The treacherous path to $200k a year

Choppy day, but my strategy got me through the day with profits

QCOM - Short 32.77
Covered 32.35

(+800)

XMSR - (multiple entries All Short)
(-400)

Other entries

XLNX - Short 26.38
Covered 26.41

(-60)


Profits for today: +360

Conclusion, I could have made up to $1.2k on QCOM , but There was some ODD fear I usually didn't have, I covered with a 2 cents profit on the last deathfall, I was pretty pooped about that watching the P&L run up to $1k and me out of the position for NO REASON :)



choppy day, No problem, I usually make most of my money during trending days, If I can make money during chop, Thats 2 thumbs up for my pitiful skill level :)


2nd Thoughts: Early in the morning , I was working on XMSR only (It was under 200ma waiting to break) It never broke. I was singing to it and it still did not want to break, It broke once but it rallied back up in a matter of 30 seconds.

I just noticed that I forecasted the market movements correctly except, I was short in only ONE stock XMSR, While I watched everybody beside me fall, I was sitting with the mute XMSR who didn't budge other then stop me out 5 cents.
In the afternoon, I said, damn this XMSR , I will find a 2nd stock to go along with my shorts (Like I usually do) QCOM, That made me a good bunch.

So in conclusion, I don't know how I forgot this simple rule, but I should have at least a position in 2 different stocks so I get some benefits from my forecast instead of absolutely nothing! :)


Going to take that $360, and break off $5 and buy me a grilled cheeseburger to celeberate my battle with the choppy markets with no loses :)
 
I wanted to take XMSR overnight but decided, if I didn't have any profits from XMSR tonight, I won't allow myself the opportunity to take it overnight. + It may break out from 200ma and then I would truly be in the shit.

There were other errors in the XMSR trade such as above yesterdays high among other things, Guess its just not fun daytrading a stock top :) Too much buying pressure to keep it from falling. (First time trying this)


So best to stick with the PLAN of sell extremes, buy extremes. Can't go wrong like that.
 
Quote from Ticketwatcher:

Ticketwatcher,

How tight are your stops?

Your posts were extremely helpful. Thanks.

I make a lot of trades, and I do not put in stops, but I am out of any trade before it goes 30 cents against me. Placing stops applies science to the exit of a trade. I leave the exit of trade to experience and intuition. I find that most times when a trade goes against me, it is not stock specific but some market force out of my control such as Greenspan sneezed. Therefore, the stop does not become some arbitrary number but a reaction to the sense of the market.
More...

One more question if I may - do you use charts at all for your trading. If so, what time chart time interval do you use (1 min., 5 min., etc.)
Thanks in advance. You've been very generous in sharing and it is much appreciated.
 
Quick Update:

05/14/05 (tuesday) -600

I lost the money at the end, The reason why I lost the money was very interesting, I was bias that the market would drop, Bias is not something you can have in the market, so instead of having my normal 0.3% stop, I stopped out at 0.5%
Sad but true, I have contemplated my lost over that amount,

I don't like losing over $500, because mainly thats not just right with my plan, My mistake on this trade was basically BIAS, secondary moving my stops and hoping, thats silly.

No more Bias, Market = random, I will not do that again.

shorted NVDA
shorted IMCL

Both covered around stops @ 0.40% - 0.5% (yes I know its over my limit, I am a bad grr)

5/15/05 (wednesday) - Did nothing
Didn't get any signals, I think it was trading in a tight range or something, I didn't do any trades at all.

5/15/05 (thursday ) +200

I made a small profit on BRCM in @ 34.00 when it broke.
Yes I know $200 is silly :D but I'm not too good with longs, so was testing it out.


5/16/05 (friday) +$500

One signal, around 10:00 , Shorted QCOM @ 34.87
Covered 34.77

Shorted SHLD @ 149.04

Covered 148.25




---------------

So whats the conclusion here:

1) I'm either a breakeven trader
2) I'm a 51% trader who still makes mistakes and becomes a 49% win trader.
3) I just like providing my broker with $100 comissions a day to feed their kids.


I think I'm #2 at the moment, no reason to think otherwise, when I put on big trades, I usually have no fear becxause its within my plan, its good to go, most of the times it goes smoothly, I have no reason to doubt my plan, it works pretty well.

I have now included new P points into my plan, It worked very well today , Thanks to lefty.


Improvements requred:

1) No more bias please, The market is random in a way one trader can move the market in the opposite direction. The market is random, The market is random.
Abide to your stop lost 0.3% 1% gains, and you should be beating the odds.


Thats all :D

I also noticed DOW went above 10600, I have entered a few long positions KLAC , WIT.

If it falls back to 10600, I will sell all, If the stocks drop below a lower low, I will sell. Thats my bet for a long term position, I think I'll get stopped out, longs have a vengence against me :D



Will continue my kick ass EXTREME BUY , EXTREME SELL day plan :)
 
I'm having afterthoughts of putting on a long term trade for 2 reasons

1) It takes away from my capital


2) I'm playing with MY capital.

3) It takes away from my capital :D


I'm thinking of selling the two long stocks KLAC, WIT on monday (if it goes down)


And wait till I make more profits and buy CALL options instead of stocks to

1) preserve my capital
2) Have a position of maybe 10 calls (1000 stocks) for a paltry 1500

3) Playing with markets money

4) Not worrying about the stock dropping 10 cents or 20 cents, Its not my money muhhaaa :D

I think thats a neat idea. Be a cowboy... but not with your money!
 
+200 today


Short: QLGC + VRSN = Covered with $0
(Very bad exit) I just remembered, I Was executed like 5 minutes later which gave me a terrible execution price during around 10:00 when the market was falling, I sent in my order before the fall as well.

RIMM short 74.84 (Covered 73.99) = -39
VRSN short 32.38 (Covered 32.30) = +120

In and out a few times = -80 ?

SYMC long 21.70 , Sold 21.80 = +200
(Very bad exit) Way too premature exit. Could have done +950 ,

Maybe its the weekends or something ,but I closed both SYMC and QLGC for no reason, I believe my monitor is too small , I can't see the lows and highs properly.

My new monitor is being shipped 19 inchs! :D


All in all great day, Could have done $1500+ but I have weekend sleepy issues where I don't function correctly. Come on now, STICK WITH YOUR EXIT RULES COOLWEB, I need some $1k DAYS here to pay for my new dell computer with 19 inch lcd dual monitor! :)

Trading on a 15 inch lcd is not very sufficient once you watch more then 2 trades.
 
I'm trading on a laptop with a 15 inch screen,

I just ordered a Dell dimension 4700 , 512 DDR ram , P4 2.8 GHZ with HYPERTHREADING , 40 gig hard drive

NEW Intel® Pentium® 4 Processors with Hyper-Threading Technology 2.8ghz , 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB).

Specifications - Processor
Chipset
Chipset: NEW 915G Express


And best of all FREE 19 inch lcd screen for

$690 + -100 REBATE

total = $590

An 19 inch lcd screen is around $300 (with tax) outside, this deal kicks butt!


FREE shipping!


I also ordered a dual screen video card, I can't wait till I get that, I'm sure of my trading so , I feel this will be a great investment.

My orders shipped, Hope to be getting it in 2 days :D Hope the next 2 days will be profitable, yeaaahoooo! happy days happy days, funny how this excites me , I use Quotetracker and it sometime starts crashing :D

Now I'll have a laptop , AND a desktop + 2 screens, Armed and ready for battle!
 
-320 Today ( I stopped because it reached my $400 cap lost a day)

Ok heres the situation

1) Didn't follow my strategy, I'm starting to use new support/Resistance points, so its a new add-on strategy so I get a bit random these few days because of something new I have to get use to, I get greedy and start shorting and buying everywhere just because they are near support or resistance :D Yep bad idea.

Didn't buy at extreme or sell at extreme, bought at middle , lost , sold at middle, whipsawed out, its that simple :D


2) BRCM - 6 cents lost , LIMIT LONG @ 35.97
Saw the market falling, quickly tried to cancel, STILL Got filled grr,

Sold immediately @ 35.91

Was selling at 35.94 (damn browser timed out! , THANK GOD I'm getting multi monitors)
Had to execute the sale twice. that execution cost me around $60-80 bucks.

6 cents lost

- 170

3) AMZN short @ 35.65 , covered @ 35.67
Was heading into divergence, , bad trade overall, sloppy.
- 66
4) AMZN short @ 35.53 covered @ 35.57

Another no strategy trade
While I was trading this, I knew I Was owned, trading on my last $100 cap limit and not using my strategy, HAH what did you expect ? A WINNER? NEVERRRR :D

-100

Including comissions

Time requird to lose $300 = 30 minutes.


I rewarded myself for not following the rules of 5 hours of papertrading and watching the market pass by while I twiddle.

Few lessons learned today

1) During volality , stop should be larger then 2 cents.

2) I like to have stops of 2 cents, so I shouldn't trade during volatile times, Duhh, if you want to play with fire, better be prepared to be BURNED.
That was silly of me, 2 cent stops during volatile times :D

3) Good thing I abided by my $300 lost cap limit, That was sloppy trading, Sloppy sloppy sloppy, No worries, Tomorrow, I will follow to the T or I'll get to sit in the corner for the day, that wasn't fun :D

3 trades a day, Thats all you get! Choose your entries wisely or ELSE!
 
I've reviewed your posts. First, I think the best idea for your strategy is for you to calm down and collect your thoughts--strengths/weaknesses.(there are medications for you). Second, try using a Parabolic curve to generate possible price paths. I cannot build this for you but there are many services and explanations for you to add this to your strategy. You seem too reactive to price extremes and may better your results by waiting for some other confirmation, like, time at price. IF you seek highly volatile price times then you need to adapt and position with the fade or continuation and most importantly have a good entry that won't shake you out. If you have a set direction in mind it doesn't mean to open a full line. Take whatever size you trade and cut it in half until you get your strategy worked out. I hate misguided trades more than i love clear vision ones. Trading is not for everyone. Uncontrolled emotions will kill a possibly great trader. Educate yourself. I am in this never ending process called education. Hope you do well because you work hard at it.

be good.

alex
 
haha

I have to be the biggest joke today,

I was hugely short at the end around 2:00

Imagine that...

And I lost $1200

I don't know if the market maker was playing around with me , but I was short on ADSK @ 35.00

right when the market was about to crack from 2081


This freak of nature sped to 35.40 I could not believe my eyes while nasdaq dropped to 2075

So the question is, was the market maker fucking around with me and the other shorters? It must be, I didn't abide by the 0.3% stop (wrongfully) because I thought this was a huge divergence it was and it went up so fast, and it didn't stop until I bought to cover.


Anything can happen in the markets, man I'm not taking no divergence for granted anymore, 0.3% CUT , 0.3% STOP!

This was my biggest lost in a few months :<

So anybody have any ideas on how to protect yourself against this situation from arising? This was one RANDOM movement, and as lefty said random = no edge. Should I be trading a couple of stocks that don't fuck around with prices? or trade nasdaq futures?
 
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