I wanted to start this journal so that I could teach a few new traders, on top of keeping myself motivated, and reaffirming the core set of profitable trading principles i already know to be true.
I will start off by giving a description of my history in the stock market. I started off In 2005 trading prop as a side job while I took my commerce degree. In my first year of trading I made roughly 60k (started in May). At this time I was basically trading the same stock day in and day out and I got to know the thing like the back of my hand. I noticed a pattern in this stock which holds true for every stock I trade to this day, and you will see me talk about it in a bit. I just kept repeating the same pattern over and over not really knowing much about the market, or systems development or anything like that, but being to naieve to realise how difficult the market was, at this point I thought the market was a joke.
In 2006 I made roughly the same and decided to study up a bit. Over the first 2 years I saw people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. (our firm showed the numbers) I had a lot of confidence in my ability, and my own intelligence, and thus thought âif these guys are making this kind of money why canât I,â I decided not to finish my degree and pursue trading full time. At the end of this year I read every single book I could on trading and vowed in 2007 I would beat all these guys.
In 2007 with a lot of hard work my trading exploded, at this point I was still a discretionary trader. I finished 2007, having made 330k, but I was very tired of grinding out every single print on every single stock day after day. I had met with a few other good traders off of elite, and we exchanged ideas, as it turned out most people I showed what I was doing to could not make money off what I was doing, as it was hard for me to define an âXYZâ set of variables, but with the systems stuff they taught me I was able to make money.
In 2008 The systems stuff just exploded for me, and I decided to be lazy and just do the stuff I had been taught and wait for setups and piss around on the internet all day until I got a signal. I totally gave up on my discretionary trading as I was in fact making more off these systems with very little effort. I finished 2008 up close to 600k, with very little effort.
Now here comes the problem. In 2009 I once again figured that the systems stuff which worked so well for me the year before would work well for me once again. This was where everything went south. I started off 2009 down close to 150k, and then worked my ass off (adding discretionary back to the mix) to get back to zero. Thankfully by the middle of 2009, I had made my way back to zero since there was still lots of volatility in the market. The last 6 months of 2009 I made about 60k, most of it from systems, as I had found I could not trade my discretionary stuff anymore.
My problem lies in the fact that I now for some reason have a problem controlling my risk. I will be doing good for days on end with my discretionary stuff and then decide to start swinging like it was 2008 all over again, 10k+ swings in my pnl all of a sudden come in to play, and I average stuff into oblivion. In the last 6 months I have started out each month pretty good, and then decided it was 2008, and I started swinging like Barry Bonds. Thankfully the only thing this ever cost me was blown profits, but it made me realise I Was taking on way to much risk. (even to start these months)
My goal for 2010 is to start from scratch, I am going to start doing my discretionary starting from scratch again with piker size, 300-1000 shares. I am hoping this journal will embarrass me enough not to average losers into oblivion, and blow my month out with 2 days trading.
Any and all questions are welcome and I hope I can help anyone who is new, by explaining stuff, as it helps me to reinforce my rules. Only a couple rules of the thread, I will not answer the same question twice. I will not answer anything about my systems trades. Reason being I think I can offer valuable advice for new guys with my discretionary stuff, (in terms of trading fundamentals) which most, probably cannot just copy and steal from me. I do not want to give up my systems stuff.
Starting Monday I will post trades in as close to real time as possible, I will have to wait till after the day is over to offer analysis on trades. My goal is to take my discretionary trading to 30k a month again by yearâs end.
Good luck to all and good trading in 2010.
I will start off by giving a description of my history in the stock market. I started off In 2005 trading prop as a side job while I took my commerce degree. In my first year of trading I made roughly 60k (started in May). At this time I was basically trading the same stock day in and day out and I got to know the thing like the back of my hand. I noticed a pattern in this stock which holds true for every stock I trade to this day, and you will see me talk about it in a bit. I just kept repeating the same pattern over and over not really knowing much about the market, or systems development or anything like that, but being to naieve to realise how difficult the market was, at this point I thought the market was a joke.
In 2006 I made roughly the same and decided to study up a bit. Over the first 2 years I saw people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. (our firm showed the numbers) I had a lot of confidence in my ability, and my own intelligence, and thus thought âif these guys are making this kind of money why canât I,â I decided not to finish my degree and pursue trading full time. At the end of this year I read every single book I could on trading and vowed in 2007 I would beat all these guys.
In 2007 with a lot of hard work my trading exploded, at this point I was still a discretionary trader. I finished 2007, having made 330k, but I was very tired of grinding out every single print on every single stock day after day. I had met with a few other good traders off of elite, and we exchanged ideas, as it turned out most people I showed what I was doing to could not make money off what I was doing, as it was hard for me to define an âXYZâ set of variables, but with the systems stuff they taught me I was able to make money.
In 2008 The systems stuff just exploded for me, and I decided to be lazy and just do the stuff I had been taught and wait for setups and piss around on the internet all day until I got a signal. I totally gave up on my discretionary trading as I was in fact making more off these systems with very little effort. I finished 2008 up close to 600k, with very little effort.
Now here comes the problem. In 2009 I once again figured that the systems stuff which worked so well for me the year before would work well for me once again. This was where everything went south. I started off 2009 down close to 150k, and then worked my ass off (adding discretionary back to the mix) to get back to zero. Thankfully by the middle of 2009, I had made my way back to zero since there was still lots of volatility in the market. The last 6 months of 2009 I made about 60k, most of it from systems, as I had found I could not trade my discretionary stuff anymore.
My problem lies in the fact that I now for some reason have a problem controlling my risk. I will be doing good for days on end with my discretionary stuff and then decide to start swinging like it was 2008 all over again, 10k+ swings in my pnl all of a sudden come in to play, and I average stuff into oblivion. In the last 6 months I have started out each month pretty good, and then decided it was 2008, and I started swinging like Barry Bonds. Thankfully the only thing this ever cost me was blown profits, but it made me realise I Was taking on way to much risk. (even to start these months)
My goal for 2010 is to start from scratch, I am going to start doing my discretionary starting from scratch again with piker size, 300-1000 shares. I am hoping this journal will embarrass me enough not to average losers into oblivion, and blow my month out with 2 days trading.
Any and all questions are welcome and I hope I can help anyone who is new, by explaining stuff, as it helps me to reinforce my rules. Only a couple rules of the thread, I will not answer the same question twice. I will not answer anything about my systems trades. Reason being I think I can offer valuable advice for new guys with my discretionary stuff, (in terms of trading fundamentals) which most, probably cannot just copy and steal from me. I do not want to give up my systems stuff.
Starting Monday I will post trades in as close to real time as possible, I will have to wait till after the day is over to offer analysis on trades. My goal is to take my discretionary trading to 30k a month again by yearâs end.
Good luck to all and good trading in 2010.
I am trying to be as open and willing to explain stuff to people as possible, this may seem basic to some but this is my gift to the newbies of ET. 