Come one, come all, folks. It's the greaaatest shown earth! The Annual Eliiiiiite Trader Swing Trading Competition!
Or something like that.
Anyway, I think it would be fun (and educational) to start a swing trading journal where we can post our trades and keep a tally of how people are doing.
My idea of it would be to start off anybody that wants to participate with a nominal amount 'play money' (yes, I can hear the groans!), say $25,000 and have them post their entries and exits, along with position size here and I'll keep track of the results and generally keep things tidy. (With a little help from ole Magna, of course.)
I think people should be free to either just post trades or, if they like, to offer explanations, reasoning and insights into their trades, along with lessons learnt after closing trades etc. Of course, we'll have to keep a tight lid on that in case the thread runs away into other discussions, but I think if we just allow commentary on the trade by the person making it we should be ok.
For prices of entry and exit I think the fairest thing would be use the price of the stock at the time of the post. That would stop people saying "yeah I bought it at $20.00" after it's already moved to $20.20.
It would also probably be a good idea if people included how much %risk the position they take represents. (I'd work it out myself, but just to save me the time.) Of course no one should be able to exceed reg T, so no taking 1000 GM 2000 TXN and 1500 BAC when you've only got $25,000.
To forestall the likely "it's only papertrading, it's meaningless" posts that some people [cough, db, cough, cough
] feel they have to make, yes follk it is 'only' papertrading. However, at least in this public forum you won't be able to cheat yourself by saying "oh but in 'real life' I would have got out here", so at least it keeps you honest. The element of risk is, of course, missing and there are some from the school of thought that says without this element the whole exercise is worthless. I'm from the school of thought that says if you can't do it on paper you're exceedingly unlikely to be able to do it for real.
Well, that's about it. If anyone has any ideas about how this should be set up I'd like to hear your input, so feel to free to post away. Hopefully we can get enough people interested to make this fun and worthwhile.
And just a note to all the daytraders who only care about "the next five minutes", I was once in your shoes too, even made some half decent coin for a while, but it's probably a better idea to expand one's horizons and take a look at other trading styles, 'cos you never know when yours might become obsolete.
Or something like that.
Anyway, I think it would be fun (and educational) to start a swing trading journal where we can post our trades and keep a tally of how people are doing.
My idea of it would be to start off anybody that wants to participate with a nominal amount 'play money' (yes, I can hear the groans!), say $25,000 and have them post their entries and exits, along with position size here and I'll keep track of the results and generally keep things tidy. (With a little help from ole Magna, of course.)
I think people should be free to either just post trades or, if they like, to offer explanations, reasoning and insights into their trades, along with lessons learnt after closing trades etc. Of course, we'll have to keep a tight lid on that in case the thread runs away into other discussions, but I think if we just allow commentary on the trade by the person making it we should be ok.
For prices of entry and exit I think the fairest thing would be use the price of the stock at the time of the post. That would stop people saying "yeah I bought it at $20.00" after it's already moved to $20.20.
It would also probably be a good idea if people included how much %risk the position they take represents. (I'd work it out myself, but just to save me the time.) Of course no one should be able to exceed reg T, so no taking 1000 GM 2000 TXN and 1500 BAC when you've only got $25,000.
To forestall the likely "it's only papertrading, it's meaningless" posts that some people [cough, db, cough, cough
] feel they have to make, yes follk it is 'only' papertrading. However, at least in this public forum you won't be able to cheat yourself by saying "oh but in 'real life' I would have got out here", so at least it keeps you honest. The element of risk is, of course, missing and there are some from the school of thought that says without this element the whole exercise is worthless. I'm from the school of thought that says if you can't do it on paper you're exceedingly unlikely to be able to do it for real.Well, that's about it. If anyone has any ideas about how this should be set up I'd like to hear your input, so feel to free to post away. Hopefully we can get enough people interested to make this fun and worthwhile.
And just a note to all the daytraders who only care about "the next five minutes", I was once in your shoes too, even made some half decent coin for a while, but it's probably a better idea to expand one's horizons and take a look at other trading styles, 'cos you never know when yours might become obsolete.
