Typical Newbie Journal

[mfdoom]

BTU

BUY: 18.4699
SELL: 18.63
TIME: 10:17 - 10:28
P&L: 0.86%

This ticker wasn't even in my watch list, but I had nothing setup that related to my method except AVNR, but I pussied out on that one. There's been a few days I could not trade because a lack of set ups and did not want to go through another flat day.

I have seen this pattern time and time again, so it's probably embedded in my long term memory, which ultimately led me to buy it even though it did not follow my set of rules. If you look at the first arrow (entry) you can actually see the hesitation and "****-****-****-should-I-buy-this-or-not" type of thinking. I don't know about you guys, but I think that is really cool.

Paper traded the small following bounce at support for a 0.6% profit.

 

[mfdoom]

SLW

Bought it twice between 10:00 - 10:30 and got stopped out both times.
P&L: (0.7%)

ABX

BUY: 20.50
SELL: 20.41
P&L: (0.35%)

After having a great first week this is the most frustrating thing especially since I have no idea what I am doing wrong/different. I am assuming a good part of the losing trades can be credited to a falling market. The DJIA is around the 12 year resistance, and the SP-500 is just above it, but it doesn't look pretty. I'm going back to paper trading for a day or two to try and make some adjustments.

 

[mfdoom]

Paper traded the last 2/3 days. I did alright but paper trading isn't anything like trading with real money.

Conclusion to journal:

Out of three weeks trading part time I did well throughout the first week. I feel like if I was able to trade what the market gave me that week, every single week, I could easily turn a career out of it. However, nothing is easy and everything pretty much went downhill after that week. The scan I would run turned out options, but they were sloppy. Until I find a way around this, I am pretty much screwed.

Anyways, to tie a knot to the main purpose of this journal - which was to prove you can be new at this and still get off on the right foot - I think I did exactly that. I did not progress much because I am extremely limited; I can only make one or two trades a day because of commissions eating away at my small account, I worked all day starting around 11 or 12 and would pass out as soon as I got home, and something altered my method with no time to adjust. However, I think this is realistic and a common occurrence for those starting out. All I am saying is there is room for improvement, and please stop firing off rude and unprofessional comments whenever a newb makes a post. It's deconstructive, and from my experience you don't actually fail miserably. I think I returned something like only 5-6% in a month, which sucks but isnt failin miserably.