December Trading Journals

A brutal shakeout killed my only chance to make today a good game, but it is still good to finish the day up as I survived poor shooting. 10600 shares on 6 of 15 shooting, +408 before commissions, +164 after, no bullets.

Had two guys on board to watch me trade and it was a lot of pressure as I took a half a point loss right off the bat. I felt the cold sweat because I was supposed to show them how you can make money trading NYSE, and while I ended up making very little, it was good to make a comeback.

Pre-Market: Crude oil price up, energy rally.

9:30: BHI had an excellent open print and I bought some, got a bad fill at 34 and while I got out of half immediately, I held the other half until it printed 33.40. Tried DO at 28.30 and lost another 30 cents. Ouch. SOX made a move up and I took 20 cents out of IRF. Then when I thought OSX bottomed I took 1000 BJS for 40 cents, unfortunately another 40 cents on the table. XNG was very misleading today with DYN/EPG wreaking havoc, and APA/APC/EOG/BR all ran up hard with very little movement shown on XNG.

10:45: Really choppy day, stayed clear for the most part, two flat trades in LM and BBY and I took the guys for a talk with the recruiting team.

2:40: Couldn't make money during the rally, made 10-15 cents scalps off PPG, CRA, WY, but gave it all back plus change in TYC, HON, BEN, EMR.

3:54: The power of a simple filter can be amazing. Should have trusted my teammates more on this one, JNY gapped down with some sort of a sell imbalance and I bought some at 30.15, and I sold it for 20 cents profit and it went up another 60 cents from there, plain incredible how you can take advantage of the order imbalances toward the close sometimes. Definitely a believer in this strategy now, at least during the last 30 minutes.
 
That was more like a gimmick, the filter itself only spots a quick sell-off, and I saw him go down like that quickly and I bought in when I thought the selling was done.

No magic here, to put it plainly, it is bottom picking, and your tape skill has to be top notch for it to work, jumping in too early and you will get smoked. The filter itself basically looks for things that tanked quickly, all tape skill here, no shortcut.

Whatever imbalance on JNY was pure coincidence, although I am sure once my team has a Bloomberg we will see more of it. I thought he had nowhere to go but up once the seller did his thing, but I sure as hell didn't expect 3 million shares in the end.
 
I need to get my financials together for tax time. After I send IRS my cut (fortunately and unfortunately I have 20K's worth of capital loss from 2000, the good old Datek days), I will see exactly where I am.

Being single with no one else to lean on I need to have 100K cash before I start shopping, 70-80K down payment 20-30K to buy me enough time to rent the place out and move back home with mommy just in case I blow up lol.

Real Estate market is slipping a bit, sure as hell hope we get a good discount from here (my entry point is later 2002 early 2003).

That said I am always interested in mortgage products and would like to know more. Can you explain the advantage of those products? And what kind of pre-tax income I need to hit to use them.

I have been totally addicted to sites like Corcoran and Douglass Elliman, in fact, call it no life sour grapes or whatever, but I have read so many property listings, that I think the second I see a listing now I can immediately identify whether it is a good deal or a total rip-off. It is almost like I follow those sites on a daily basis, and all the other major sites on a weekly basis. My goal is of course trying to read the "time and sales" of closed deals, and try to read the overall trend of the real estate market, getting in anywhere near the bottom of this move would be sweeter than pie.

And every morning I do look at an apartment that I think I will be able to afford before I turn 25. This is the financial mile stone I am aiming for, and every day I have to fight the urge to buy a BMW 3 series with the money I have. Being 22 with a primary goal to win the war of love you can imagine it is hard to control myself. My friends at work, M and F have totally convinced me that being in New York, an apartment is far more impressive AND an absolute neccessity, as insurance + rent will keep me away from home ownership for many many years to come. Hell, I have been really controlling my budget, I don't think I have spend any serious money this year (except you-know-who).

And for now, along with the picture of you know who, this is what I look at every morning before the open, and it has a nice virtual tour to go with it. Of course, as soon as I find something that I consider to be a bigger bang for the buck, it shall be retired.

http://www.elliman.com/listings.asp...DCP296429&I=DCP309579&strAdSrch=&order=desc&=
 
I began trading friday on the heels of a 10 day winning streak. Unbelievably i made $8900 thursday and found myself up $24k net for the pay period. Friday being the last day of the pay period, it would have been nice to play it ultra conservative. However, i was so blinded with my success of the previous day, and i traded extremely recklass and stupid and was blown out of the game in the first hour and a half.

I lost $4700 gross, $5600 net. 5 times my previoius greatest loss at worldco.

I ended the pay period up around $18k+. An amazing accomplishment considering it is just my 6th week at the firm.

It seems so common in this business that your biggest losses come after your biggest gains. I recall Hitman saying the same happened to him earlier in the year.

Going forward as a rule, i'm going to play extra conservative and defensive after a huge up day. It is so easy to forget the pain of losses when you are doing well. And so easy to lose respect for the market. THIS IS DEADLY.

On monday it is back to the basics. New pay period starts. Defense will be the name of the game, until i get back on track.
 
As I said, the experience from Nasdaq is carrying you in NYSE. If you can trade one market, eventually you will be able to trade them all.

What you described is the typical "big game syndome", a trader is most vulnerable after a big blown out or a big record day, in that order. The former is a case of demoralizing, the latter a case of overconfidence. Cut the aggression level down a little bit and you will be back on track.

Since you have access to top 30, you probably know how good you are compared to rest of the firm :-) You are doing amazing, keep it up!

P.S. Do you mind sharing how did you make the transition from Nasdaq to NYSE so successfully? I have a few ex-Nasdaq guys coming on board and would appreciate any tip that will ease their transition pain.
 
Originally posted by Hitman
P.S. Do you mind sharing how did you make the transition from Nasdaq to NYSE so successfully? I have a few ex-Nasdaq guys coming on board and would appreciate any tip that will ease their transition pain.
More...
id love to hear any comments on this as well..

-qwik
 
A solid open turned sour as I could not buy a shot on a choppy choppy afternoon. I thought there would be some sort of follow through but I was dead wrong. Still since I struggle on most Monday's, I can live with a game like this to open up the week/pay period.

19000 shares on 9 of 19 shooting, +1016 before commissions, +520 after, 1 bullet.

Pre-Market: Massive UTY downgrades but I could smell a trap coming as this sector has been heavily sold-off already.

9:30: BTK strength, took some CRA off the open for a quick 35 cents move. DNA gapped down 80 cents and I had to take a chance for a gap-fill, stock opened at 52, took 500 and he filled me second print, 53.25, I thought I made almost a point but I realized that I was still down on the day! A look at my order log I realized he filled me on an out of sequence print, and I called our help desk immediately and they cleared the issue, so I ended up making 75 cents instead of losing a quarter. Unfortunately by the time it was all cleared I missed a few great opportunities, and I really really should have concentrated on my other trades as they took care of the DNA mistake.

9:37: Bulleted PPL, got nowhere, churned a little but missed a clear shot to go long when UTY squeezed hard as expected (gap and trap). Took LXK long made just a quarter as I saw SOX made a nice move but didn't expect a full break-out. Took HP and NE long and out for flat as I bottompicked OSX too early. Futures really started to move up, tried EMR/LM but those stocks were very weak and I really churned as my defense kept on stopping me out.

10:07: Great trade in MER, got a full point on XBD breakout. Scored a quarter on CTX with homebuilder rally, but this sector is definitely topping on the daily. Unfortunately I did not hold COF which I picked up at 48.30, would have been every bit as good as MER. I was up $800.

11:06: Went long DOX for a 15 cents move (failed breakout). Tried HIG/NKE on IUX/RLX breakout and got out flat. Churned into $700 with another attempt to buy DOX as the stock collapsed. It was a solid morning, but not nearly as good as it would have been because the stocks I really pyramided went against me, and my biggest winners were smaller positions.

1:40: Went long GS/CRA, lost 20 cents a piece and never recovered from there. Churned and churned away on WLP, CTX, LM, and MEL. I really thought we had another leg, just didn't happen, when I fell below $500 and came back above it, I knew it was time to stop as the clock winded down . . .
 
Hitman (or any of you guys):

How do you identify sector breakouts (ie. XBD)?

Usually when I see these guys move (MER, MWD, GS, LEH, etc), it's usually way too late to take a position as they already either gap up at least 20 cents or the offer just disappears. Is it that you take a position before the move in anticipation of a breakout? Seems to me that the XBD is very futures sensitive (lots of daytraders playing it) and with every futures uptick, offers get lifted really quick. As it's quite stupid to play every futures move (even though you get the fill, you end up churning a whole lot more), what would you recommend as the best way to play these?
 
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