I never thought I'd start a journal like this before, but here I am.
Without going into too much detail about my personal issues, life, or friends' lives, here is my story.
I started trading in March 2000. The markets were at highs, and euphoria was all around. A friend of mine traded under 10 dollar stocks and used Qcharts, and RJT online as his broker. So I figured I'd do the same. I read 2 books: The Electronic Daytrader and Market Wizards. I also read everything I could online including Phantoms interview. I assimilated all the technical analysis I ever would, and then I started trading.
Using Level 2 thru Qcharts and RJT, I quickly burned thru 5k. I went at it again, but this time turned the 5k into 22k. That made a nice 12k profit so far. This is where it gets sticky.
I was trading a client/partners money, and the day before we were going to upgrade our broker to tradecast direct, I lost 8k. It's sticky cause I didn't say anything about it. Me being the more computer savy, I handled all the broker statements. This was the beginning of the end. Doing this one thing made it so much easier the next time (later in the story)
Surprisingly, when I switched to tradecast, I started losing money. My reasoning for this is that I was so excited with my new toys, I was way over trading, and spending less time contemplating the trade. Eventually after lots of ups and downs, I lost it again.
For a few months, I stopped trading but actively watched and discussed the markets in chatrooms. During this time, I was exposed to lots of new things like elliot wave, fibonacci, gann, astrology, etc., and I started developing my own techniques.
I was searching for the magic bullet. Then I found it, or so I thought. So me and my partner went into the trading arena again. Needless to say, I lost the new acct quickly. I didn't backtest my strategy using a program like tradestation, instead I front tested it in the market using real cash, a poorly tested strategy, and no discipline.
Now certainly my partner wasn't going to be happy about this. And I certainly wans't going to accept failure!!
If a tree falls in a remote forest and nobody saw it, did it really fall?
If it sounds like I've gotten myself into a bad situation, your right. But, this is only the BEGINNING OF THE END of me.
Stay tuned while I gather my thoughts, and post part 2 of the story.
Without going into too much detail about my personal issues, life, or friends' lives, here is my story.
I started trading in March 2000. The markets were at highs, and euphoria was all around. A friend of mine traded under 10 dollar stocks and used Qcharts, and RJT online as his broker. So I figured I'd do the same. I read 2 books: The Electronic Daytrader and Market Wizards. I also read everything I could online including Phantoms interview. I assimilated all the technical analysis I ever would, and then I started trading.
Using Level 2 thru Qcharts and RJT, I quickly burned thru 5k. I went at it again, but this time turned the 5k into 22k. That made a nice 12k profit so far. This is where it gets sticky.
I was trading a client/partners money, and the day before we were going to upgrade our broker to tradecast direct, I lost 8k. It's sticky cause I didn't say anything about it. Me being the more computer savy, I handled all the broker statements. This was the beginning of the end. Doing this one thing made it so much easier the next time (later in the story)
Surprisingly, when I switched to tradecast, I started losing money. My reasoning for this is that I was so excited with my new toys, I was way over trading, and spending less time contemplating the trade. Eventually after lots of ups and downs, I lost it again.
For a few months, I stopped trading but actively watched and discussed the markets in chatrooms. During this time, I was exposed to lots of new things like elliot wave, fibonacci, gann, astrology, etc., and I started developing my own techniques.
I was searching for the magic bullet. Then I found it, or so I thought. So me and my partner went into the trading arena again. Needless to say, I lost the new acct quickly. I didn't backtest my strategy using a program like tradestation, instead I front tested it in the market using real cash, a poorly tested strategy, and no discipline.
Now certainly my partner wasn't going to be happy about this. And I certainly wans't going to accept failure!!
If a tree falls in a remote forest and nobody saw it, did it really fall?
If it sounds like I've gotten myself into a bad situation, your right. But, this is only the BEGINNING OF THE END of me.
Stay tuned while I gather my thoughts, and post part 2 of the story.