Sorry to sound bitter, but I really liked doing what I did. Oh well.
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January Trading Journals
- Thread starter Hitman
- Start date
Why don't you continue. From what I could see Protrader was the only person who was being an a$$. Everyone else was just giving friendly advice.
If you didn't know already, Protrader is one of the many aliases of an a$$$$$e originally called Traderx. Most people just ignore him when he appears in some form or another.
If you didn't know already, Protrader is one of the many aliases of an a$$$$$e originally called Traderx. Most people just ignore him when he appears in some form or another.
A much needed victory as I finally hit the .500 mark after a 2 and 4 start. It is also my first meaningful victory of the new year as I overcame very choppy market conditions.
8600 shares each way on 6 of 10 shooting, +866 before commissions, +613 after,1 bullet which won the entire game for me. Finally cut my deficit for 2002 to slightly under 1K, and hopefully next week I will do better than $700 which took me five games to score.
Pre-Market: Apparel maker upgrades, I realized that I have to play my own game so I left that Don Bright strategy alone.
9:30: Long ANF and scored a quarter. Took CHS for 20 cents. Took TOO for 5 cents. RLX reversed hard and fast as I got out of TOO just before it tanked. Tried CRA long on BTK rally and out for flat.
10:00: XBD poped into a new intraday high for no reason and I took BSC/LM and broke even between them. Tried DO on OSX bounce and out for flat. I had LEN up as a bullet and at first I was down $150 in it including bullet cost but it finally tanked and I traded in and out of it all day and scored $450 after commissions when it is all said and done.
2:00: Milked LEN some more, when home builders finally bottomed I went long in SPF and got 15 cents in a squeeze.
8600 shares each way on 6 of 10 shooting, +866 before commissions, +613 after,1 bullet which won the entire game for me. Finally cut my deficit for 2002 to slightly under 1K, and hopefully next week I will do better than $700 which took me five games to score.
Pre-Market: Apparel maker upgrades, I realized that I have to play my own game so I left that Don Bright strategy alone.
9:30: Long ANF and scored a quarter. Took CHS for 20 cents. Took TOO for 5 cents. RLX reversed hard and fast as I got out of TOO just before it tanked. Tried CRA long on BTK rally and out for flat.
10:00: XBD poped into a new intraday high for no reason and I took BSC/LM and broke even between them. Tried DO on OSX bounce and out for flat. I had LEN up as a bullet and at first I was down $150 in it including bullet cost but it finally tanked and I traded in and out of it all day and scored $450 after commissions when it is all said and done.
2:00: Milked LEN some more, when home builders finally bottomed I went long in SPF and got 15 cents in a squeeze.
Candle-I know your feelings towards Protrader-but besides from all the zen stuff- your growth etc.--you feel he makes intelligent questions and pertinent points. Frankly, as I think back, I don't know what the heck Protrader trades-his methods styles etc. Has he told us? I know there was the nvda thing. Is that still it? Or Protrader please maybe you could answer this question. I am curious.
Qwik,
Don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it.
Grind it out, that is the way to play when you just can't score. 17900 shares on 7 of 12 shooting, +663 before commissions, +220 after.
Last six games have been very, very tough. The market stuck in a very tight range and slowly bleeded but it was difficult to get any decent winners. It is ironic that first three games of the year were excellent trading days, and I managed to lose $1700 in them when rest of the firm were doing well. Last six games the market has been extremely difficult to trade and I managed to pull out $1000 across six games when just about everyone I know suffered a loss during this period.
However, there are indeed exceptions. From what I have seen, this market rewards top and bottom pickers, with the exception of a few news stocks, you can fade breakout's all day. Most will fail and those that do breakout give you more than enough time to get out. Open gaps are gifts, short gap-up's and long gap-down's, no pain, no fear, because there is no volume to keep the stock away from that inevitable gap-fill. Gap-fills are, as I said, too good, and I absolutely must start playing more of them within a tight ranged market.
The best way to trade this market, was find something you are absolutely, positively sure of going down and short and hold. You will have to hold through some painful wiggles but in the end you will make your money. That said, the initial wiggles can hurt like hell, and if you are wrong, you pretty much gave your day away. This is for people who are willing to bet on large concentrated bets. Such as the destruction of DOW and chemical stocks, TYC on Friday, MGA today, and numerous gap opportunities . . . If you can bet your day on one or two plays and make it count, all the power to you.
The other successful method to trade the past six days has been simply short anything that moves upward. All you need is some sort of resistance level, if the stock moves say half a point and it wasn't printing insane volume, it was almost guaranteed money. If you are wrong, no problem, chances are it will go up a little more then fall like a rock.
Top picking and bottom picking (and I mean picking the top when the thing is hitting new high's for the day) have always been a high percentage but poor risk reward set-up. You may be able to get dimes here and there and when you are wrong bam you lost half a point.
In this market however, this is literally THE set-up. I have seen people going through an entire day without a loser with this kind of strategies. No, you will not get much more than quarter's with this, but for people who have been smoked by breakout's and breakdown's, it is solid money.
There is just too much margin for error for even unskilled top and bottom pickers, the market has insufficient momentum to punish a poor timely entry, you are short something that just went up 75 cents chances are it won't move up much more than another dime or two before crapping out.
Yes, there are exceptions, but there are insufficient exceptions to truly punish the top pickers. And it is plain frustrating to get into a well executed breakout only to see people offering out their shorts trying to fade into it. It has been far more profitable to fade breakout's and potential breakout's for scalps than trying to long them.
I can almost say with 100% confidence that 2002 will be a substantially tougher year than 2001. While good traders will always excel, you will NOT get the gift months like Jan-April, and Sep (I know it was a tragedy but it provided one of THE best trading weeks ever) to boost your YTD numbers, which will make a huge difference in the overall P&L of a trading desk.
We are traders, and we must survive the bad times and excel in good times, and as long as there is a market, there will be money to be made, just that this year will be a true test for those that are meant to be in this game for the long term.
Pre-Market: Further weakness in oil prices.
9:30: Bulleted DHI/DO off the open. DHI unfortunately tanked hard before I could add to him and I made just $200 after bullet cost and 9000 shares round trip. What really killed me was the home builder rally later in the day, which I did not trust and took quick profits and churned instead of bought and held. OSX has been down a few day's in a row so I was very light on DO bullet and looked for a Tony Oz 3 day reversal. As soon as the big gaps started to fill the gap I went long in DO, BR, NOI and HP, everything looked good and bam I was smacked as the OSX made a new low. Plain disgusting there as I saw a $350 profit vanish (10-20 cents more I would have started locking profit in, as the BID disappeared so did my profit) and I took a bad ACF bottom pick and lost a quarter.
10:30: Went long in MDC at the intraday bottom, got 20 cents after a shakeout, home builders looked horrible on the daily but the strength of that reversal was plain amazing. Got a quarter of SPF, a few more scalps on DHI, and flat on CTX (failed breakout).
3:00: XBD rally and I took 20 cents out of LM, lost 5 cents on a WY bottompick. Really had to work for my money today, hope tommorrow will be better.
Last six games have been very, very tough. The market stuck in a very tight range and slowly bleeded but it was difficult to get any decent winners. It is ironic that first three games of the year were excellent trading days, and I managed to lose $1700 in them when rest of the firm were doing well. Last six games the market has been extremely difficult to trade and I managed to pull out $1000 across six games when just about everyone I know suffered a loss during this period.
However, there are indeed exceptions. From what I have seen, this market rewards top and bottom pickers, with the exception of a few news stocks, you can fade breakout's all day. Most will fail and those that do breakout give you more than enough time to get out. Open gaps are gifts, short gap-up's and long gap-down's, no pain, no fear, because there is no volume to keep the stock away from that inevitable gap-fill. Gap-fills are, as I said, too good, and I absolutely must start playing more of them within a tight ranged market.
The best way to trade this market, was find something you are absolutely, positively sure of going down and short and hold. You will have to hold through some painful wiggles but in the end you will make your money. That said, the initial wiggles can hurt like hell, and if you are wrong, you pretty much gave your day away. This is for people who are willing to bet on large concentrated bets. Such as the destruction of DOW and chemical stocks, TYC on Friday, MGA today, and numerous gap opportunities . . . If you can bet your day on one or two plays and make it count, all the power to you.
The other successful method to trade the past six days has been simply short anything that moves upward. All you need is some sort of resistance level, if the stock moves say half a point and it wasn't printing insane volume, it was almost guaranteed money. If you are wrong, no problem, chances are it will go up a little more then fall like a rock.
Top picking and bottom picking (and I mean picking the top when the thing is hitting new high's for the day) have always been a high percentage but poor risk reward set-up. You may be able to get dimes here and there and when you are wrong bam you lost half a point.
In this market however, this is literally THE set-up. I have seen people going through an entire day without a loser with this kind of strategies. No, you will not get much more than quarter's with this, but for people who have been smoked by breakout's and breakdown's, it is solid money.
There is just too much margin for error for even unskilled top and bottom pickers, the market has insufficient momentum to punish a poor timely entry, you are short something that just went up 75 cents chances are it won't move up much more than another dime or two before crapping out.
Yes, there are exceptions, but there are insufficient exceptions to truly punish the top pickers. And it is plain frustrating to get into a well executed breakout only to see people offering out their shorts trying to fade into it. It has been far more profitable to fade breakout's and potential breakout's for scalps than trying to long them.
I can almost say with 100% confidence that 2002 will be a substantially tougher year than 2001. While good traders will always excel, you will NOT get the gift months like Jan-April, and Sep (I know it was a tragedy but it provided one of THE best trading weeks ever) to boost your YTD numbers, which will make a huge difference in the overall P&L of a trading desk.
We are traders, and we must survive the bad times and excel in good times, and as long as there is a market, there will be money to be made, just that this year will be a true test for those that are meant to be in this game for the long term.
Pre-Market: Further weakness in oil prices.
9:30: Bulleted DHI/DO off the open. DHI unfortunately tanked hard before I could add to him and I made just $200 after bullet cost and 9000 shares round trip. What really killed me was the home builder rally later in the day, which I did not trust and took quick profits and churned instead of bought and held. OSX has been down a few day's in a row so I was very light on DO bullet and looked for a Tony Oz 3 day reversal. As soon as the big gaps started to fill the gap I went long in DO, BR, NOI and HP, everything looked good and bam I was smacked as the OSX made a new low. Plain disgusting there as I saw a $350 profit vanish (10-20 cents more I would have started locking profit in, as the BID disappeared so did my profit) and I took a bad ACF bottom pick and lost a quarter.
10:30: Went long in MDC at the intraday bottom, got 20 cents after a shakeout, home builders looked horrible on the daily but the strength of that reversal was plain amazing. Got a quarter of SPF, a few more scalps on DHI, and flat on CTX (failed breakout).
3:00: XBD rally and I took 20 cents out of LM, lost 5 cents on a WY bottompick. Really had to work for my money today, hope tommorrow will be better.
Hitman,
Excellent commentary, although I certainly hope you're wrong about how difficult this year will be. All the evidence points your way however.
Excellent commentary, although I certainly hope you're wrong about how difficult this year will be. All the evidence points your way however.
Originally posted by AAAintheBeltway
Hitman,
Excellent commentary, although I certainly hope you're wrong about how difficult this year will be. All the evidence points your way however.
AAA,
You seem to be judging the potential of 2002 on the basis of its first two weeks... a highly questionable methodology in my opinion.
Just my 2 cents,
Candle