The adventures of a new Trader

Quote from cashmoney69:

profit/ loss: - 284.00

reason for trade - Impulse :( .
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:eek:

What did you see in this monster? What was your initial stop? I see that you sold at 57.20, but you held this thing down through to 55, a $400 unrealized loss!

Trading plan revised
[...]
3. Stops will no longer be held mentally. I'm looking for a 1:2 risk/reward ratio.

4. Four day trades a week (max i'm allowed to do by law)

I am going to reduce share size and widen my stops. Share size will now be 80 to 90 instead of 100-120.
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I think it's a good idea to move to a programatic stoploss. Hopefully this will eliminate those broken stops and reduce the bleeding.

If you're going to restrict yourself to four trades per week, then you have the luxury of taking only very choice setups. It might help if you get very specific with what setups you will take so you can focus on searching for setups and refining your system. You can borrow from others, like O'Neil's CANSLIM or try following SpyderTrader's Hershey Journal. There simply is no room for "impulse" trades if you are placing these restrictions on yourself.


Maybe you should consider setting a maximum dollar amount that you are willing to risk, then based on the stock and its S/R points, adjust your position size.

Otherwise these trading rules look like an improvement. I hope that they help.
 
7/27/06

bought 100 ANDE @ 38.65

profit target 40.00
stop 36.00

8/4/06

sold 100 ANDE @ 39.08

profit 29.00

thats about .51 cents an hours pay. lol

Reason: I bought this stock because the charts looked good. Little did I know that ANDE was reporting the next day. The stock was expected to be higher than expectations, but instead the stock droped.

lesson - Always check for major news events before buying. Traders cannot ignore the news because its such a driving factor in stock price.
 

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7/31/06

Bought 50 of AAPL @ 67.90

target 70.00
stop 65.00

8/2/06

Added to position

100 @ 68.60

target 70.00
stop ?


8/4/06

short 100 AAPL @ 65.24
target ?
stop ?

Sell 150 AAPL @ 65.57

cover 100 AAPL @ 66.32

profit - 562.50

Reason: AAPL was in a nice uptrend and I wanted to get in. Technicals looked good too.

Lesson: Read the news before buying. Same mistake I made on ANDE.

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Quote from cashmoney69:

I know this sounds sad, but I dont know the answer to your question :eek: . I opened my account with 500...which is nothing (scottrade). Right now I have 6,090.00 total. However only half of that is actually mine (3,045.00). I cant understand the accounting from scottrade's site.
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they double your buying power, don't ever use this extra buying power until you know what you are doing.



Quote from cashmoney69:

... I have a negative feeling for this monday. Impatience has been a problem for me for much of my life. Maybe I should trade intraday and forget swing / position trading all together for now?

- nathan
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you might be a intuition trader, in that case write down your feeling and see how close it matchs with the reality by end of day.
 
next time u trade high beta stocks u might want to consider purchasin' slightly deep otm puts/calls...they relatively cheap and will protect u from huge gaps...it worked for me: with a few contracts u want make a ton of money if the move is not substantial but u wont lose your shirt either in case it goes against u big time in no time.
 
7/27/06

Bought 50 ANDE @ 38.65

8/4/06

Sold 50 ANDE @ 39.08

profit 29.00

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8/8/06

Short 50 DISH @ 34.95

8/9/06

Cover 50 DISH @ 32.42

profit 112.50

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