I don't think Hitman's style is even an option for most of us. Early on I tried scalping from home and got creamed. It doesnt suprise me that people are making money with just a few trades a day. What would suprise me is somebody making money scalping remotely. Is anybody here doing that successfully?
October Trading Journals
- Thread starter Hitman
- Start date
My NYSE trades start out with the intention of being an intraday swing trade. If everything indicates that it will be good for a swing, I will enter the trade. If I get stopped out for a small loss, thats ok. If my trailing stop takes me out for a scalp profit, thats ok. If my trailing stop takes me out for large swing gains, thats fantastic. But I never enter a trade intending it to be a mere scalp (with the exception of news-related trades such as anthrax alerts = a nasdaq CPHD scalp) ... scalps are a result of swings gone bad. In other words, I am playing for home runs, but I manage my trades to at least eke out scalp profits, if the home runs don't work out.
To be a successful scalp trader, trade accuracy must be very high i.e. more than 70%, since losses and gains are about the same size.
To be a successful intraday swinger, trade accuracy is not that important e.g. I can lose 10cents, 20cents, and 14 cents ... then follow that up with a swing gain of $1.20. I am green for the day, even though my supposed 'success' rate is 25%.
To be a successful scalp trader, trade accuracy must be very high i.e. more than 70%, since losses and gains are about the same size.
To be a successful intraday swinger, trade accuracy is not that important e.g. I can lose 10cents, 20cents, and 14 cents ... then follow that up with a swing gain of $1.20. I am green for the day, even though my supposed 'success' rate is 25%.
Well said on that last post candletrader. That is my philosophy and my point. I generally go for somewhat larger moves, but if they turn into scalps or losses due to trade management parameters, then so be it.
I too enjoy reading Hitman's journals and mean no harm but mention what I have found works best for me in an attempt to help him with a different approach. I continue to deal with my own trading demons and am just offering my 2¢. Sure, not all trades turn into big or decent winners, but what I have observed in Hitman's trading after checking the charts is that he seriously cuts his winners short in many cases. I just think he should consider trying to let his winners run a bit longer. It seems to me that he'll take a 25¢ profit and leave $1 on the table when there was no reason to get out. It's like calling a fishing trip short for fear of the weather going bad when there's not a cloud in the sky (stupid analogy, but you get my point).
In response to Hitman's post specifically regarding generating high commissions, I will just say that it's not the actual cost of commissions, but rather what percentage those commissions are as a percentage of profits. For example, generating $600 in commissions on a $4000 or $5000 dollar day is OK, but generating $600 commissions on a $1000 day is not so good. And I'm not preaching here from the top of the mountain. I've done it way too much. As an example, one day I can remember recently was a $600 day with $520 in commissions.......not good!
Well, good trading to all!
I too enjoy reading Hitman's journals and mean no harm but mention what I have found works best for me in an attempt to help him with a different approach. I continue to deal with my own trading demons and am just offering my 2¢. Sure, not all trades turn into big or decent winners, but what I have observed in Hitman's trading after checking the charts is that he seriously cuts his winners short in many cases. I just think he should consider trying to let his winners run a bit longer. It seems to me that he'll take a 25¢ profit and leave $1 on the table when there was no reason to get out. It's like calling a fishing trip short for fear of the weather going bad when there's not a cloud in the sky (stupid analogy, but you get my point).
In response to Hitman's post specifically regarding generating high commissions, I will just say that it's not the actual cost of commissions, but rather what percentage those commissions are as a percentage of profits. For example, generating $600 in commissions on a $4000 or $5000 dollar day is OK, but generating $600 commissions on a $1000 day is not so good. And I'm not preaching here from the top of the mountain. I've done it way too much. As an example, one day I can remember recently was a $600 day with $520 in commissions.......not good!
Well, good trading to all!
Chopped up today as I just could not held myself in the black today and lost my third game of the month, SPX and COMP diverged today and I just wasn't short enough during the dead zone when the market finally broke down.
18500 shares on 5 of 13 shooting, +470 before commissions, -149 after, a tons of churning all day. The turning point of the day was when I loaded up the truck with shorts at 10AM, futures made one last squeeze which knocked me out of those shorts.
On a side note, I have received the book from Tony Oz (really appreciate it Tony) last night, I haven't opened it yet (I hope there is no anthrax in it j/k) and I wonder if he autographed it. I will review this book after I read it, 100% honest review, just like my trading journals, I am not going to say it is good because I got it for free, but if it is as good as advertised I have a loud mouth in my firm.
A nasty incident happened in the office, ever since I left Mrs D's group she has been quite hostile. Today the MIS guy came to install first alert for me, to my surprise it came with a second computer and an extra monitor! I mean, I thought it is just a piece of software, but they gave me a second set-up, awesome, now I have 5 monitors. Mrs. D said in my face that there are people making 100 times my money with far less of a modest set-up, which is true, there is a guy sitting behind me on one monitor and he gets 5K day's frequently (he trades 2000 shares and up, and he traded Nasdaq for quite a few years before he joined our firm), he is much much better than me and I am not sure why he has only one monitor (probably because they are moving to a new building in two weeks), I don't deny that, as a matter of fact I think I am the smallest potato trader with 5 monitors on this entire planet. But I didn't request another monitor, the management felt like giving it to me and there was no need for her hostility. Her tone was very cold, very arrogant, and that sends the competitive fire into my blood like a full moon on a werewolf.
One day, when I am a better trader than she is, I am going to give back this kind of embarrassment in full spades (well, maybe not, by then I probably would be proud of myself and won't remember this little incident anymore). Until then, I think I have just convinced another member of her team to leave her group, who happens to be a close friend of mine and didn't like how his brother was treated, the guy is close to a breakout and it would not be nice for her to pocket his commissions. In the mean time I am not in her league in term of size so I am going to avoid direct confrontations.
I don't even care if anyone from her group reads this, I am very upset about her attitude and I was very close to tell her what I really think of her as both a person and a trader, I have been playing sheep too long, the wolve calls . . . SOME DAY . . . Gift me with strength, love . . .
Pre-Market: Positive earnings on energy stocks, really didn't expect such a big sell-off.
9:30: Futures came in, started to put up bullets, LXK (COMP), PPG(CEX), CVC(weak daily). LXK was a great bullet and my best stock of the day, but he really squeezed quite a few times and I never had enough size in him. A lot of churning in addition to a few half point gains I took off him. PPG was awful, futures squeezed and CEX went up hard and I sold instead of long by accident, lost half a point on that one. futures went up and I took 1000 shares of TYC for a 30 cents scalp. Unfortunately my other CEX long PX and a bottompick on DNA turned out to be crap and I stopped out for 10-20 cents losses when futures hit 1080 and bounced off, and I knew it too, it didn't look like it could break that resistance and I should have bulleted there.
9:58: The key point, I went heavily short and futures did one more scare squeeze and I covered and watched everything tank. CVC was a horrible bullet as there was some size BID at 36.05 and something is out of whack with this stock today on extreme volume, many 50K blocks hit 36.05 but it won't be knocked out, I flipped for a little profit but I should have kept an eye on it when it broke 36.05, would have been a quick half a point and this is the kind of stock I can hold 1500 shares without any trouble, incredibly liquid. As it was PPG and LXK tanked and I wasn't short. A lot of churning on my bullets, DX
Chopped up today as I just could not held myself in the black today and lost my third game of the month, SPX and COMP diverged today and I just wasn't short enough during the dead zone when the market finally broke down.
11:15: Finally a few more good moves on LXK and a quarter bottom bounce on TER, lost a nickle on AOL on a failed bottom pick attempt, I wish I trusted LXK more but futures weren't doing anything, this is the critical weakness of a top-down approach, as when the futures is choppy, I don't believe in a good stock even when I have one. Still I managed to be up $50 on the day.
2:20: Churned a lot of DOX, took BJ for a dime move on RLX rally. So many failed breakouts today, lost 20 cents on AGE, tried to pick GE bottom and lost another dime. The classic slow death scenario.
3:50: MIS guy came and I took a walk, futures made a big pop to the upside, I wanted 1000 GE at 36.92, one tick too slow, would have got myself back to positive, oh well, all streaks come to an end, just build another one . . .
18500 shares on 5 of 13 shooting, +470 before commissions, -149 after, a tons of churning all day. The turning point of the day was when I loaded up the truck with shorts at 10AM, futures made one last squeeze which knocked me out of those shorts.
On a side note, I have received the book from Tony Oz (really appreciate it Tony) last night, I haven't opened it yet (I hope there is no anthrax in it j/k) and I wonder if he autographed it. I will review this book after I read it, 100% honest review, just like my trading journals, I am not going to say it is good because I got it for free, but if it is as good as advertised I have a loud mouth in my firm.
A nasty incident happened in the office, ever since I left Mrs D's group she has been quite hostile. Today the MIS guy came to install first alert for me, to my surprise it came with a second computer and an extra monitor! I mean, I thought it is just a piece of software, but they gave me a second set-up, awesome, now I have 5 monitors. Mrs. D said in my face that there are people making 100 times my money with far less of a modest set-up, which is true, there is a guy sitting behind me on one monitor and he gets 5K day's frequently (he trades 2000 shares and up, and he traded Nasdaq for quite a few years before he joined our firm), he is much much better than me and I am not sure why he has only one monitor (probably because they are moving to a new building in two weeks), I don't deny that, as a matter of fact I think I am the smallest potato trader with 5 monitors on this entire planet. But I didn't request another monitor, the management felt like giving it to me and there was no need for her hostility. Her tone was very cold, very arrogant, and that sends the competitive fire into my blood like a full moon on a werewolf.
One day, when I am a better trader than she is, I am going to give back this kind of embarrassment in full spades (well, maybe not, by then I probably would be proud of myself and won't remember this little incident anymore). Until then, I think I have just convinced another member of her team to leave her group, who happens to be a close friend of mine and didn't like how his brother was treated, the guy is close to a breakout and it would not be nice for her to pocket his commissions. In the mean time I am not in her league in term of size so I am going to avoid direct confrontations.
I don't even care if anyone from her group reads this, I am very upset about her attitude and I was very close to tell her what I really think of her as both a person and a trader, I have been playing sheep too long, the wolve calls . . . SOME DAY . . . Gift me with strength, love . . .
Pre-Market: Positive earnings on energy stocks, really didn't expect such a big sell-off.
9:30: Futures came in, started to put up bullets, LXK (COMP), PPG(CEX), CVC(weak daily). LXK was a great bullet and my best stock of the day, but he really squeezed quite a few times and I never had enough size in him. A lot of churning in addition to a few half point gains I took off him. PPG was awful, futures squeezed and CEX went up hard and I sold instead of long by accident, lost half a point on that one. futures went up and I took 1000 shares of TYC for a 30 cents scalp. Unfortunately my other CEX long PX and a bottompick on DNA turned out to be crap and I stopped out for 10-20 cents losses when futures hit 1080 and bounced off, and I knew it too, it didn't look like it could break that resistance and I should have bulleted there.
9:58: The key point, I went heavily short and futures did one more scare squeeze and I covered and watched everything tank. CVC was a horrible bullet as there was some size BID at 36.05 and something is out of whack with this stock today on extreme volume, many 50K blocks hit 36.05 but it won't be knocked out, I flipped for a little profit but I should have kept an eye on it when it broke 36.05, would have been a quick half a point and this is the kind of stock I can hold 1500 shares without any trouble, incredibly liquid. As it was PPG and LXK tanked and I wasn't short. A lot of churning on my bullets, DX
Chopped up today as I just could not held myself in the black today and lost my third game of the month, SPX and COMP diverged today and I just wasn't short enough during the dead zone when the market finally broke down.
11:15: Finally a few more good moves on LXK and a quarter bottom bounce on TER, lost a nickle on AOL on a failed bottom pick attempt, I wish I trusted LXK more but futures weren't doing anything, this is the critical weakness of a top-down approach, as when the futures is choppy, I don't believe in a good stock even when I have one. Still I managed to be up $50 on the day.
2:20: Churned a lot of DOX, took BJ for a dime move on RLX rally. So many failed breakouts today, lost 20 cents on AGE, tried to pick GE bottom and lost another dime. The classic slow death scenario.
3:50: MIS guy came and I took a walk, futures made a big pop to the upside, I wanted 1000 GE at 36.92, one tick too slow, would have got myself back to positive, oh well, all streaks come to an end, just build another one . . .
Hitman
One thing I noticed about you is the saying
"I HAVE TO BE PROFITABLE today " and you will say it over and over again in all of your posts. DON"T FORCE TRADES and up your size when you are wrong. You will end up losing a lot more than way in the long run. Be happy if you had a small loss for the day as long as you traded with your rules and your rules show you that you have a positive expectancy. Sooner or later you can end up with a huge loss instead of a small one with this pattern.
Keep up the good work
rtharp
One thing I noticed about you is the saying
"I HAVE TO BE PROFITABLE today " and you will say it over and over again in all of your posts. DON"T FORCE TRADES and up your size when you are wrong. You will end up losing a lot more than way in the long run. Be happy if you had a small loss for the day as long as you traded with your rules and your rules show you that you have a positive expectancy. Sooner or later you can end up with a huge loss instead of a small one with this pattern.
Keep up the good work
rtharp
Rtharp:
The scenario in your description happens about once every month (sure hope it doesn't happen this month), I get really frustrated and try to "pick-up the tempo" and I get hacked to a brutal death, a blow-out.
As long as I keep my cool however with really tight stops I usually at least break-even, at one point today I was down $600, just could not get anything together. I always avoid churning when I am up but psychologically it is very hard to stop when I am down, my worst days are the days when I close on the low's after a string of small losses, it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Yes, it is very hard to address.
Ddefina:
This firm makes a lot of money, and it allows them to recruit people with no capital and bring in new blood frequently, a very potentent formula, as a matter of fact I think this is the best business model if you have a tons of capital
Our best days are the days we paid least fees, everything worked, no churns, my friend was +1000 gross -300 net, he traded 50K shares today each way and churned his way out of a $1000 deficit. I mean you get hit and down $800 first 30 minutes into the game what do you do? You will take more shots and it is just a lot of churns until you hit one big trade that puts you back on the map, but by the time you get there you already churned a lot. The firm benefits greatly from our churning but it is part of trading, almost inevitable.
The scenario in your description happens about once every month (sure hope it doesn't happen this month), I get really frustrated and try to "pick-up the tempo" and I get hacked to a brutal death, a blow-out.
As long as I keep my cool however with really tight stops I usually at least break-even, at one point today I was down $600, just could not get anything together. I always avoid churning when I am up but psychologically it is very hard to stop when I am down, my worst days are the days when I close on the low's after a string of small losses, it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Yes, it is very hard to address.
Ddefina:
This firm makes a lot of money, and it allows them to recruit people with no capital and bring in new blood frequently, a very potentent formula, as a matter of fact I think this is the best business model if you have a tons of capital
Our best days are the days we paid least fees, everything worked, no churns, my friend was +1000 gross -300 net, he traded 50K shares today each way and churned his way out of a $1000 deficit. I mean you get hit and down $800 first 30 minutes into the game what do you do? You will take more shots and it is just a lot of churns until you hit one big trade that puts you back on the map, but by the time you get there you already churned a lot. The firm benefits greatly from our churning but it is part of trading, almost inevitable.
Hitman,
congratulations for keeping your cool with Mrs D (Diablo?).. probably the fact that you have a better setup than other traders has less to do with you being better than other traders and more to do with the fact that they like you.. never discount the power of favor =).. but, watch your back.. especially if she has a good relationship with your boss.. in office politics you dont want to create a situation where you and someone else cannot work together, because when it comes down to choosing sides, you might get the boot.. so, posting negative comments (however true) on the net might help you relieve stress, but it might also inspire her to think of new and creative ways to screw you over.. be careful my friend..
-qwik
congratulations for keeping your cool with Mrs D (Diablo?).. probably the fact that you have a better setup than other traders has less to do with you being better than other traders and more to do with the fact that they like you.. never discount the power of favor =).. but, watch your back.. especially if she has a good relationship with your boss.. in office politics you dont want to create a situation where you and someone else cannot work together, because when it comes down to choosing sides, you might get the boot.. so, posting negative comments (however true) on the net might help you relieve stress, but it might also inspire her to think of new and creative ways to screw you over.. be careful my friend..
-qwik
Hitman, best her trading and you will have nothing to fear!
Become better than she...THE EYE OF THE TIGER!
WIN! WIN! WIN! at any cost!
Get up earlier and
Go to bed later than the rest .
Accept not mediocrity....
STRIVE STRIVE to be the best there is and ever was!!
BEAT HER AT HER OWN GAME!
Only then will you have nothing to fear! hahahahahaha!
Become better than she...THE EYE OF THE TIGER!
WIN! WIN! WIN! at any cost!
Get up earlier and
Go to bed later than the rest .
Accept not mediocrity....
STRIVE STRIVE to be the best there is and ever was!!
BEAT HER AT HER OWN GAME!
Only then will you have nothing to fear! hahahahahaha!
Originally posted by Hitman
This firm makes a lot of money, and it allows them to recruit people with no capital and bring in new blood frequently, a very potentent formula, as a matter of fact I think this is the best business model if you have a tons of capital...
I think it's an awesome business model, with good risk control and hundred's of traders generating 5K-10K each per month, I'd buy in. It would be interesting comparing your revenue generation for the firm vs. everyone elses, not necessarily trading profits. They don't see much of your day trading profit do they? You might be on their top 20 list for income generation, and thus treated better.