Taking 320K to 3.5million by Year End 2009
- Thread starter neke
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Quote from neke:
Weekly Update for week 22/50 ended 06/13/2009
Lost for words for the downturn. Down another 18.5K (7.5%).
I guess I wasn't careful enough with my discretionary trades once again. The culprits were SLM on Monday, and NAV on Tuesday.
On Monday shorted 20000 SLM @ 7.24 pre-market, and added more as it rose. I just noted at the time it was rising as a result of a Cramer pump the prior friday. (Used to fade those pops on Cramers Mad Money a number of years ago when the show was relatively new, and his recommendations lead to big pops in after hours. Made quite some money, but left off when he didn't appear to carry much weight anymore, no more big moves AH. So was surprised to see his call rise so much in pre-market and decided to short). Little did I realise that two analysts had joined him in upgrading the stock (collusion or coincidence?) So instead of me vs. Cramer, it was me vs. Cramer + 2 analysts. OK they won, and I was hit with a 17K loss.
Tuesday, it was NAv that refused to go down after what looked like a horrible earnings forecast. Apparently the market knew much more than I did. Made up for some of the losses with my pint-sized automated alert trades.
With my cut-off threshhold of 225K being hit intra-week, attention will now be focused on improving my automated alerts and trades, and gradually size up as performance dictates. Right now, I am on Level 3 with my automated trade sizing - this means for the average stock trade I would commit just 30% of my account value, which comes to just about 67K now. Compare that to some of my discretionary trades where I have committed 300% of account value intraday. Good thing I could afford to take a lot of those alerts and not be too pre-occupied with one trade going bad.
Further restrictions are being placed on criteria for discretionary trades, such that if I took more than two discretionary trades a week, I must have overtraded. On second thought, I think cutting them off altogether may be harmful in the long run. Prior to this year, they have accounted for the bulk of my gains, and I believe when the time is right, things may fall into place again.
Code:Opening Balance: 246,132 Net loss for the week -18,615 ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance: 227,517 Number of Trades 21 Number of Profitable Trades 11 Since Inception of Thread 01/10/2009 - 06/13/2009 Opening Balance: 320,064 Net loss (Less Margin Interest) -92,547 (Down 28.9%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 227,517 Number of Trades 517 Number of Profitable Trades 322 Top/Bottom Discretionary Trades for the week TICKER ENTRY DATE/TIME EXIT DATE/TIME QTY PURCHASE AMT SOLD AMT GAIN/LOSS TYPE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NAV 2009-06-09-09-53-56 2009-06-09-11-30-02 4000 174375 169936 -4478 SHORT SLM 2009-06-08-08-00-00 2009-06-08-15-51-12 74000 573519 556807 -16831 SHORT
Take a week off, it might help you see things slightly better.
Neke,
I just joined the forum. Yours was the first and possibly only one
that I will view today. I also have an Ameritrade account. My
concern here is that I believe it would be prudent to buy puts
on positions for "insurance." I've been studying
poweropt/webinars.asp for over a week, now. I have never
used this method and my account reflects it. I plan on using
it, though. Right now I am upsidedown in FAZ and I am just idling
and planning ways to turn my account around. I wish you the
best.
I just joined the forum. Yours was the first and possibly only one
that I will view today. I also have an Ameritrade account. My
concern here is that I believe it would be prudent to buy puts
on positions for "insurance." I've been studying
poweropt/webinars.asp for over a week, now. I have never
used this method and my account reflects it. I plan on using
it, though. Right now I am upsidedown in FAZ and I am just idling
and planning ways to turn my account around. I wish you the
best.
What many fail to realize is that just one good trade will bring him back into the black. In fact, one good trade can make him reach his goal within a few weeks.
There are many single digit stocks on the move up all the time everyday doubling and tripling.
He just needs to get on the train and ride it up like most ET traders do all the time.
There are many single digit stocks on the move up all the time everyday doubling and tripling.
He just needs to get on the train and ride it up like most ET traders do all the time.
This is the kind of thinking that brings gambling addicts to their darkest days.
Neke doesn't need this kind of bullsh*t on his journal. He's had $60K trades in the past and knows that a home run or two can "bring him back". He puts on big trades expecting big profits; that's his style. Sadly he's stayed in losers far past the point of invalidation, and exited with a huge loss close to the capitulation point, only to see the trade reverse to break even or possibly even a profit. This lack of risk management causes a trader to think ANY trade will eventually become profitable with enough patience, averaging, etc, and the trader continues to repeat the same mistakes until the account is gone.
A professional, successful trader will rack up the singles day after day, and now and then hit home runs with the bases loaded because they've trained well and are prepared when the big game is on.
Well, if he bets heavy (even not with margin) on those dollar stocks, he could lose 50% of his account value overnight as well.
If betting on those stock were so rewarding without much risk, I guess everybody would do it.
Reward and risk are always tied up together. You mean "if......", that is a big IF. Yes, he could get his account back on one good trade (betting really heavy), but what if he bet a wrong horse or wrong direction? There is no such thing called free lunch i the world.
Basically you suggest him take more risks to get his account value in one trade. Pretty scary in my mind.
That observation is right. I've had a tough time adjusting to the fact the market sentiment has turned, which was not helped by bad habits. It is such a temptation trying to keep doing what used to work. I think one's success as a discretionary trader is proportional to ability to adapt to changing market conditions without big bias.
Definitely yes. I'm yet to find the time to compute exactly how much, but I believe averaging down has cost much both this year as well as last year. The good overall performance last year obviously masked the amount lost to that bad habit.
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