Very choppy consolidating day after the monster session, but still I should have done much better with the auto parts upgrade in the morning. Managed to win my sixth games in a row and opened December with $2500 after 4 games.
19600 shares on 13 of 22 shooting, +840 before commissions, +342 after, 1 bullet.
Pre-Market: Auto parts upgrade, never traded them before and thought the volume was weak and bailed very early when futures came in, and they just trended and trended on 200-500 share prints, with occassional 1000-2000 prints at quarter's and half's. Had I took a few solid positions and held I would have been ok, but the open print was very small and I didn't think there was much buying interest.
9:30: BTK strength, took CRA and DNA, got a really bad print on DNA (M got in 25 cents cheaper) and made just 15 cents. Lost 10 cents on CRA. Bought BWA as part of the auto part upgrade, sold all except 100 shares market when futures came in, and saw that 100 shares go up 30 cents where I sold in disgust and watched it go up another point. Bad tape reading there, I thought it was day trader volume.
9:47: Bulleted APA on XNG sell-off, but the index has been highly inaccurate with the ENE/DYN volatility, and I broke even before commissions. Took DNA at 58.25 for a half point move on BTK move. Tried BVF but he doesn't really follow DRG and lost 7 cents.
10:00: Tried TRW on auto part strength, scored 20 cents and left 30 on the table. Tried NSM on what I thought to be a temporary SOX bottom and hit for 20 cents. (I feel sorry for anyone who shorted this stock when it had a clear short pattern around 12 or so, news release -> halt gapped it up 1.75 point, this will happen to me one day for sure, a big hit on a serious position for multiple points with a news release . . . Part of the risk of the game.
10:25: Tried ETN at 72.70 as my third attempt of the auto part rally, scored a quarter and left a point and half on the table, the tape action of those stocks are really stealthy but they just move up on light volume. Tried IFF and FMC on CEX rally, scored 40 cents on FMC but didn't buy the dip which would have gave me another point move. Stopped out of IFF for 5 cents loss.
10:47: Tried to get that infamous energy bottom, took HP / BHI / EOG, broke even on HP, made a quarter on BHI and EOG, HAL is very liquid and I tried my first 3000 share position ever when he kept on printed 21.33 and OSX went straight up. (Really reminds me of that TXN trade), and he would not break it, as soon as he printed 21.32 I stopped out of 1000 shares, 21.30 and I stopped out of another 1000, and ended up losing quite a bit as a position of that size hurts a lot when you count in commissions. Any stock that gives me that much time to pyramid into 3000 shares, probably not a good long. I am glad he didn't print 20 cents lower on the first downtick, would have hurted for $600. Still it was a good exercise in trying to up my size, as I must be aggressive.
11:30: Weak second bounce on OSX and I scored 15 cents on CAM. Tried my fourth auto part stock of the day MGA and out for flat, just hold it damn it, it went up half a point from there. Took A for a 20 cents move, could not break 30 resistance.
12:44: Tried AMD and made 20 cents, left 40 cents on the table, I left way too much money on the table today.
2:00: Churned A, TSM, SCI, JBL, LSI, market was choppy and I broke even on those trades, tried to buy dips and consolidations but the buyers and sellers just did a stand off . . .
Last night was an incredible Christmas party at Studio 54, the all you can eat buffet complete with sushi bar, steak, salmon and lobster pasta . . . The all you can drink open bar . . . It was a fabulous experience. Almost 1000 people showed up with Worldco employees, traders and guests, and our boss got drunk and slipped himself into an incident with someone, all I saw was someone was pushed toward me and I stepped aside but couldn't avoid the spill of a drink on my suit. Two body guards showed up immediately to clear the situation, and my boss had a serious headache today and left early. As for myself, I threw up after just two drinks (SB, now you know why I didn't go drinking with you guys after the interview lol, my tolerance is next to zero), still, it was great fun.
The scale of this party tells me that our firm is very steady financially, and our boss in his Italian suit with a cigarette really reminds me of a mob boss
His intensity will sure carry us toward success, that sounds cheesy but I would most definitely not be thinking about starting a new trading firm with this kind of competition on the street.
MJT:
Actually, the reason I posted yesterday's numbers is because I thought it could have been better given the scale of the rally, but it is very hard for people to be aggressive with size after two tough games on Monday and Tuesday.
It doesn't matter what anyone tell you, the truth is 50% of the people who ever walked into a trading firm will not be profitable at all, 20% don't make serious money, so the survival rate is 30%, subtract 5% for people who blow up a year or two into the game, I can tell you 1 out of 4 traders who ever walked into Worldco, Bright, Echo or any other firm without previous experience can have a successful career. While a easy market like 99/00 will create more successful traders, in reality if a trader had fundamental flaws in his game only masked by the easy market, they will fail at some point.
This is not Don Bright sugar coating the numbers (gee, 70% successful after the first year, duh, the entire game is whether a new trader can survive the first year), this is the cold hard stat, I don't care what anyone tells you, this is the truth that not even my own firm will be willing to admit. You have more than twice the chance (25% versus 10%) if you join a firm like Worldco versus fight it out with your own money retail, but the odd is still against you.
No amount of training can replace painful lessons that must be taught with financial losses, but if anyone joins my team I would say they have an extra 1.53765% chance to make it
