Grinding it out, day after day

I'm getting back into trading again after a large hit in 2008. I've been off for just over a year and getting ready for one final (and hopefully successful) attempt at trading. After about 8 years being on and off, I'm finally taking the time to put together a trading. Looking forward to re-opening my account within the next two weeks and putting the plan into action.

This is my first time joining a trading forum and seeing this thread on lescor's journal is exactly what I'm looking for. All the best in 2010 lescor and looking forward to reading your journal! Cheers!
 
Quote from No.Heat:

Lescor,

I want to start by thanking you for taking the time to do this. I bet it took guts to take a hiatus from the family for the sake of providing them a better living, hat's off for that.

If I may, a few questions regarding your trading.

How do you scan for setups, mathematically or discretionally ?
I use trade ideas for a scanner, but my bread and butter stuff uses excel to calculate entry points.

Are you a news trader or purely technical ?
I'll dabble in both, but not with size as I don't have a developed system per se, more so just taking small shots, trying to make some pocket change. I'll trade anything that looks like it presents a decent opportunity, but I don't risk much unless it's part of an actual system that I've been trading for a while.

Are all of your winning trades of the higher reward lesser risk nature ?
Not sure what you mean by this. I don't calculate risk reward ratios for any of my trading

What kind of accuracy do you obtain in your trades?
My main strategies maybe 55 to 65%, I have one that is almost 100% win rate, but trades infrequently. When I wing it, the numbers are pretty pathetic, which is reflected in the tiny size I swing on them.

Do you add to losers ? How about to winners ?
1. sometimes, but not that often. 2. rarely

Do you take fundamentals into account or it does not matter due to your daytrading persona?
No not at all, I try not to do too much thinking, just execute the plan. I do spend a lot of time combing through news though, disabling stocks if I think the news will make them act unpredictably.

And last do you dabble with earning reports (before or after) ?
before- you mean do I guess and bet on a coin flip? No. After- very rarely.

Best of trading in the new year and thanks a million for answering my silly questions.

No Heat
More...
 
Quote from slacker:

This is going to be a great thread!!! Thanks Lescor!

1. Do you trade the same stocks every day? If yes how big is your watch list? If you change your watch list how do you scan for tomorrows list?

2. Have you considered ETFs instead of stocks?

Thanks again
More...

Yes, the same list daily. Around 900 stocks.

I would trade ETF's or futures if I traded just on technical patterns, especially swing trading. But I am not currently doing anything like that.
 
Quote from OTCkrak:

what was your biggest notional drawdown since you became profitable?
More...

I've only had two losing months since I started making consistent money, and they were relatively minor. The nature of one of my main strategies is that I will take some painful hits sometimes. The worst for pure pain and speed was August '07 when the first hint of the credit crisis sprung up. I think I was down about 70 grand in like 20 minutes. The volatility spiked so much though, I don't think it even ended up a losing week.

I've always strived to diversify my strategies and that has proven to be a real help in smoothing out my equity curve
 
Quote from lescor:

I've only had two losing months since I started making consistent money, and they were relatively minor. The nature of one of my main strategies is that I will take some painful hits sometimes. The worst for pure pain and speed was August '07 when the first hint of the credit crisis sprung up. I think I was down about 70 grand in like 20 minutes. The volatility spiked so much though, I don't think it even ended up a losing week.

I've always strived to diversify my strategies and that has proven to be a real help in smoothing out my equity curve
More...
Thanks for sharing trading info...

Two Questions...

1) What percentage (out of 100%) are your profits made using your Opening Orders R-TO-M Strategy compared with the rest of your strategies in total...

2) How late into the day do you hold your opening orders at the very most... 10 mins in, 30 mins in, 1 hour... what is the longest time period you have held them..

thanks...
 
Quote from Szeven:

Getting a post in here for the subcription emails. Good luck Corey!
More...

No need, all you have to do is click at the bottom where it says .... 'Receive an email whenever a new post is added to this thread by subscribing to it.'

Knock em dead Corey.
 
Hi Lescor,

This journal is truly appreciated. You and Acrary are among the few traders that share insightful information on trading and contend that it's feasible for a trader to earn triple digit returns annually.

As to trading equities over futures, how do you spot the "inefficiencies" in a given stock?

I've been focusing on the e-mini s&p, as my outlook is to master the price action of one instrument and become an expert at it. Given the competition and appearant efficiency in the s&p 500, it seems that mean to reversion would be ideal for such a market; however, it's been extremely trendy this year.

The intraday leverage offered on the e-mini is comparable to most prop firms, without the requirement of licensure and sundry office fees. Also, the likelihood of a "black swan" event is greater with a single stock, as opposed to the s&p 500.

In any event, would you recommend that I reconsider my strategy of trying to specialize in one market & one instrument, and perhaps instead transition to the equity market? The biggest obstacle for me is developing the edge to identify inefficiencies or mispriced stocks.

You had a posting in another thread entitled "What Are Your Trading Breakthroughs?" where you stated the following: "The number one thing that's helped me is to make it a core belief that I absolutely, positively never know what's going to happen with a trade, since each result is a random event." I believe that statement coupled with Steve Cohen's statement that "This is not a perfect game... you're going to be wron alot" has been amazingly critical to helping me understand that the market is a "numbers game". As cohen said, most of his trader only wing about 50% - 55% of the time, with his best trader having a win rate of about 63%...

Walt
 
Quote from lescor:

Some background: I have been trading full time for 8 years. Prior to that I was a firefighter and had a strong interest in the markets for several years. I didn't know what I was doing but the market's siren song kept me coming back. I basically lost all my disposable income for about a 7 year period as I kept funding accounts that would end up at zero. Eventually I just got pissed off enough that I decided I had to buckle down and figure this game out or enter a 12 step rehab program :)
I started reading Gary B. Smith when he wrote for thestreet.com and his approach just seemed to click with me. He used very very basic TA to swing trade stocks and stressed things like position sizing, money management, expectancy, etc. It was like a light bulb went off because now I could see how trading could be boiled down to just pure numbers, and I really liked numbers and math. Prior to that I just followed hot tips, rumors and newsletter recommendations. But this new approach suddenly made sense of it all. I read every article he ever wrote and every book he recommended and took notes to reinforce it all. I cobbled together an actual trading plan, taught myself MS Excel to track it and crunch numbers and in a whole year of trading, I didn't lose any money! I didn't make anything, but I had a whole bunch of stats to review and a new understanding of how this game is played.

It was in my blood pretty deep then and I knew I had to make a go of it full time. So I quite my job with $40,000 to trade with and a year of living expenses set aside. I left my wife and kids behind and drove across the country to trade for 3 months in a prop office to try to speed up the learning curve. It took me about 4 months to stop losing money until I found something that clicked and it's worked out pretty good since.

As for how I trade, first of all I only trade stocks. I will dabble in futures and options, but they are just pot shot trades. I don't have an edge there so I never bet big. Almost all of what I do is mean reversion based. I have about half a dozen separate strategies, but two of them account for most of my profits. Most of them use some degree of automation.

The basis of all my trading is still shaped by those principals I learned almost 10 years ago. I stress capital preservation above all else and try to boil everything down to numbers and odds. It took a long time, but constantly focusing on that approach has made trading a fairly emotionless endeavor at this point.
More...


and once again the most important thing in trading



Quote from volente_00:

"The one defining characteristic of successful traders is their refusal to quit in the face of adversity"
More...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top