Brent's Journey to success Journal

B

bigbrent701

Hi! I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my journal. Currently I am not involved in the market but i would like to get back into the market. After blowing through a small 4k piker stake in the equity options market I evaluated where i went wrong in my trading. I discovered where i think I went wrong and this journal is about my journey to becoming a sucessful trader.

This journal will be broken down into parts.


Part I - Pre Trading Stake. This is the current part I am as I do not have a trading stake saved up. During this period I will discuss my steps to designing a new system from the ground up again. I will be taking a look at each element of my system and breaking it down. Also during the phase I will write about my search for a trading internship for the summer of 2007.

Part II- Internship Period. During this period I will talk about my trading internship on a regular basis. I do not know how much i will be able to reveal at the moment because im not sure what will be proprietary information and what wont.

Part III- Trading Period. This part of my journal will be about the actual trading period and probably what most of you really care about. At the present I feel that I am at the very least 10 months from trading again so dont expect it right away. I am going to stick to my journal plan.

Thanks again for visiting my journal.
 
Ive got to admit within the past couple weeks i have caught the prop bug. I didnt even think it was remotely a reality up until recently. The goal for my trading has always been to be staked/sponsored by a firm. So far I have not had the greatest luck in finding what I am looking for as the firms are either flaky or they are too competitive.

So far,

MBF- I have heard a lot about Mark Fishers summer internship program, it seems to be the #1 internship for aspiring traders and probably the most competitve. A place like this would be great. Plus I heard MFB has the hottest women on the NYMEX? Thats always a plus

FNYS- Not too sure about this company but it appears to be another top tier trading firm. Also very competitive, would have no objections working there either.

SIG- Jeff Yass, need I say more. I loved his interview in Market Wizards and was particularlly impressed with his poker analology. As an active poker player myself and an aspiring trader i paid close attention to this. From what i know about their trading its highly quantitative and mostly arb trading, not really my style but i wouldnt hesistate to take a job there either.

Wolve- This company also appears to be all around solid. Appears atm they are not looking to hire new traders. Mostly likely a very competitive firm.

DeShaw- Another top tier prop company solid all around too. Not much information on them, remember reading about their founder in stock market wizards but dont recall anything specific about their style. No objections to working there either however also highly competitive.

Now for the shady companies...

HLV- Well I saw they were a publicly traded company and saw they were a pink sheets stock i instantly lost interest. Then i read some posts on here about how they basically made you scalp LU. Ill pass.

Swift- Well im not sure that this is a shady company but ive heard good and bad so i will have to label it shady. Appears they do not Operate in the US and Im not too fond of moving to Canada to trade when i might start out only making $10 a day.

So my search continues for the perfect fit me for in the world of trading. For those of you that have read my other posts the ideal fit for me is trading for a company with great traders, great training, solid reputation, great technology/platform, and the ability to trade firm capital. I do not mind getting my Series 7 License as eventually would like to step it up to the big leagues where ill need my 7 and more! The single most important thing i am looking for in a company is finding a mentor.

What I am looking for in a mentor is not someone to spoon feed me my way to sucess. I am not looking for a get rich quick scheme rather i am looking for a lifelong friend to be able to chat with about my methods, his methods, his sucesses and the reasons, his failures and the reasons, my successes and failures and the reasons.

Although trading is predominately an indvidual sport having a mentor can help improve your trading. The second best scenario in terms of finding a trading job would have to be getting a job as a junior trader under a senior trader with a similar method. All this goes back to the mentor thing, its something that I put value in. The third best scenario would be trading firm capital at a reputable prop shop but not necessarily with a great senior trader but a group of good traders. Finally the worst scenario would be working for a prop shop using my very limited capital and not having a senior experienced trader to help guide me.
So my search for the perfect fit continues.

Next: What to trade?
 
Quote from bigbrent701:

Ive got to admit within the past couple weeks i have caught the prop bug. I didnt even think it was remotely a reality up until recently. ...
More...

in general, by writing your goal down you will force thing moving your way at warp speed, there was a guy who had a big red paper clip and he wanted to trade it for a house and just by writing about his wish he was able to trade it for a house in no time.
 
Brent:

I think you will find this exercise very helpful in your trading education. Lay it all out, teh trades and rationale, ignore the flames and you will get very useful information.

Phil

P.S. Have you looked into that book by Bo Yoder yet? Will do wonders for you in risk management and position sizing and daytrading techniques using futures, I guarantee.
 
Nk i know what your talking about lol, i heard about it on the radio. Townhousewithgroom.com? Haha

Phil i want to take another couple days and make sure i am serious about this and this isnt just a huge flutter/shockwave of energy. If i feel that im back for good i will buy it and have it read by the end of the summer.
 
The past couple days have been great, ive worked on my contacts list within the business and talked to some great people that will no doubt be an influence in me taking trading to the next level.

I think its very important that if you are going to be sucessful in this business you absolutley must have some type of edge, and you must know what that edge is. For me product selection helps define my edge better. I believe that using futures with a great broker/prop firm it gives you a small hypothetical edge. Someone brought to my attention that even the pro's wouldnt be able to have great sucess if they had the type ticket charges that i had during my last trading run.

I have decided to start out using the S&P Mini (ES) as my product of choice. As i develope as a trader i will expand into other markets and products but it is important to master one before bouncing all over the place.

Possible trading edges:
Transaction costs
speed of execution
Platform/technology
Mastery of 1 product

Now that i have decided on a product i must decide when i will trade this product. I now realize that if i build my trading around my life it works out a lot better than building my life around trading. It would create constant tension and probaby negative internal effects because of external conflicts. My schedule will change when in school and when out of school so its nice to be able to adapt my trading to fit whats available to me not trying to work a schedule around trading.

Next up: Developing a timeline
 
I will just offer one more good tip. Buy Bo Yoder's book and read it and you will learn what you might need about position sizing and risk management. Also there are 6 weeks of daytrades in the Es and 10 year bonds that he journals with good detail about his set-up, entries and exits and I think it will give you some more perspective and an overview how a professional approaches the market.

I do not expect you to mimic his system or approach but looking over his shoulder and learning about how many contracts you should trade, what and where to set stops and when to take profits will help you immensely.

I guarantee that you will find the book of great use.
 
Been a while since ive made any posts in this journal but past couple weeks have been pretty interesting. I think my revitalization as a trader is the real deal. Now it is just a matter of making things happen. Basically i am starting everything from scratch.

I mentioned developing a trading timeline with my various milestones and this is complete. I am using this as a guide and will make changes to it as needed. Right now my short term goal is to get real time quotes so i can watch the the market i will be trading (ES). I looked at Esignal Pro and thats a little bit pricey for me right now. For now i think i am going to go with IQfeed and Market Delta. The next step in becoming a better trader will be spending time live in front of the markets with my mentor who will coach me.

My mentor mentioned that i should take off all the indicators from my charts and just use candlesticks by themselves for now. At first I was very hesistant about this and i felt naked without my prized bollinger bands. As it turns out the bollinger bands may very well have been the single biggest inhibitor in my trading. I was using them as a crutch and it probably took away from my bottom line. Not to say that all indicators are bad because they are not, indicators all serve a purpose and no single indicator should be used IMHO to make a trading decision rather they should be a guide to making your decision. When multiple indicators line up and all give congruence then this is different. That may very well be a tradable idea. For now i will be watching the markets souly on price action.

Coming up soon: Watching the market live!
 
What i am trying to do this attempt at trading that i did not do last time is to treat this as much like a business as possible. As with any business their is a business plan. I have spent the past week familiarizing myself with the different elements of a trading business plan and came up with a general outline for this that will ultimately become my business and trading plan. Will post updates as I progress on the plan.

As far as watching the market live i am looking to start watching the markets live on monday August 21. I will not be doing any paper trading or simulated trading rather i am just going to watch the market and try to draw some kind of tradable ideas. I am looking for different tradable ideas that i will use to implement in my trading plan. I also soon will be able to watch the way my mentor trades the ES and try to learn as much as I can watching a few sessions of him. This will serve as a model for my own trading.
 
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