Grinding it out, day after day
- Thread starter lescor
- Start date
Week 8 was another good one, second best of the year. +$27,300 gross on 553,000 shrs total volume. Daily p/l was +4, -4, +10, +12, +5
Pretty quiet week except the open on Thursday's big gap down was the busiest yet this year. Intraday mean reversion was particularly slow for me, but I was only trading half days. Activated a strategy not used in about a year, the market environment seems right for it again. Will keep it fairly small though and see if things hold. Works best in an uneventful, grind up market. To me, it feels like that's what we're going to get for a while now, though I hope I'm wrong, would like to see the volatility get back up to the high 20's.
For the month I grossed $86,194 on 2,218,000 shrs. 3.9 cents per share is pretty good for me historically. I had 14 green and 5 red days in Feb. Best was the 9th at +12.3 and worst was the 11th at -7.1. My volume's down quite a bit this year, but making up for it with no bad weeks (yet, I'm way overdue). YTD net after all fees and commissions is right around $150k, well ahead of what I was hoping for and actually a little ahead of last year's pace. Still expecting things to drop off though.
Pretty quiet week except the open on Thursday's big gap down was the busiest yet this year. Intraday mean reversion was particularly slow for me, but I was only trading half days. Activated a strategy not used in about a year, the market environment seems right for it again. Will keep it fairly small though and see if things hold. Works best in an uneventful, grind up market. To me, it feels like that's what we're going to get for a while now, though I hope I'm wrong, would like to see the volatility get back up to the high 20's.
For the month I grossed $86,194 on 2,218,000 shrs. 3.9 cents per share is pretty good for me historically. I had 14 green and 5 red days in Feb. Best was the 9th at +12.3 and worst was the 11th at -7.1. My volume's down quite a bit this year, but making up for it with no bad weeks (yet, I'm way overdue). YTD net after all fees and commissions is right around $150k, well ahead of what I was hoping for and actually a little ahead of last year's pace. Still expecting things to drop off though.
Lescor,
Continuing with QA odyssey:
1. Many state that the road to profitability is only achieved by being able to hook up (I know wrong word LOL) with a seasoned trader to learn the ropes. The above is further illustrated by your own trip to echo trade facilities to learn the craft when you started this endeavor. My question is how important is the mentor aspect to becoming successful? Could long term profitability be achieved without it? Do you know traders that have figured it out on their own?
2. From the failures of traders that you know or have known what was generally their biggest error? What pitfalls are the ones most difficult to eradicate?
BTW nice week in terms of $$$$$. No wonder your wife had no problem signing off for that R8.
Continuing with QA odyssey:
1. Many state that the road to profitability is only achieved by being able to hook up (I know wrong word LOL) with a seasoned trader to learn the ropes. The above is further illustrated by your own trip to echo trade facilities to learn the craft when you started this endeavor. My question is how important is the mentor aspect to becoming successful? Could long term profitability be achieved without it? Do you know traders that have figured it out on their own?
2. From the failures of traders that you know or have known what was generally their biggest error? What pitfalls are the ones most difficult to eradicate?
BTW nice week in terms of $$$$$. No wonder your wife had no problem signing off for that R8.
I didn't have a mentor, 100% learned on my own. I spent some time in an office, but there weren't any hot traders there. It was a good way to get exposed to different ideas though and a good environment to encourage long hours of hard work. A good mentor would be a huge help to any beginning trader, but most guys who make it have had to plough the hard road on their own.
Biggest errors- too much size, inability to take a loss.
I didn't get the R8. Had the ok from the boss, but couldn't pull the trigger. I did buy a new dirt bike though, lol.
Biggest errors- too much size, inability to take a loss.
I didn't get the R8. Had the ok from the boss, but couldn't pull the trigger. I did buy a new dirt bike though, lol.
I can testify to what Corey aka (Lescor) stated about getting started there was no mentors, mentor ship, training or schooling of any kind at all at Echo trade in Phoenix AZ. You were giving a desk and a computer, which you were charged $350 a month for.
You were on your own to trade as much or as little as you felt was best for whatever strategy you might come across on your own. They did give you a very good commission rate and nice office to come to with a friendly atmosphere. The three owners of echo trade were good traders and good people but were busy running the business and there own affairs to show their traders anything.
Strategies Lescor and Patrick have learned are from their long hours of hard work on their own not Echo trade.
Lescor and his P&L are the real deal.
You were on your own to trade as much or as little as you felt was best for whatever strategy you might come across on your own. They did give you a very good commission rate and nice office to come to with a friendly atmosphere. The three owners of echo trade were good traders and good people but were busy running the business and there own affairs to show their traders anything.
Strategies Lescor and Patrick have learned are from their long hours of hard work on their own not Echo trade.
Lescor and his P&L are the real deal.
Sounds like maintaining this journal is helping your focus quite a bit. It is certainly helping others. Congrats on the profits Corey =)
It appears lescor's personal trading operation has a semi to low correlation with ES movement. Keep in mind that active stocks are always making extreme swings up or down any given day regardless how the indexes move (or not)
Much like the futures traders who work ES / CL or NG / 6E with semi to low correlation between symbols, stock traders work from a diverse universe. That does not make stocks one whit easier to trade than futures... just much easier finding profitable situations in stocks to exploit with an edge. Index futures offer fewer opportunites to exploit because there is nil diversity of selection to filter from.
That said, imo corey or any other successful stock trader could transition to futures and would be long-term profitable there given the time to adjust. The exact-same skill set that created success from day one thru now would simply repeat itself this time thru.
It ain't the market or symbol that makes the man(woman): it's the man who makes success an outcome thru work, study and application. Lescor would survive and prevail trading any futures market if left with no other choice to choose from.