Here is the deal. After averaging about $200 per day daytrading for about 1.5 yrs, I started trading for others recently with small amount of capital. Earlier in the year, I had used all my capital to pay off the school loan thinking I give my law degree a go. But I fell back into trading because I just cannot let go of the possibility of making big bucks. Before I quit earlier this year, I felt like I was finally near the breaking point of learning how to trade but at the same time I did not want to waste anymore time getting my law career started. Then my friends convinced to go for daytrading one more time and gave me enough seed money to be over daytrading minimum equity rule. I took the money and thought maybe trading someone else's money will make me more accountable and take the whole thing much more seriously. I have been following the market for several years now so I am not completely new to this but hardly a professional trader with Bloomberg terminal. I mean I use Ameritrade with no pay service of any kind. I use the charts, last sale, and level 2.
So the past Friday was my 17th day of trading with my friend's capital. I keep 50% and they keep 25% each and we each pay our proportion of the taxes.
From first day, I have been on fire. First day, I made over $1000. Second day, only $250. After that, I had one day of blowout where I was up $1600 but got so greedy to get over $2000 and blew the profit and actually lost $900 holding on to a losing trade. 2 more blowouts during the 17 days. One a minor one where I was up $1400 but finished the day up only $500 and another one I was up $1600 but finished the day down $200 (shorted GOOG at absolute wrong time and got killed in the short squeeze up to 415). All other days have been at least $1000 per day with last 3 days I was up $2300, $2600, and $2100, respectively. I could have made more last 3 days but Ameritrade was having all kinds of problems. I mean I could not trade 9:30 to 10AM yesterday because their system was down. I actually make bulk of my profit in the first 1/2 to hr. With hitting small singles rest of the day and my track record for after 2pm is not good. 3 blowouts I mentioned above all happened in the afternoon. So this week I have been extra careful and tried to stay out of trouble after 1pm and ran into a couple of problems but got out unscathed. I did not let my losing position run against me too long. So far, I am up almost $20,000 in 17 trading days and this week alone I am up $9,300.
I trade the active stocks and I follow about 50 of them (many of them with big short interests). I make about 20 to 30 roundtrip trades per day.
I go both long and short. I think my profits are about equal from both sides. But I notice from day to day, one day is mostly long day and other short day. I don't do this on purpose but it happens that way. I don't know why. But I have no qualms about shorting and I actually feel more comfortable shorting stocks. It fits my personality better. And I know this is irrational but it seems its easier the stock will go down after a big rise than the reverse. Also, most of my trades I am in anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. Some trades I let go more than 1/2 hour but rarely. The blowouts I mentioned all happened when I let the trade go longer than 1/2 hr.
Everyday, I get up thinking when is this gonna end but I keep making money everyday. And again, most of profits come early in the morning. I usually short the stock on top and buy the bottom. Another thing is I rarely lose money which is really odd since I hear good daytraders don't have high winning percentage but their homeruns are big enough to offset small errors. For me it has been a couple of double in the morning followed by many singles up the 1pm that has been doing the trick. Now, that I got the afternoon blowouts under control, I am able to keep my morning and afternoon profits. I came to a conclusion that I don't know about trading enough to do well in the last 2 hours as my trading style does not snyc with that time frame. And since I started again recently, I want to work on my afternoon trades w/o making drastic changes that will affect my morning profits.
Can I expect this to continue? One thing I am very good at is picking the bottom. I don't know why I have this sick gift. Many stocks, I almost gotten in at absolute bottom (w/n 5 pennies) of the day. But I always get out too early because I am making money so fast and I get so giddy to take few hundred dollar profits.
What i am doing different but my previous run at this as I no longer hesitate for sec. When I feel it, I just hit it. And I remember in the past thinking and saying "I knew it, I should have...." Now, I try to act on most of them as possible but still I hesitate and don't get in on many. But now I just get in enough to make decent money.
These days, I feel like I am walking on air. When I trade, I no longer even feel the tension. I am little scared but it has become so mechanical, it seems. This is because somehow I always get in at very good entry point so that I can wait out 3 to 5 minutes even if the trades does not go my way and break even.
I also only use bollinger bands, macd, and stochastic slow for entries and exits but I think I can really read the fake outs and pressure built-up in the level 2 pretty well which has been the real closer. I also spend about 1.5 hours per day reading wsj and nyt which I enjoy doing regardless of whether I trade or not. I also use 2 laptops for trading and don't have CNBC or anything. But I always scan the news for specific stock quickly before I enter a trade and I do my homework the night before for important economic events and dates for the stock so I don't get snookered with a surprise.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of epiphany in trading?
I am not here troll anyone as some will surely accuse me of. I am just very excited but I am confused at the same time. I feel like I am really going against the odds here making this much money with very little money. Thanks for any input!
So the past Friday was my 17th day of trading with my friend's capital. I keep 50% and they keep 25% each and we each pay our proportion of the taxes.
From first day, I have been on fire. First day, I made over $1000. Second day, only $250. After that, I had one day of blowout where I was up $1600 but got so greedy to get over $2000 and blew the profit and actually lost $900 holding on to a losing trade. 2 more blowouts during the 17 days. One a minor one where I was up $1400 but finished the day up only $500 and another one I was up $1600 but finished the day down $200 (shorted GOOG at absolute wrong time and got killed in the short squeeze up to 415). All other days have been at least $1000 per day with last 3 days I was up $2300, $2600, and $2100, respectively. I could have made more last 3 days but Ameritrade was having all kinds of problems. I mean I could not trade 9:30 to 10AM yesterday because their system was down. I actually make bulk of my profit in the first 1/2 to hr. With hitting small singles rest of the day and my track record for after 2pm is not good. 3 blowouts I mentioned above all happened in the afternoon. So this week I have been extra careful and tried to stay out of trouble after 1pm and ran into a couple of problems but got out unscathed. I did not let my losing position run against me too long. So far, I am up almost $20,000 in 17 trading days and this week alone I am up $9,300.
I trade the active stocks and I follow about 50 of them (many of them with big short interests). I make about 20 to 30 roundtrip trades per day.
I go both long and short. I think my profits are about equal from both sides. But I notice from day to day, one day is mostly long day and other short day. I don't do this on purpose but it happens that way. I don't know why. But I have no qualms about shorting and I actually feel more comfortable shorting stocks. It fits my personality better. And I know this is irrational but it seems its easier the stock will go down after a big rise than the reverse. Also, most of my trades I am in anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. Some trades I let go more than 1/2 hour but rarely. The blowouts I mentioned all happened when I let the trade go longer than 1/2 hr.
Everyday, I get up thinking when is this gonna end but I keep making money everyday. And again, most of profits come early in the morning. I usually short the stock on top and buy the bottom. Another thing is I rarely lose money which is really odd since I hear good daytraders don't have high winning percentage but their homeruns are big enough to offset small errors. For me it has been a couple of double in the morning followed by many singles up the 1pm that has been doing the trick. Now, that I got the afternoon blowouts under control, I am able to keep my morning and afternoon profits. I came to a conclusion that I don't know about trading enough to do well in the last 2 hours as my trading style does not snyc with that time frame. And since I started again recently, I want to work on my afternoon trades w/o making drastic changes that will affect my morning profits.
Can I expect this to continue? One thing I am very good at is picking the bottom. I don't know why I have this sick gift. Many stocks, I almost gotten in at absolute bottom (w/n 5 pennies) of the day. But I always get out too early because I am making money so fast and I get so giddy to take few hundred dollar profits.
What i am doing different but my previous run at this as I no longer hesitate for sec. When I feel it, I just hit it. And I remember in the past thinking and saying "I knew it, I should have...." Now, I try to act on most of them as possible but still I hesitate and don't get in on many. But now I just get in enough to make decent money.
These days, I feel like I am walking on air. When I trade, I no longer even feel the tension. I am little scared but it has become so mechanical, it seems. This is because somehow I always get in at very good entry point so that I can wait out 3 to 5 minutes even if the trades does not go my way and break even.
I also only use bollinger bands, macd, and stochastic slow for entries and exits but I think I can really read the fake outs and pressure built-up in the level 2 pretty well which has been the real closer. I also spend about 1.5 hours per day reading wsj and nyt which I enjoy doing regardless of whether I trade or not. I also use 2 laptops for trading and don't have CNBC or anything. But I always scan the news for specific stock quickly before I enter a trade and I do my homework the night before for important economic events and dates for the stock so I don't get snookered with a surprise.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of epiphany in trading?
I am not here troll anyone as some will surely accuse me of. I am just very excited but I am confused at the same time. I feel like I am really going against the odds here making this much money with very little money. Thanks for any input!
