Student of the market

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tradingindreams

I am starting this journal in hopes to get guidance from respectable traders.. as I never have been blessed in meeting a kind mentor who took his/her time to help me.

I got into trading first in college trading on etrade during the bull market. I lost my life savings by the end of April 2000 due to a margin call. I spent the next 3 years working as an financial analyst running valuation models everyday.

When I quit my job as analyst, I had saved 50k. I was ready to go back to trading. Thinking, I am smarter this time around, I had an interview at a prop firm that traded listed stocks and I joined them depositing 5k.

"You will make 90k in your first year and from then on sky is the limit."

"I want to trade!! Yes, I'll do it!! $.$*"

After sitting at a corner desk with no help for 6 months, I realized that I've been scammed with commission deals to burn my 5k in commissions. I moved out from the office. I opened an account with Genesis Securities and began trading alone.

After 1.5 years of trading everyday, I'm somewhat profitable meaning I can bearly pay my rent. Every night, I still dream about trading. I still love trading. I listen to bloomberg everyday. I do chart research everyday. I read the briefing everyday. But I can't do this forever unless I can make a decent living. Life is tough. And trading isn't helping. But I haven't given up the hope yet.

My goal is hard to explain. I wish its purely financial. But there are other issues such as I want to be completely mind-free when I'm trading. (I am not sure if I'm explaining this right). I don't want to be so completely stressed out as I am all the time. I wish I can make enough consistently profitable trade to not fear the outcome of my trading.
 
Today I shorted 500 shares of BA early in the morning. I offered at .49 having 10,000 shares at .50 as my protection to get out. I felt the market was weak and at some point was convinced that the S&P will go -12. It started to go down, a new bid came in at .42 and I saw people buying .43. I covered my short at .43. I spent the rest of the day watching it go down for about 2 points. :(

I have a problem with holding.

I was taught to scalp watching bid and offers as my protection in the open book in my first prop shop I joined.

Some of my best trades I usually clip 30 cents. They end up going up a point or more.

For example, I bought AAP at the end of the day. The 40,000 share offer that was holding .50 finally broke. I bought 2000 shares there. I immidiately got out making .14 cents. After about 10 minutes later I saw it trading at .50 cents.

I donno how to hold on. I keep telling myself that I need to hold but I end up getting out at the first sign of weakness.

This has been bothering me for a while.

I can't hold on to my winners..
 
Quote from tradingindreams:

My goal is hard to explain.
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This is not good.

Quote from tradingindreams:

I wish its purely financial.
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That's fine.

Quote from tradingindreams:
But there are other issues such as I want to be completely mind-free when I'm trading. (I am not sure if I'm explaining this right). I don't want to be so completely stressed out as I am all the time. I wish I can make enough consistently profitable trade to not fear the outcome of my trading.
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What you need is a plan. There is lots of stuff on Elite Trader as well as Trade2Win regarding this. Once you have done this work then you will reach your hard to explain goal. At very least you will not be stressed out all the time and will not question the outcomes because you will expect them.

Best of luck!
 
Tell us more about you..

Your age? monthly expenses? total account value etc.


Trading is a funny game.

I had 15 straight winners for a +$ 1,350 right around at 3:30 PM, and for a second I was saving up my P/L statments to post it on the "Trader P/L" thread.

Then I took a -$ 1875 hit on the last trade on a 12 contract YM position. Just when you think you are invincible, the market chews you up and eats you alive.
 
Nearly all of my entries and exits are scaled- often with over ten different closing orders on a single position.

Cover 100 or 200 instead of all 500, and give the rest some breathing room.
 
Sounds very familiar.

About 4 months ago I was up around 7K (10+ trades) in one day. I thought I was a trading god. In the meantime people were coming to come see my condo for sale so I had to clean the place up. I placed one last trade on ER2 without a stop and walked away. When I came back I was negative -2K for the day. It got worse from there on.

Moral of the story: Every moment while trading should be taken seriously.

ozz


Quote from Ripley:

Tell us more about you..

Your age? monthly expenses? total account value etc.


Trading is a funny game.

I had 15 straight winners for a +$ 1,350 right around at 3:30 PM, and for a second I was saving up my P/L statments to post it on the "Trader P/L" thread.

Then I took a -$ 1875 hit on the last trade on a 12 contract YM position. Just when you think you are invincible, the market chews you up and eats you alive.
More...
 
I wouldn't consider myself a "respectable trader" - not sure I'd want to be.

However, I'll read your journal (and give input where appropriate) because you have a great approach!

Traders (or, rather "traders") get bagged. Even "mentors" get bagged. "Students of the market" do much better.

You got a good start by being (and remaining!) a student of the market.

That is what I am first, last, foremost. And, while I don't think I have done very well (in 2 years trading global currencies) I have not gotten bagged! :D

Know one thing: Being a student of the market is different than being a student of a mentor(s).

fxskalper
 
Quote from ozzy:



Moral of the story: Every moment while trading should be taken seriously.

ozz
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Very True. I was preoccupied with checking Tiger's score on espn.com. I must take IE out of my trading computer ASAP.
 
This is more of a reminder for myself, I have one trader friend (mentor?) who helped me out for free and taught me his pullback setup... fair enough but I want more... I want to make money all the time. I have seen charts from other people making a killing doing other trades. I tried them for weeks and not sure if I 'd made one good trade. I think over time you have to focus on what makes money for you... there is a lot of subtle reasons why certain things work for you as a person. Going back to the basics. Leverage your strength. :confused:
 
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