Another one

Otig

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Hi, I'm here to improve my trading skills by keeping this journal as I believe it's a good way to improve everything. I've started to trade about 6 months ago, but I had a full time job in Bay Area as an IT guy, so didn't have enough time to learn trading. I've started with ETF's like UGAZ/DGAZ, was profitable until it dropped from $60 to $20. Of course I didn't sell anything, I expected it to go up but as I know already it's not going to happen when the winter is ended. I still keep UGAZ and hope that I will return my money this winter, when\if the price will come back, but I understand everything I did before wasn't really trading, because the only "indicators" I used is support\resistance. While working at my job, I found few people who trade and traded long time ago, so I had an opportunity to ask them questions and make sure that the whole market is not just a big scam. After I realized that it's real to make money trading stocks and any other securities, I've made a decision that I need to quit my job and start to trade. Since I'm an immigrant, I've moved temporarily back to my country where it's much cheaper to live and started to trade. I've been trading only for about 2 months already, have read about 4 books, watch YouTube videos of different traders and try to find any information that can help me to trade.

At the beginning I couldn't understand what to do at all. I've configured my soft, I made a watch list, had 6 charts that was looking during trading time, but it made everything more difficult because I couldn't focus on one thing. But after time your eyes slowly catch something and you see that there are repetitive behavior. I can't say that I have my strategy already, I don't, but I have few "situations" that I try to test.

For now I try to handle my emotions, because I just started to trade with real money last week, and lost about 70% of each position. I've started to trade options, first day it was BA, I've shorted and could make 10% in 10-20 seconds, but was too greedy to sell because expected it go deeper. After few moments it began to go up, and I just was looking how I lose my money, I just couldn't close the position because didn't want to lose even $1, I was sure eventually the price will go down, and in fact I was right, but it happened later than I expected. It happened next day, and it dropped even lower, so potentially I could make a very profitable trade IF the price of options didn't decrease every day, because of Time Value, of course I didn't know about that, so I've paid about 70% for that mistake.

Emotionally of course I wasn't that good, but it took me only few days to use same amount of money for another trade. I kind of had my plan, it was APPL stock, I was looking it from the beginning, at the moment where I decided to short it, believe me or not, my broker just didn't let me make that trade because the website was lagging, and after 3-4 seconds the stock just literally tumbled down, if my broker let me short that position I would make 100% in about 30-60 seconds and could return all my loses from the previous trade. Of course I was upset but still wanted to return my money, that is where I started to make mistakes again. I saw that the stock went down along with the whole market (SPY) so it started to go back up, since I didn't use my brain anymore, I've shorted it just hoping that it will go down again. It went little bit and stayed there for a long time, without huge volume, so I SHOULD HAVE closed that trade because I didn't have idea where it is going to go, it was pure gambling. So rather than taking small profit I decided to wait, and it started to go up, after I started to see "-" before my earnings, I couldn't stop the position again. Long story short, I've lost about 90% of those 2 contracts, because when I see that I lost for example more that 20% already, I feel like either I wait until it goes back to my price or I don't care and ready to loose everything. When it started to go up, I even made one more movement, I bought 1 contract for long (call), so I can somehow take back some of my loses if it will go against my short (put). It could be even worse mistake, but luckily I made about 40% with that call so at least I didn't blow up my account.

Okay I've texted a lot already, so I need to focus on few goals for the next week:

1. Train myself to close position if it goes against me without any hesitation, just do it right away.
2. Don't try to be a millionaire making one trade, remember that it's a game about consistency and discipline.
3. Stop trading if I feel that emotions control me.
4. Find my setup, by testing few already existed.

1.
My second otpions trade.jpg

2.
First option trade.jpg
 
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I had few trades today, but will be focused only on one, with real money.

Even though I've just made a journal yesterday and talked about my mistakes, but repeated them again. I will post a chart with explanations and my position, but I need to explain what happened again. I made a trade without a strong setup, and I'd held it too long. I had an opportunity to sell it and take my money back, even could win about 3%, but since I had one "pattern" in my head I decided to wait until it will show up, but the price slowly started to go up and I waited until I lost 17%. The "interesting" thing, this is my second trade where the price went to 6 months high! I just can't believe that, in fact today it went even 1 year high (APPL) and didn't want to stop.

One of the reasons why I'd held my option that long is because since the price came to the 1 year high, I was sure it's going to go down right away. According to charts usually it happens this way, the only problem is, maybe it happens next day or during the week, this is something I need to learn and pay attention. So I couldn't understand how is it possible that there is such a powerful buy pressure, somewhere inside of me I believe that the price can go down much easier than up, so shorting something is easier for me.

Anyway, I feel like the more I learn and trade, the less I understand. Or it's just because there is a difference between Paper Trading and trading real money, because with Paper Trading my statistic is much better, with real money it's disaster. Those three trades show that I'm worst trader. I know all of the rules never lose more than 1-5% of your position, risk management, stop losses and etc, but when I start to trade, I just ignore all of them. Btw, while texting this text, APPL just goes down after it touched another high of the year and day, and goes right to my desired price. I told myself do not regret when\if it will happen, because it's basically gambling to expect such things, it could happen and could not happen.

So, I need to keep Paper Trading, it was too early to start buy options, even though I don't regret too much because it was a good lesson. When you lose your own money, you want to find the reason, to understand how does it work and try to win it. When I Paper Trade, I don't really care whether I lose or make money.

So my plan for now:

1. Still learn how to sell right away when I see it doesn't go the way I expected.
2. Learn patterns and analyze charts, until I will find something.

Here is my trade.
APPL trade 10.07.19.jpg
 
Nice start, just keep at it. For me paper trading was never interesting because the hardest part I believe with trading is managing your risk which is really your emotions. Now that TD offers $0 trades (although you are doing some options stuff as well) it might be worth just practicing with $1k. Even if you fully lost it the lessons may still be worth it. Just a thought.

Either way love the hustle. Best of luck!
 
Nice start, just keep at it. For me paper trading was never interesting because the hardest part I believe with trading is managing your risk which is really your emotions. Now that TD offers $0 trades (although you are doing some options stuff as well) it might be worth just practicing with $1k. Even if you fully lost it the lessons may still be worth it. Just a thought.

Either way love the hustle. Best of luck!

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the advice, I probably will fund my account tomorrow it's a good point, just wanted to wait few weeks after they announced that $0 commission because I was afraid it is some kind of trap, that they will add delay for our trades or will start to charge us monthly fees or whatever.

Good luck with your trades as well.
 
It's just a joke, but I bought an option today and when wanted to sell it for taking my profits, I figured out that I've made 3 trades during this week and can't make a day trade. I feel like until I will make all of the stupid mistakes and learn something, I will lose all my money :D

Anyway, if forget about PDT, that trade was almost pure gambling so it was bad either way, even if I didn't trade 3 times and made some profits. It's better to lose but trading your setup, than making money by gambling.

One of the rules I need to be focused is:

1. Don't trade if there is no setup. Don't try to trade million times per day, if I don't see any setups it's better do not trade during the day at all, rather than gambling every 5 minutes.

I'm ready to lose all the money of that trade again, and this is just disaster... Because as we know premium price of the option consists of Time Value, so tomorrow my option can worth $0, even if the price will be almost the same, I went through that mistake already. The only "good" thing is, at the end of the day the price dropped down, so if it will not GAP up at the pre-market tomorrow, I will be able to save some money. If it will go down for only $1 I guess I will even make some money, but I'm not sure about that, I still don't know how exactly price of the option works.

I also funded my TD Ameritrade real account (I've been using another broker for trading, ToS was only for the chart and Paper Trading), so I will probably slowly start to trade those money with some safe and small positions.

The only question I have, if anybody read me, can I use several brokers in order to trade more than 3 times per week? For example can I trade 3 times with TD Ameritrade and 3 times with my current broker? Do they have general or separate from each other statistics?

APPL option 10.9.jpg
 
........................

The only question I have, if anybody read me, can I use several brokers in order to trade more than 3 times per week? For example can I trade 3 times with TD Ameritrade and 3 times with my current broker? Do they have general or separate from each other statistics?


Not quite sure what your question is aimed at:

Are you asking whether...

a).... you can trade more than 3 times per week by using different brokers? - answer: yes.

b) .....you can open several accounts with different brokers? - answer: yes.

c) .....brokers have some kind of central registry? answer: no

As a case in point I currently use 3 different accounts for different purposes and when I'm trading full time I trade a looooot more than 3 times per week. If you have a look at the various different threads you'll see that there are short term/scalpers trading dozens of times per day.

BTW, just in case you haven't already done this - it's well worth while starting at the very beginning with T2W and working your way through the threads designed to help beginners - lots of good material in the articles as well.

удачі та щасливого навчання! :p
 
Not quite sure what your question is aimed at:

Are you asking whether...

a).... you can trade more than 3 times per week by using different brokers? - answer: yes.

b) .....you can open several accounts with different brokers? - answer: yes.

c) .....brokers have some kind of central registry? answer: no

As a case in point I currently use 3 different accounts for different purposes and when I'm trading full time I trade a looooot more than 3 times per week. If you have a look at the various different threads you'll see that there are short term/scalpers trading dozens of times per day.

BTW, just in case you haven't already done this - it's well worth while starting at the very beginning with T2W and working your way through the threads designed to help beginners - lots of good material in the articles as well.

удачі та щасливого навчання! :p

I think he is asking about PDT
In which case the number of brokers you are using during the week can actually work against you, as they would certainly all be considered different trades. however 3 times per week isn't the criteria for PDT, its 4 or more within a 5 day period
so can you trade more than 3, yes, is it more than 4 no not if its within the same day and the number of brokers wont help you around it.
thats my understanding of PDT though, it might be worth double checking
 
I think he is asking about PDT
In which case the number of brokers you are using during the week can actually work against you, as they would certainly all be considered different trades. however 3 times per week isn't the criteria for PDT, its 4 or more within a 5 day period
so can you trade more than 3, yes, is it more than 4 no not if its within the same day and the number of brokers wont help you around it.
thats my understanding of PDT though, it might be worth double checking

Hmmm. I got that wrong then.

I was under the impression that it is indeed account specific in that if you have the moolah to conform to the financial constraints then you are in compliance no matter how many accounts you run.
 
Aksherly, I think I was right first time. See attachment from the SEC on Day Trading rules from which this quote is taken:

"Each day trading account is required to meet the $25,000 requirement independently, using only the financial resources available in that account."

 
Aksherly, I think I was right first time. See attachment from the SEC on Day Trading rules from which this quote is taken:

"Each day trading account is required to meet the $25,000 requirement independently, using only the financial resources available in that account."


thats the requirement to hold the account, a broker can class you as PDT after just one trade if he suspects you are a day trader.
your quote doesn't specifically state from which accounts the trades take place.
again, im happy to be wrong, but its worth someone chipping in who is from the US and day trades
i wouldn't be taking my advice on this subject, but i dont think the article is specifically addressing the question
 
Hi guys, I think I've found the answer, most people say it works. If I have two accounts with different brokers I can trade 3 times with each of them, so 6 times per week(3 brokers = 9 times...) So it's a good news.
Bad news, I don't have that much money on my first account already, so probably these days/weeks I will practice more with Paper Trading, and only after that will start to use real trades again, I need to find a setup, don't want to gamble.

cantagril, thanks for the advice with forum's materials, I've started to read articles, but it's difficult now to find information because the forum is huge and I'm kind of lost, slowly I will get use to it. And you made me smile using my language :)

My plan now is to learn charts and specifically learn GAPs, since I'm limited by PDT I need to try trading big moves in order to make some money.

Today I've caught the GAP:


APPL option 10.10.jpg
 
I forgot to post my trades from last two days, but nothing extraordinary happened. I learn GAPs, and also try to learn basic fundamental things like liquidity, cash flow, capitalization... I'm still lost, don't know what exactly to learn because there is no strict guide and also because there are millions of different strategies out there. So I probably waste a lot of time for a useless knowledge regarding profitable trading, but I feel like I still need to know basics, it's just interesting.

I subscribed to one guy, he posts kind of signals every day, but it has its own strategy. He says for example price 385 target 387, price 383 target 380. The strategy is, we should check 5 min chart, if a candle closes at specified price and trend is continuing, it's a strong sign to go long or short. I've tested this strategy today, because was skeptical before, and I've made really good trades, 3 out of 4, but the one that I missed eventually went to the way he predicted so maybe it was my mistake of buying too early. The reason I mention that is not because I want to be that another lazy guy who just wants to find a guru who will tell him where to buy and make millions. My strategy is to analyze at least last 10 days of his prediction, to see what is the percentage of the win, because he provides about 10-15 stocks and if the percentage will be decent enough, I will try to analyse how does he do it, what exactly makes him feel the market that well. Basically I will just compare his target prices with previous days, look at support\resistance and etc.

For now honestly it more looks like that:

If the price of the stock is $10, he says that if it will be $12 it's a sign to buy and target is $13, if the price goes down to $8 it's a sign to short with a target $7. The trick about 5 min candles could be simple, it just shows trend, if the price goes down that confident during 5 minutes and another candle goes to the same direction, you can almost be sure it's serious about its intentions and it will go this way for a while.
I can be mistaken with this theory and most probably I'm, but I will keep it in mind until I will fund out how he does it ( in case if statistics of wins will be good of course).

So my plan is to think like him and to find the way he see the chart, I'm not going to sit and wait his predictions the whole my life. I think this is something most traders have difficulties with at the beginning, to start understand chart and make our own strategy. I feel like now I can sit the whole day looking at the chart, but in fact I don't understand anything, can't interpret movements. In Russian we say "I look into a book, and see a fig", that's what I feel now.

The only thing that I can play around is GAP, if it occurs while I'm watching a chart, I can trade it pretty successfully. But I still need to learn them, I want to understand the reason they occur (like short squeeze), how to trade them and what's next going to happen.
 
Last week I was focused on different types of GAPs, but only after few days I already forgot difference between them, so need to review it. Also started to read some chart basics: consolidation, wedges, retracement, reverse and etc.

I don't spend enough time on trading and learning this week so the result is respective.

Posting trades of 10.22:

APPL option 10.21.19.jpgBA option 10.21.19.jpgNFLX option 10.21.19.jpg
 
Yesterday was only one trade because I was using real money so didn't want to take big risks. The trade was small and fast, I've made only 3%. The thing I didn't understand is fees, TD still charges us at least for trading options, so that free stock trading doesn't matter for me. But it doesn't bother, the real goal is to learn how to trade, once it will be achieved all those fees will be nothing comparing to earnings.

10.24.19
SPY option 10.24.19.jpg
 
Friday's trade wasn't profitable for me, I'd lost 7%. My strategy didn't work, but a good thing is I was able to sell right away once I noticed the price reversed. About emotions, I felt not good, like I don't understand anything, I risk too much at the beginning, rather than just trading stock I buy options, the reason is my internal desire to make a lot of money faster, which is mistake. I stop doing that and start to trade only stocks. It doesn't matter how much money I will make now, the only thing that matter is chart, I should be able to understand it and win trades. Only after that I should think about money.
Today I feel okay, emotionally forgot about the lose and ready to trade. The only thing is, I'm still lost, I understand that I don't have any strategy and have no idea how to analyse a chart, I just see bunch of candles, with support and resistance that don't work that obviously like other people say. In fact, I feel like those levels just a bait of banks and big guys, so I'm not sure it's a good idea to rely on them. Or at least not just blindly react on all of them, several other indicators should "prove" that the trade can be a win.

10.25.19
BA option 10.25.19.jpg
 
Still feeding the market, was lost about 30% today. FOMO was my mistake today, completely stupid trade.

11.12.19
TSLA option 11.12.19.jpg
 
Up 10% today, but don't deserve it. I made a terrible trade again, another FOMO, again bought right under resistance. After 100 times hopefully I will get the lesson that I need to control myself and trade only with a clear strategy. I analysed the trade at the screenshot already but want to add something here.

I bought because of FOMO and under resistance, the basic reason is because I looked at 5 min chart and saw the uptrend confirmation on second green candle, that is the only "indicator" I used, I didn't pay attention that it's resistance level already. Once the market rolled up, I kept the option for a long time again, so basically I was ready to take a big lose again.

How I needed to trade. When ROKU started to go up without any retracement, I understood that this is the play. Once it broke resistance, and after big move stopped for a while I saw a bullish flag and was sure it will go up. So the trade I needed to jump is either resistance break out, or after that first consolidation.

I also saw how Disney went up, during about 30 min it went up from 137 to 144, the reason is very strong news, it got 20+ million subscription today, but I was afraid to jump into the game because I didn't know when it's going to stop. In fact it never stopped, at the end of the day it closed 149, and probably slowly it will go up and up for a long term, but since I'm not experienced trader I didn't know that a stock can go up that confident. And also, I was already afraid of FOMO, so didn't want to make that mistake twice a day.

Now I can see how emotions important in trading, when you are greedy you make stupid trade and lose, when you are afraid you miss good opportunities. Every trade should be like the first one, need to forget what happened before and be focused on what is happening right now.

The last thing I can say, my mood was up when I made some money, even though it was a stupid trade. Need to learn more, so I can make more green days and motive myself to trade more. Because when you mostly do red days, all the motivation disappears, you start to thing that you are stupid and the whole market is just a big scam or something like that. But the only reason I trade terrible at the time is ME, I don't spend enough time to practice, learn and analyse.

I also started to watch some guys who trade online, it helps, first of all because he can show something I don't see and also I'm kind of a member of a community, it motivates to trade more, because at the moment it's mentally difficult to trade alone.

11.13.19
ROKU option 11.13.19.jpg
 
Few more notes:

When the market is choppy, don't hold a stock. Either don't trade, or get out fast, the plan should be scalping, because a stock is too unpredictable so trading becomes gambling.

When a stock consistently makes new highs throughout the day, don't try to catch the whole way from down to top, trade only breakouts. An example from today's AAPL stock is attached.

APPL.jpg
 
First trade was with SHOP, I made about 12% but it was kind of gambling, my setup was too weak. Needed to stop trading after that, but of course FOMO again played a bad joke with me so I've jumped in DIS and lost all the position(100%), even though it was not that huge one. The kind of bad thing, I "don't care" about loses a lot a anymore, I just say what idiot I'm but I sleep good during the night, I don't like it, that I lose my money that easily.

Anyway, I need definitely work on myself and decided to trade only paper money, until I will make 5 green trades. If it will be too easy, I will change this rule to 5 green days . I need to be sure I know what I'm doing, don't just participate in a market like an idiot with hope to make money. So Paper Trading, I'm coming.

11.14.19
SHOP option 11.14.19.jpgDIS option 11.14.19.jpg
 
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