Taking 320K to 3.5million by Year End 2009

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Quote from bwolinsky:

And also why the street loves discretionary traders.
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Bwolinsky,

I love guys like you, so easy to take money from.

You remind me of an old Kashmiri proverb. "Empty vessels make much noise"

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Neke,

You're getting a lot of advice from well intentioned people, however I suspect they have never been in your shoes.

Forget what you did last year. Last year is over. Market conditions are vastly different now. What you did last year won't work.

Your problem is a simple one. You plan your entries carefully but have no plan whatsoever for your exits. Your risk management is non-existent/insane. Continue on like this and the results will not change.

This may be harsh but there is no offence intended. Your type of trading is what the Street refers to as 'dumb money'. It's up to you if you want to continue to be dumb money. There's so few on this site who have a chance to make big money. You're one of the ones who can. Sad to see you piss away your opportunity.
 
Quote from bwolinsky:

If I saw that curve on C2, I'd be thinking, "he doesn't know how to trade." However, if you really did turn a paltry amount into 300k, while this doesn't predict future success, I'd go back and study what I was thinking about during that period. I hope you've been jotting down notes during this time you've been posting. If not, you can probably go back and read your own threads. I'd be looking at my journal to see what I was thinking about, assuming you've kept one as most people recommend you do. You'd probably find you made money for the wrong reasons, not the right ones. Something tells me your overall view of the market and your bias is impeding your capital growth. Try and go read some articles on bloomberg if you want an idea what big money is doing, because its definitely not focused on the stocks your trading in, and certainly not in those directions.

Your whole week should be centered around the Bloomberg Economic Calendar. That's enough to decide which direction to trade in. Breakout trades are bread and butter on some of these headline news events.

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/ecalendar/index.html

It's so fucking easy to read the market focus and interpret the market moving events for the day from that. You get the reaction very quickly, and, assuming you know what a breakout trade is, you'll find it's very profitable, too.

For those who don't, there's several events that cause the market to move substantially in one direction or the other. Literally seconds before the news release you place OCO order a few ticks above and below the current price. It has good MFE in most cases, and sufficiently covers your price if you're fast enough to take the profit, as the market generally overshoots by large amounts, maybe 10 to 15 ticks above or below your long or short as a stop order for futures only. In your case, Neke, you'd want to do something like 6 to 10 cents above and below at stop on SPY, which is where I see your trading is quite good in.
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great post. thank you.
 
Stop averaging down. That shit is lame. It won't ever turn a pig into Beyonce. If you don't know what your exposure and expectation is going in, then you're no different than mom and pop who haven't the desire or brains to understand what they're doing and are just riding the wave. Good trades don't test you, they're all smiles. Stop hoping. Stop trading to trade. Wait until the easy play comes like I told you. You will be alright.

Wilt
 
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Neke, don't be in a such a hurry to "blow-out your account", or in your case, hit your yearly account stop-loss. You still have a pretty good sized account right now. You think you feel bad right now...think about how you would feel if you hit your yearly stop-loss. You should consider taking time off from your trading to stop and smell the roses and re-group.

Now is not the time to get aggressive. Instead, since your trading is obviously "off the tracks", I would suggest you drop down to a much smaller position size, and focus on developing your EDGE, CONSISTENCY, and DISCIPLINE.

Consistency, Discipline, and an Edge are to a trader what oil is to a car. And you sir, with all due respect, have neither consistency nor discipline. And, it's debatable whether you have an edge.

Think about it for a second, what is the point of trading if you can not achieve consistent results in your trading? You would be better of going to Vegas. I know I would not want to play this "game" if I had no EDGE. I can think of a million other things to do with my money other than trading without an EDGE, CONSISTENCY, and DISCIPLINE.

Consistency and Discipline are the easiest to overcome if you have a true and good Edge. Developing a good edge requires keen knowledge of how markets really work. A good edge is OBJECTIVE, SIMPLE, ROBUST enough to work on ALL MARKETS, and has, "thus far", withstood the "test of time" (I don't really believe that edges last forever but that is another story. I'm happy with "now"). Unfortunately, it took me years to find an edge that consistently works on all markets, and all time frames, but it can be done.
 
The things that is worrying about nekes averaging down is that if he does this on his losing trades then he maybe doing it on a lot of his winning trades too. And they wouldnt be winners if didnt average down on them.

I hope this isnt the case for neke but it normally is for traders who habitually average down.
 
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Averaging down isnt the main problem here. If MM is in place he can risk the same buying the stock 3 different times as he could buying it all at once. I almost never average down btw.

I think the problem is his size, and getting emotional after losses. If he's getting more and more depressed after each week then cut size.

from now on, dont risk any more than 7200.00 which is roughly 3% of your account, and then divide that in 3 or more for when you average down.
 
Oh god, here comes all the wonderful advice from those who never made a dime trading (except red_ink). Also can't leave out the misery loves company crowd.

How predictable.
 
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