S/R Emini Journal
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Gary,
Thanks for your service to our great country. Much appreciated.
MiniDowTrader
I was just browsing through several of my favorite websites and I found an article that might interest some of you that remember me talking about trading reversals using Bollinger Bands. She is using basically the same method with hust slightly tweaked BB's and a 13 minute chart. Here is the article.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/eminis/commentary/favorite_strategy/Eminis-Teresa-Appleton.cfm
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/eminis/commentary/favorite_strategy/Eminis-Teresa-Appleton.cfm
Those are some good blowup stories. As I'm still a young pup of 27, I've had neither the time nor the account balance to make $100k doozies--thankfully.
To get the first part out of the way, my name is Matt and I live in Houston but looking to get back to Austin in the near future. I'm a UT grad--go Horns--and position traded options for about a year or two after I got out of college. Now I'm trying my damnedest to trade index futures full time and work for myself for the rest of my days.
OK, two really good trades come to mind.
The first was on some OTM calls on BRCM in mid 2003. The stock was trading around $12 and had just recently closed above its 50 and 200 smas. So I bought some calls with a strike of 40, I believe, for 10 cents apiece. Because they were so cheap, I waited to unload the first half at 30 cents, one quarter at 50 cents and the final quarter at 60 cents. If only I'd had a bigger account and could have done a couple hundred contracts. The funny part about that was that those contracts got to over a dollar after I exited the rest of my position. Broadcom just kept going up.
The third was less than a year and half ago after EBAY just suddenly tanked, I was still using Advanced GET and thought Elliott wave analysis was the bees knees. Anyway, I waited a little while for the implied volatility to die down, bought some OTM puts and made a double in 6 days.
Somewhere along the line, I blew a lot of those gains by getting overconfident and both trading too big for my account and not bailing on positions when I said I would. No big losses in one trade but the classic riding the elevator all the way up and all the way down.
So now I trade the YM, have specific entry and exits with firm stops in place and will hopefully never have some big $100K blowup story to share.
To get the first part out of the way, my name is Matt and I live in Houston but looking to get back to Austin in the near future. I'm a UT grad--go Horns--and position traded options for about a year or two after I got out of college. Now I'm trying my damnedest to trade index futures full time and work for myself for the rest of my days.
OK, two really good trades come to mind.
The first was on some OTM calls on BRCM in mid 2003. The stock was trading around $12 and had just recently closed above its 50 and 200 smas. So I bought some calls with a strike of 40, I believe, for 10 cents apiece. Because they were so cheap, I waited to unload the first half at 30 cents, one quarter at 50 cents and the final quarter at 60 cents. If only I'd had a bigger account and could have done a couple hundred contracts. The funny part about that was that those contracts got to over a dollar after I exited the rest of my position. Broadcom just kept going up.
The third was less than a year and half ago after EBAY just suddenly tanked, I was still using Advanced GET and thought Elliott wave analysis was the bees knees. Anyway, I waited a little while for the implied volatility to die down, bought some OTM puts and made a double in 6 days.
Somewhere along the line, I blew a lot of those gains by getting overconfident and both trading too big for my account and not bailing on positions when I said I would. No big losses in one trade but the classic riding the elevator all the way up and all the way down.
So now I trade the YM, have specific entry and exits with firm stops in place and will hopefully never have some big $100K blowup story to share.
Well hopefully you won't have to go through any major blow ups. Mine really was an easy mistake to make back then. They printed the symbols right next to each other and very small. I would never have traded again if the internet would not have come along.
Now, go out get your 100K...Hook em Horns!!!
I got nothing exciting to tell, apart from losing ~15k when trading small account, usual mistake would be small gains that would end with a large loss (total loss actually 
), basically i had no edge. Also fell asleep at the desk once while in a trade and big shit with X_Trader earlier this year resulting in an almost uncontrollable psychological spiral that almost let my subconsciousness take over and start revenge trading, had to make myself stop by walking away, having a cigarette on the balcony has helped clear the mind. Otherwise, nothing too exciting. I was lucky to learn how to manage money and go out and find an edge. That's about it, I hope LOL
edit: also running a regular business for quite a few years has helped me understand that SUPPLY & DEMAND are 2 most important factors that drive any market, if there is a balance between the two - I do not trade (intraday).
), basically i had no edge. Also fell asleep at the desk once while in a trade and big shit with X_Trader earlier this year resulting in an almost uncontrollable psychological spiral that almost let my subconsciousness take over and start revenge trading, had to make myself stop by walking away, having a cigarette on the balcony has helped clear the mind. Otherwise, nothing too exciting. I was lucky to learn how to manage money and go out and find an edge. That's about it, I hope LOLedit: also running a regular business for quite a few years has helped me understand that SUPPLY & DEMAND are 2 most important factors that drive any market, if there is a balance between the two - I do not trade (intraday).
Wow. I had boro at 55.
I'm a 40 y/o east-coaster, specifically the Keystone State. I've worked 21 years for a commercial printing company...digital prepress, photoshop, quark, etc...
I'm a product of the "bubble". 1999 was my first exposure to the markets. Bought Cisco, Nokia and AOL and poured every extra nickel into my account for about a year. I actually sold everything on March 9th 2000. Don't believe it? It's true.
Problem was I put it all in AMD @ around $43.00. Then I spent the rest of the year averaging down. With every bit of overtime I could get I just kept buying....and losing. By the time I cashed out I had turned about $40k into about $5k. :eek: Good times! Ahhh...I feel a little queasy thinking about it right now. You see as someone who only knew the market as a one-way street (UP), I knew NOTHING about stops or shorting. Didn't hear about that kind of stuff on CNBC!
I've picked up a bit of knowledge over the past 5 years and I've gone from trading individual stocks to the Q's and now the YM exclusively. Since I'm a part-time trader I'm just looking for some extra pocket change. If things continue to progress, who knows....
Tim
I'm a 40 y/o east-coaster, specifically the Keystone State. I've worked 21 years for a commercial printing company...digital prepress, photoshop, quark, etc...
I'm a product of the "bubble". 1999 was my first exposure to the markets. Bought Cisco, Nokia and AOL and poured every extra nickel into my account for about a year. I actually sold everything on March 9th 2000. Don't believe it? It's true.
Problem was I put it all in AMD @ around $43.00. Then I spent the rest of the year averaging down. With every bit of overtime I could get I just kept buying....and losing. By the time I cashed out I had turned about $40k into about $5k. :eek: Good times! Ahhh...I feel a little queasy thinking about it right now. You see as someone who only knew the market as a one-way street (UP), I knew NOTHING about stops or shorting. Didn't hear about that kind of stuff on CNBC!
I've picked up a bit of knowledge over the past 5 years and I've gone from trading individual stocks to the Q's and now the YM exclusively. Since I'm a part-time trader I'm just looking for some extra pocket change. If things continue to progress, who knows....
Tim
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