Grinding it out, day after day

Quote from piggie2000:

i was just looking at the chart of the emini which tracks most stks and the mkt had been flat the hr into the open and the mkt actually opened near its highs. i don't see any indications in there to get short off the open as most of the week when we opened like that we spiked first. so my question is you said you were heavy short off the open and that worked on friday. my question is if we spiked hard first were does you system stop you out? you said you manually trade these positions so how much do you let something run against you? if we spiked 5-10 emini pts would you have lost 10-20k?all your loses seem to be small.
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Opening orders. Nothing like what you're talking about here.
 
Hi Lescor,

I'm still keeping up with your journal. Many thanks for doing this. Definitely got me inspired to get back into trading this year. 4th times a charm, I'm hoping...LOL.

Are able to share with us your tracking methodlology to track your trades. I use a "ABC" trading list in Excel because I only trade a defined basket of stocks. Then I use another tab to list out price, shares, commissions, etc. Very basic in columns with simple proceeds minus costs to determine profits.

I don't write in a journal. Tried once but never went back to re-read it. Maybe I should start an online journal like you and others on this site. Problem is, I don't have the time to read/write on a daily basis. Time is what I don't have a lot of so my attempt now is to trade part time to keep up with work/life balance. Doing part time for now and only trade a few days a month to supplement my income. End goal though is to do this full time and make consistent profits to make more then my working income. I live in BC (Pacific Time Zone) so I trade 6:30am to 8am PST then do my full time job.

I know trading part time will mean less profits. Right now my target is $800-2000USD a month (don't laugh everyone). This is a start then would like to build up to $100K a year. In 2008, I went aggressive with $1K/day goal ($200K+/yr). One day I hit +$12K but very next day -$14K so that meant I'm not trading properly at all. Greed got the best of me and as I mentioned in early post, I got wiped out. Feel really bad especially you and others made a killing in 2008. I figure if I wanted to make $200K/yr and now a measly $24K/yr, I should be able acheive this 100%. Finally got back on my feet in Feb, dusted myself off after a year off.

Any tips you can share so i can track my trades and performance better so I can learn if my tactics are working or not? Thanks in advance :)
 
Quote from boba15:

Lescor, can you describe the process of figuring it out? I presume, as no one mentored you, you had to go through forums, websites, what else? You didn't read books a lot as you said, what other sources of information did you use?

For instance, as I understand, the OPG strategy was invented before you started in the beginning this century, how did you know about this particular strategy?

I'm mostly interested in the thought process. Usually they say about toil, blood, sweat, etc. Was it like that in your case as well? Thanks.
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As I've said before, it goes kind of like this:

You observe, hear about, read about something in the market. Maybe a pattern, a quirky price move, something weird on the tape. Or it could just be a "I wonder if..." thought.

You formulate a theory as to why there might be a tradeable edge there.

You put together some rules to trade this possible edge.

Trade it with very small size and begin gathering stats.

Refine and adjust.

Either make money and size up, or give up and move on to the next idea.
 
Quote from Builder17:

were you at all hesistant to tell people (especially family) about your success? and in trying to teach them the way, were you afraid for their financial risk/responsibilty etc, and what that could do to your relationship? -due to this being a game that is extremely difficult for all beginners. i think you see what i'm getting at, yeah?
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I don't really talk about my success with anyone. I'm sure most have their opinions and I don't really care what they think.

People ask my all the time about the market and what to do or if I have any tips. I tell them I don't know what's going to happen, and my opinion could change 5x a day so I'm not the guy to ask.

The very few times I have specifically offered to help or teach someone, I was careful who I made an offer to. If it's someone I'm close to, I would have to be certain that they have the right mindset to even be able to trade in the first place. How they would handle potential failure is part of that.
 
Quote from LivingTheDream:

Hi Lescor,

I'm still keeping up with your journal. Many thanks for doing this. Definitely got me inspired to get back into trading this year. 4th times a charm, I'm hoping...LOL.

Are able to share with us your tracking methodlology to track your trades. I use a "ABC" trading list in Excel because I only trade a defined basket of stocks. Then I use another tab to list out price, shares, commissions, etc. Very basic in columns with simple proceeds minus costs to determine profits.

I don't write in a journal. Tried once but never went back to re-read it. Maybe I should start an online journal like you and others on this site. Problem is, I don't have the time to read/write on a daily basis. Time is what I don't have a lot of so my attempt now is to trade part time to keep up with work/life balance. Doing part time for now and only trade a few days a month to supplement my income. End goal though is to do this full time and make consistent profits to make more then my working income. I live in BC (Pacific Time Zone) so I trade 6:30am to 8am PST then do my full time job.

I know trading part time will mean less profits. Right now my target is $800-2000USD a month (don't laugh everyone). This is a start then would like to build up to $100K a year. In 2008, I went aggressive with $1K/day goal ($200K+/yr). One day I hit +$12K but very next day -$14K so that meant I'm not trading properly at all. Greed got the best of me and as I mentioned in early post, I got wiped out. Feel really bad especially you and others made a killing in 2008. I figure if I wanted to make $200K/yr and now a measly $24K/yr, I should be able acheive this 100%. Finally got back on my feet in Feb, dusted myself off after a year off.

Any tips you can share so i can track my trades and performance better so I can learn if my tactics are working or not? Thanks in advance :)
More...

At a minimum you should collect enough stats to calculate the expectancy of your system. Just collect as many different stats as is reasonable. Better to have too much and filter out or ignore some of it than to want to know the answer to a question but you can't because you don't have the data to figure it out.

I would recommend keeping a journal to any new or struggling trader. For the first two years I traded full time I had a word doc that I wrote in after the close each day and sometimes during the day. I wouldn't close up shop for the night before it was done. It wasn't stats, it was more emotional. How I felt during the day, expectations or fears. What was I thinking before, during and after a trade? Where did I screw up, what did I do right? Re-reading that kind of stuff will show you patterns in your thinking that you might not even be aware of on a day to day basis. Obviously this would be a private journal, I never shared mine with anyone.

You can make lots of money trading part time. But if you want results without effort, well, I think you know where that leads.
 
Great thread. Lescor shows emotional stability and that is refreshing in ET. How is that for an understatement? :)

Tennis professionals at the highest levels are great to watch on the weekends when the mkts are closed for the reason of emotional stability and displaying their "GAME" in actual combat. Comments such as "she is an emotional wreck", "she needs to be more aggressive at the net", "he is beating himself because he let his opponent rattle his game"..........

Trading is a game of you against yourself more than anything...........like tennis.........it is an INDIVIDUAL sport and your results will depend on how bad you want it.


I love the challenge, thats the driving force. Michael "schumi" is back in the driver seat of an F1 rocket..............surely he has enough money but the thrill of the game drew him back to racing .

Never retire from life. :) :cool:

PS: I want a real time quote machine in my coffin. :D
 
good post!

Quote from lescor:

As I've said before, it goes kind of like this:

You observe, hear about, read about something in the market. Maybe a pattern, a quirky price move, something weird on the tape. Or it could just be a "I wonder if..." thought.

You formulate a theory as to why there might be a tradeable edge there.

You put together some rules to trade this possible edge.

Trade it with very small size and begin gathering stats.

Refine and adjust.

Either make money and size up, or give up and move on to the next idea.
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Lescor, can you tell about scaling in/out? Suppose, a stock with a 30 cent average range made a sudden move down, you want to buy it. In what increments would you scale in, equal intervals or some sort of progression, the same question about size of each next step of scaling in? Does this depend on liquidity of the stock?

Is total position size only dependent on your gut feeling or you have some methodology to determine it? Thanks.
 
Quote from lescor:

I don't really talk about my success with anyone. I'm sure most have their opinions and I don't really care what they think.

People ask my all the time about the market and what to do or if I have any tips. I tell them I don't know what's going to happen, and my opinion could change 5x a day so I'm not the guy to ask.

The very few times I have specifically offered to help or teach someone, I was careful who I made an offer to. If it's someone I'm close to, I would have to be certain that they have the right mindset to even be able to trade in the first place. How they would handle potential failure is part of that.
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Could you briefly elaborate on the "mindset" part? I know it was covered to certain extend in another thread, but nevertheless, could you provide some insight in the subject?
 
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