which gives high, excitement, and pleasure instead of being calm, collective and react to market set ups.

2.You got cocky coming from 2large wining days. thinking this is easy.

3.You have forced into trades so you can have a position to make money.

4.You were thinking about altering stops to give a losing trade more room.

5.You were keep looking at P&L and looking for stocks to get today to break even.


more thoughts later. time to hit the gym and get this anger out.
 

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I screwed up HUGE today.

1. You have let yourself go into gambling mode which gives high, excitement, and pleasure instead of being calm, collective and react to market set ups.

2.You got cocky coming from 2large wining days. thinking this is easy.

3.You have forced into trades so you can have a position to make money.

4.You were thinking about altering stops to give a losing trade more room.

5.You were keep looking at P&L and looking for stocks to get today to break even.

Good self analysis and these are ALL things EVERY trader has had to deal with. If you recognise these than that is half the battle. If only I had realised these were mistakes I was making a long time ago sooner I maybe wouldn't have lost so much ;)
 
MaxGriddy. I have been involved with trading(mostly futures and optiopns) since 2000.

sangfroidFX. Thanks for your comment. I am winning the other half of the battle. I am determined to do so more than ever.

Took a cold shower after hitting some hard weight, Started to go over trades and some of them made me laugh. "How in the hell did I get into this thing?" After sorting some trades, printing out charts, I felt better and calm. So I began afternoon prep. I decided to take just a few chance in this evening and wait for proper set ups to come to me. If I have to grade my trading performances in this afternoon, it was near perfect. I have placed orders when I was supposed to, controlled risk like a pro, got out of positions without hesitation. And most important, I had no expactations either good or bad during trades. score didnt change much but I think I am begining to understand how to trade......and I am not talking about technical stuff.

-99.13 = 32154.03
 

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2 big loser today for -300 and -428. it moved against the position so strong and fast , I have gotten out at horrible price. I will have to reduce risk even more for these fast and furious type stocks. thanks to that trade, one point I was down more than 1k. Suprisingly, I was just doing fine. so I kept on trading.


-96.84=32057.19
 

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fgp;1115426. . . it moved against the position so strong and fast said:
I will have to reduce risk even more for these fast and furious type stocks.[/U] thanks to that trade, one point I was down more than 1k.
Hi fgp,
It's essential that you monitor an instrumemt's volatility, IMO, especially if you're day trading different equities. This will govern the position of your stop and, in turn, the size of your position. If you can get that right and reduce the size of your losing trades without affecting the profits on the winning ones - you should do well. If you want to know how to do this in detail, read Trader333's article: Position Sizing as an Approach to Risk Management

When I day traded US equities full time, I made many mistakes and, certainly, I struggled to get beyond break even. However, one thing I did well was to factor in the volatility in the way I describe and I have no doubt whatsoever that if I hadn't done that, my account would have been completely decimated.

On a separate note, I notice that the two days where you did well, your commissions were a good deal lower than the days that were negative. This tends to be indicative of either over-trading or failing to let the profitable positions run by exiting too soon. I don't know enough about what you're doing to comment but, if I was in your shoes, I'd certainly be looking at the comm's and actively looking at ways to reduce them. It looks like your with IB - who are great for equities, but not the cheapest when it comes to futures.
Tim.
 
Thank you for your input and advice, Tim.
I am looking into them since last night. I made couple of adjustment on my trading. we will see hoe it goes today.
 
What can i say, what can I say, what can i say......
horrific day. blood all over. overtraded? yes. Thought having more availiable chart on my screen would produce much defined entrys. Instead, I was all over the place. you live and learn but this was just STUPID.....
So frustrating....why cant I make this work?

anyway heres todays result by an idiot.

-1957.75=30099.44 fantastic huh?:mad:

for the week: +1175.71

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
 

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Hi fgp,
In spite of yesterday's loss, you've ended the week in profit - so don't be too hard on yourself!

In order for other members to provide feedback that will help you move forward, you'll need to supply more details about your practice. Ideally, some charts of the stocks traded, marked up with entry and exits and, most importantly, the reasons for taking each trade. The fact that you've ended up in profit for the week in spite of some nasty losses suggests to me that - probably - you're doing a lot that's right. You've already identified over trading as an issue and, judging by its somewhat erratic nature, my guess (and it is only a guess) is that you have other discipline issues as well. It might be the case that your basic methodology is just fine, but it's the lack of discipline thats causing the problem. As I say, without more details about how you trade, all of the above is pure conjecture.
Tim.

PS. Looking at your PnL's over the week, there are 6 trades in which you incurred losses of over $300. Two or three are over $500. If you set a max stop on each trade of, say -$300, how would this have affected the other trades? If you go through every trade taken over the whole week, look to see where the optimum place is to have your stop to cut the losers as early as possible while still giving the the winning trades sufficient wiggle room early on. Presumably, you hang on to the losers because your analysis indicates that the price will move in the intended direction. Could you not look at ways to get out MUCH sooner for a (relatively) small loss and re-enter again at a more favourable price?
 
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Thanks for ur time, Tim.

For your P.S. I only had 2 larger than 300 loss on single trades. rest of them was occurred moving in and out of positions. In normal, I trade with 1000 but higher the potential risk I cut that in half. My first target is making 5000 bringing account up to 35000. by risking less than 1% per trade(having 30k that is 300 per trade) however, I have violated that number last week due to sudden market move and when I had to cover at market, the price was just horrible. When the trade went against me I did get out without hesitation.One thing I did well was keep risk limit in line . Out of the line would be overtrading.

As I am going over trades, most of them looks just fine. There was a few forced trades but most of them, if it re-appears, I would enter. the problem was trying to over achieve my limit. opening up 4 positions was just a deadly stupid mistake. As the thread title, I do consider myself a newbie because I havent hade much of daytrading stocks experience. I am still learning and I can guarantee you next week will be totaly different than last 3 days of this weeks trading.

There is a reason why I dont post charts here because it has been done to death. We are all here for one thing. To make money. period. At least I know I am. I could talk about theorise and complex option strategy , elliot wave , stuff I read from trading books or things that happened last 10yrs in market to make myself look much more sophisticated, smart and experienced. But I know it dont mean a thing to my P/L. If I dont make money as a trader, I am a newbie at best. that is why I choose to post just P/L. In past, I was be able to built 10k account to good 6figure territory couple of time but it ended with balance going to 0. and a few more times, it just went under not far after I re-funded account. There are some great stories but I will share with you later since I might need some music effects from those 4 guys from sinking titanic.:D

My style of trading is very similar to mr.charts. Although I didnt take his course and I dont look at level2, I read news and scan stocks to come up with watch list and find a good reason(such as momentum, support.resistance, pattern etc) to enter trades.I think it is nice of him to share one of his strategy and talk about it on open forum. I thank him for that. And I have learned good stuff reading his forum.

Sorry I went long here. Thank again, Tim. for looking and sharing your thought. You are right about discipline part. Thats an area I have to work on. Have a great weekend.
 
ok. Todays trading. I did ok. reduced risk. Got in and out without problems.With BP,I tried 5times and got stoped out 4timesand 1 small winner(-536.47). adding on the cost+loss. on other hand I made 7 round trips on VALE(4wins 1 be and 2 small loss) gain amout of 502.04.
Big winner today was POZN. 3 round trips and 833.15 gain total. All others were small risk.
Just looking at BP chart to see how could i have traded differently.


starting balance:30099.44
Todays net: 359.05
New balance: 30458.49
 

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There is a reason why I dont post charts here because it has been done to death. We are all here for one thing. To make money. period. At least I know I am. I could talk about theorise and complex option strategy , elliot wave , stuff I read from trading books or things that happened last 10yrs in market to make myself look much more sophisticated, smart and experienced. But I know it dont mean a thing to my P/L. If I dont make money as a trader, I am a newbie at best. that is why I choose to post just P/L. In past, I was be able to built 10k account to good 6figure territory couple of time but it ended with balance going to 0. and a few more times, it just went under not far after I re-funded account. There are some great stories but I will share with you later since I might need some music effects from those 4 guys from sinking titanic.:D
Hi fgp,
Glad you had a better day yesterday!

This is your journal and, as such, you're free to post what you want. If you are not particularly interested in getting feedback from other members - then carry on as you are. Perhaps you're happy for your thread to be something of a soliloquy? Although, if that's the case, I wonder what the point of thread on a public forum like this is. However, assuming you want feedback, you'll need to provide more details for people to go on besides your PnL statements. That's the value of annotated charts and why they will (I hope!) continue to be 'done to death'. In themselves, statements are pretty meaningless to anyone other than you. People can deduce one or two general observations from them, like I've done, but that's about as far as it goes.

In your last post you wrote: "Just looking at BP chart to see how could I have traded differently." If you provided a chart showing your entry and exit with a note as to why you took the trade, then I'm sure people would be happy to tell you how they would have traded it. At the very least, this would be of interest to you (I would have thought anyway) and may even provide real insight and help you in the future.
;)
Tim.
 
Hi, Tim

The main reason I started online journey is to help myself. I am forced to reveal my daily P/L. Gooddays are fun to share but bad ones....I admit that I hesitate to post. I am not a fulltime trader nor can call myself a good trader yet. There are many levels in my trading plan and I am currently in tutorial level2:).

I always wanted to see what full time traders p/l looks like for a week, a month and a year. but people I asked in the past declined to show. but dont blame them. I mean who wants to show their account p/l to a stranger? So, I decided to do it myself. When I make it, this journal will be the hard "PROOF" of all wonderers like me....

I thank you for your kind thoughts. By sharing chart, I can learn from feedbacks. I will look into it.


starting balance:30458.49
Todays net: 553.24
New balance: 31011.73
 

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Started off great, but I lost focus in afternoon.

the stock was in mr.charts thread. ITMN. it was in my list in mornings prep as well. While he gotten out almost at high of that move, I got half odd around RD and half at low break candles(this strategy was what mr.charts shares in his thread.)

starting balance:31011.73
Todays net: 362.24
New balance: 31373.97
 

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During that mini crash, IB was acting up and connection was very slow so I didnt trade after 2:50. I got lucky couple position. as market went down, so did the stock I was in short.

starting balance: 31373.97
Todays net: 1268.85
New balance: 32642.82
 

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What the hell is with friday? I started off good. looking at charts, waiting for set ups. I made a few trade and ahead couple of hundred bucks. and here comes AIG got stoped out and wiped the morning profit out and into minus zone. After that, I have made 2 more round trips of AIG second with 1000shares and last with 500 shares. and Both got stoped out. And then, I knew I wasnt thinking clear but managed to trade two more round trip.
All of sudden, I remember last friday when I traded horrible. Here I was doing exactly the samething I did on that day. Right after I realized what was going on, I immediately closed the Charting software. I am finished for today.

Yesterday afternoon, I was thinking about how well I did this week, especially yesterday banking 1200bucks and staying out of market during crazytime. Those thinking lead me to say tomyself "maybe I have made it, I mean I am keep making money, I never had negative day for this week" and I was excited about writing to this journal that I did not have any losing day this week. Perhaps that made me careless....thinking this is easy.....again

We all read "trading in the zone" or "come to my trading room" and other soft head stuff about trading. Understanding the concept is the easy part. Following it to all the way, for me is harder part. At least I have cut my day short after identifying the problem. I will think about what I can do to eliminate this.


"Just when I thought I was out, They pull me back in" :)

starting balance: 32642.82
Todays net: -638.48
New balance: 31959.34

for the week(im not posting image becuse its showing wrong numbers.)
start: 30099.44
end: 31959.34
net: 1859.90

Have a great weekends!
 

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