How I stopped making the same mistakes in 2010 and started to make more money

[Robert Weinstein]

I only caught a sound bite while listening to CNBC on the radio while driving but I think they said that a manager at McDees makes over a 100K a year..........

May or may not be true, but I dive by a McD on my way to and from work daily and in the AM there is either an Escalade or a Vette parked in the parking lot away from the rest of the cars. neither are new but I am guessing its not the fry cook. although if I find out it is the fry cook I guess I will have to learn how to fill out a job application again : o )

Quote from thinkfirst:

Made one more trade on the way out of the office, went long IOC one more time.

totals now

-301
-433 week


Kinda feel discouraged, has nothing to do with today's loss. Just feels like I'm doing this wrong. However very motivated to adjust and change. Have enough data to go through this weekend. Frustrating though, feels like after all these years I should be making at least more than McDonalds employees.

 

[ammo]

Quote from Urkel:

don't lose your frame. re-read the suggestions/comments from people in the thread lots of great advise. there is nothing wrong with not trading if the setup is not there.

good point urkel, ... not trading is a very important part of trading, it lowers your percentage of losers, that should be your 1st stop,never trade without a setup

 

[jj69]

Quote from thinkfirst:

Day 9

I have a feeling today will mark the last day of using tight stops. Sure they provide good risk/reward but there are too negatives: I can't increase share size and I get stopped out for no reason a lot (no reason means I get stopped out only to see price go back to my entry and end up collecting losses before real move starts). I was thinking about moving towards that direction for some time and when I was trading ABIO today I just couldn't take it anymore, getting stopped out and then re-entering only to find myself stopped out again and re-entering again all near the same price. So I'll try to forget everything I do and re-write my trading plan this weekend. Funny, I'm already trying to catch "falling knifes", now I'm going to trade without stops. So what else do I need to do opposite of what all the books teach

If your method involves catching bottoms/tops, your win/loss is inherently going to be low(unless you don't use reasonable stops and without that you're an investor). This has to be acknowledged and must be compensated for by having outsized wins on the trades that go your way. You have to take advantage of your method giving you potentially the best entry price vs. someone waiting for price to set up "properly" for increased odds of the trade going their way. Nothing "wrong" with catching falling knifes but make sure you get paid for having taken on that risk. You have to be able to take out a good chunk of the move that your entry made available to you in order to realize the expectancies of counter-trend methods.

 

[thinkfirst]

Thank you everybody for comments and suggestions. As I said on Friday I am not using tight stops anymore for my current strategy and will scale into position. I made a lot of changes this weekend and now more than ever I have to stick to my rules. I'm starting with small size to get things going and if all goes as planned will increase my size soon, at least now I can increase it without getting into liquidity and slippage issues.

 

[sprstpd]

Quote from thinkfirst:

I made a lot of changes this weekend and now more than ever I have to stick to my rules. I'm starting with small size to get things going and if all goes as planned will increase my size soon, at least now I can increase it without getting into liquidity and slippage issues.

Not trying to be a smartass, but if you stick to your rules but you change your rules often, isn't that the same thing as not sticking to the rules? If I were in your boat, I would just stop trading and convince myself that I really had an edge.

 

[thinkfirst]

Quote from sprstpd:

Not trying to be a smartass, but if you stick to your rules but you change your rules often, isn't that the same thing as not sticking to the rules? If I were in your boat, I would just stop trading and convince myself that I really had an edge.

Good point sprstpd. The concept is the same, what I changed is my stop level and money management. In a way I did stop trading, I spent last 2 days going chart after chart, trade after trade to confirm my new adjustments. If it wasn't weekend I would not be trading for couple of days most likely. Now since I've done all that work I feel confident in applying new rules.

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from thinkfirst:

I made a lot of changes this weekend and now more than ever I have to stick to my rules.

+ Thread Title: How I stopped making the same mistakes in 2010 and started to make more money

In other words, you haven't a clue, and will continue to wander around until you run out of money...

Next year, How I restarted in 2011 after blowing out my account in 2010, after I THOUGHT I stopped making the same mistakes in 2010 and started to make more money

 

[deaddog]

Quote from thinkfirst:


I am not using tight stops anymore for my current strategy and will scale into position.

Are you accepting more risk or are you using a smaller position size to compensate for the increased stop distance?

Are you increasing you target as well or reducing your reward to risk ratio?

 

[trader198]

scale into position sounds to me: you have a vague idea what you want to do. normally it will create a big problem. I strongly discourage you with scale in trading.
my suggestion is: a small size, find some clear setup (you know when it is wrong: i.e., how much you will lose if wrong) to do trading. scaling in is too vague, when you start to do scale in, you suppose your initial position is right, if in the drop, you may keep buying, ....end up with a bigger size, while the market may keep dropping, you are locked yourself into a bigger loss, may be forced to sell because of the pressure built up from the large size
that is totally a terrible strategy.

in order to trade well, you need clearly define what you should do. it is hard to do, but that is the only toward success.

Quote from thinkfirst:

Thank you everybody for comments and suggestions. As I said on Friday I am not using tight stops anymore for my current strategy and will scale into position. I made a lot of changes this weekend and now more than ever I have to stick to my rules. I'm starting with small size to get things going and if all goes as planned will increase my size soon, at least now I can increase it without getting into liquidity and slippage issues.

 

[bigarrow]

Quote from Robert Weinstein:

I only caught a sound bite while listening to CNBC on the radio while driving but I think they said that a manager at McDees makes over a 100K a year..........

May or may not be true, but I dive by a McD on my way to and from work daily and in the AM there is either an Escalade or a Vette parked in the parking lot away from the rest of the cars. neither are new but I am guessing its not the fry cook. although if I find out it is the fry cook I guess I will have to learn how to fill out a job application again : o )

I think that's about right, but those guys work their ass off, they put in unbelievable hours. In my opinion they earn every penny. I don't think I'm tough enough to be a restaurant manager.