Taking 410K to 4million by Year End 2010
- Thread starter neke
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Yeah, I can see that neke will never make the grade... Poor fella, should have just quit when he/she still had the Maserati car purchasing power times 4.
Neke, our biggest defects as traders is bias. "This did X every time Y happened, so it will do it again, easy money" or "The news was awful, watch for a short signal," as price continues in an uptrend all day and I wait and wait...
Someone recently asked me for some basic tips for trading and one of my top tips was: Avoid bias. If news is awful and price rises, trust price and ignore the news.
Also, I would avoid trading earnings plays outside regular trading hours. I learned that the hard way in my first 3 months trading. I had to read a multi-page document full of warnings and agree to it before Etrade let me commence "extended hours" trading. Once I tried that game, I understood why. :eek:
Neke I don't post much, but I've followed you since you started making goals for yourself and sharing them.
Trading is a tough business and luckily you have another source of income. It is a very good thing you've kept your place of employment since that in itself helps in excelling as a trader. Full time trading is a lifestyle that requires you sell your soul to try and make it, and can easily be taken away at any moment, regardless of how long it took to build.
My suggestion would be to leave this current market environment alone, until you see things starting to work for you again. You can always creep back in and swing for the fences again. You'll get your type of fertile market environment prime for your strategies once again.
Trading is a tough business and luckily you have another source of income. It is a very good thing you've kept your place of employment since that in itself helps in excelling as a trader. Full time trading is a lifestyle that requires you sell your soul to try and make it, and can easily be taken away at any moment, regardless of how long it took to build.
My suggestion would be to leave this current market environment alone, until you see things starting to work for you again. You can always creep back in and swing for the fences again. You'll get your type of fertile market environment prime for your strategies once again.
AMZN caught me off guard. I was short, but had no idea they had earnigns out the next day, so I rushed to buy calls as a hedge in case of an ugly gap up. The stock gaped down 7 points the next day and I closed out the calls with a 1k loss and some change. No problem i thought im still short a few hundred shares and it will go lower. But just it case I moved my position to b/e, and sure enough it rallied HARD and I got stopped out.
Just avoid earnings. The excitement is not worth the risk
Just avoid earnings. The excitement is not worth the risk
Interesting conclusion to draw from Neke's travails. Many people make similar recommendations after taking a hit or seeing others take a hit. Imho, the correct conclusion isn't to 'avoid' earnings (or ES or CL or pre-mkt or other areas where traders frequently struggle...) but rather avoid anything in which you do not have a demonstrated edge. If you have an edge, then you are also likely to know how often the specific play is successful (& therefore - how often it will fail). Unless your edge is proven at 100% success (very unlikely), you understand that some % of the time, an unprofitable play is expected. If you do not have a demonstrated edge, you're simply gambling & don't even know how bad the odds.... :eek:
Neke: sorry to interrupt your thread - best of luck next week.
All the best,
R
AARGGHH!!!...numbers, numbers...pesky things
NiN
hope all is well with Neke...
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