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For that particular trade, it was awful. You would think, that with a share volume of 7million shares for the day, it would be easy getting out of 25000 shares. I started placing a limit order to get out when the stock was at 12.30. I would place a cover above the asking price, by say 2 cents...

Well said about doubling up when winning to balance out the potential negative from doubling down. In reality I have no urge to average up, realising I could be jeopardising my gain, while there is the intense urge to average on losers and eliminate the loss. In any case, I am committed to...

In general the answer is NO. Do not day-trade options. The costs (commissions but especially the bid/ask spread) is too much to overcome. If an option is trading bid 2.00, ask 2.50, you need about a $1.00 move in the stock (say 2% move if the stock is priced at $50) just to break even. There are...

Why stick that in my face? I have told you it is a habit I picked up I am fighting to get rid of. Why do you say I believe in it?

Yes, the idea to automate the position sizing, position monitoring and stop-loss component is borne of the fact that so far I havent been able to do that consistently myself. Hopefully that will make it reasonably mechanical.

I think the market had me cornered. See the price of the same stock now (11.54, I covered at 12.60). If I had the guts to stay till now, the loss would be mininal. Of course I wont stay that long -- certainly not at that leverage. Thanks. Accepted my fault, and that's why I am working on it.

That is exactly what my system is meant to accomplish. I will let the program determine the size based on stocks volatility (at this time I shall use a simple % change over prior day to determine exposure), and the program shall watch the stock once position is initiated, determine the stop...

Weekly Update for week 29 ended 09/14/2007 The sad event reported this week actually happened for the most part on Friday last week. Once again, I did what had been my killer thus far: averaging into a loser. Wherever did I pick up this deadly habit? Shorted 10000 shares of POZN pre-market at...

That's interesting to know. Yet they are enforcing the laws.

Thanks for telling us almost everything we wanted to know about you. I give you credit for telling it like it is. The markets may have become tougher, but still there is money waiting to be made. It does require just more patience and discipline.

How did you dig this up? He seems to be an old-timer that has accumulated an awful amount of trading capital.

Try doing what the others suggested: doubling in your short positions as the market moved higher (assuming you have a sizeable account that can hold more than 150 contracts at the same time). What happened to him can easily happen. And by the way that day is total contracts traded was over 600...

I did just that, and looked up his prior posts and PDFs after he posted. It was obvious he is not for real. Even his demeanour shows that.

Total posts 10005. You just crossed the 10,000 posts count. I think ET should pay you five dollars per post.

Hmmm

Here is what is in the spreadsheet in a nutshell. Implementing a stop loss will require a different analysis: I don't believe though it will make the approach ultimately very profitable. You can't just look at average annual. The real test is the compounded, because of the drawdowns...

I've just shown that over time it returns less than just buying and holding the stock index if all you have is what you put in at the start of each year. The average person does not invest 100K with the intention of holding another 300K in cash just to meet margin calls.

Sad to hear your story. I think it is something everyone of us can relate to. Separating the emotion from the logic is tough when you are losing. Buying at 77.68 and selling at 75.40 does not look so bad. It must have been the additional blunders :averaging in on losers, chasing trades and...

I have wondered the same, and decided to do the calculations for the ten year period Dec 1995 to Dec 1996. Attached is an excel sheet showing the results at different leverage. In your calculation you assumed a 9:1 leverage. That would be a disaster. Even though the average percentage per year...

Weekly Update for week 28 ended 09/07/2007 It was a slow week. Up a paltry 3.3K - Definitely better than last week, and even better than my weekly earnings from regular employment: Sad for me to realise I am earning that low! Traded light for much of the week, except Friday where I am still...