My first year isn't over yet. My first three months aren't over. But I am up over $300 on a $10k account so I guess I could project to $1200/yr. Meh. At least I am not losing. I was told that I would.
Trading Profits
- Thread starter Utah
- Start date
Sounds good, lets have some details of markets you trade and strategy used to enter positions
First day of live trading was my best day. PDT limited. Three trades, one stock. I believe it was ABIO. Bull flag momentum strategy right out of Andrew Aziz's book. Screener gave me the stock and I saw that first big bull flagpole with the flag starting to form and said "Hey, I seen that in the book... I know what to do!" And I did it. Since then it has mostly been mean reversion or reversals. Started out mostly making small losses after that first big day. I wasnt hitting the entries right, much of the time. Got stopped out a lot. Botched entries got me a couple of times. Now mostly making small wins. Small positions, close stops, keeping things pretty tight, live to trade another day and all that. I know I need to loosen up a little, and I will as soon as I am a little more comfortable.
No fancy strategies. Very basic stuff. My favorite screeners look for unusual volume or volatility and I get a lot of pharma and penny stocks. That's okay, seems to work good for a small account and smallish positions. Knock on wood. Bollinger bands are helpful to my entries and exits. It is the main indicator for me along with volume. I want to start playing breakouts once I am fully funded. I drew off a few hundred but I am almost back up to my original account size. I think I am getting the hang of it. Once I can trade as much as I see fit, I think I can earn okay.
No fancy strategies. Very basic stuff. My favorite screeners look for unusual volume or volatility and I get a lot of pharma and penny stocks. That's okay, seems to work good for a small account and smallish positions. Knock on wood. Bollinger bands are helpful to my entries and exits. It is the main indicator for me along with volume. I want to start playing breakouts once I am fully funded. I drew off a few hundred but I am almost back up to my original account size. I think I am getting the hang of it. Once I can trade as much as I see fit, I think I can earn okay.
Why would your post offend me?
Anyhow, I'm automated and not looking at the screen when most of the entries/exits happen so even if I wanted to, it wouldn't work. Never have been interested in giving such detail either, unless you're trading an instrument with "unlimited" liquidity or don't believe in your methods, giving anything away isn't worthwhile and I don't see anyone doing that.
bit of a selfish attitude. How did you start trading? Bet you read up on how the gurus do it or had a mentor, so I guess you benefitted from what they gave away but still will not give away anything yourself. I'm not saying that there are gurus on here but if nothing else, one can still learn from other people's mistakes. If a regular poster with a track record posted: "Bought IBEX at x,xxx today because...." I'd have a look at the IBEX and maybe enter a trade too, an otherwise trade I might not have considered and so missed the opportunity.
The moral is: Trading is mostly filled with boredom highlighted by the occasional moment of terror, why not communicate with other traders and exchange ideas during idle time? Where's the harm that makes it not worthwhile?
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I've helped others out plenty in other ways and I contribute to some open source software projects related to trading. Sure, I took ideas from others and modified them heavily but I've also released trading ideas (not on ET) which I won't be using myself. On top of that I've created tools that others have used to profit. For no monetary benefit to myself either.
I however won't create competition for myself as it will directly harm my earnings. Since my trading is automated, it means it's quantified and there's no "because" or subjectivity.
I don't agree with it being mostly boredom either. I have a full schedule coding, developing new ideas and improving old ones.
You got to laugh at it! That's exactly the answer I was expecting. Retail traders alway say that, even collectively they are insignificant, they got no power to move markets at all and the ones with that power, the institutional player, would not remotely be interested in looking at what a retail trader is doing, let alone follow their trades! Institutional trader turn over $170b/day, Retail players lumped together might reach $200m/day if that. Does the dog care what the flee is doing? Some people think they are much bigger than what they are I guess. It's the standard excuse for not sharing info and for getting STOPED out... "they're looking at my stops!", get real, no they aren't! the reality is quite sad... these people don't want others to know just how small their trades really are and how pitifully inadequate their strategy is. Yet, these are the people that won't believe when others post their result and so shout "bragger", "sim player", etc. compared to their own track record, I suppose anyone making a ROI of 2,000+ annually "must" indeed be unbelievable to them.
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For many of my trades I'm already at capacity, meaning I cannot get all the shares without moving the price. I am not talking about moving the whole market (say S&P) or controlling the pricing of a large cap stock for a day, I'm talking about moving the price 10 cents within a few minute period.
Retail traders turn over way more than $200mln per day. Hell, even I turn over $2-3mln regularly in a day and I'm not even close to the bigger retail guys. So for you to suggest that I'm 1% of ALL retail traders is ludicrous.
You really don't know what you're talking about. HFT is always looking to take advantage of dumb money (retail) orders. And if I post 5000 shares at a market where it's 1000x500, that will immediately move the price. You trade FX and you wouldn't have a clue about it.
Granted, but that was not what I was saying. I was referring to helpfull posts on a forum such as ET informing of your intention or of the placement of the trade will not make an iota of difference to the market nor will it even be noticed by bots nor humans thus have no effect on your trade at all, surely you agree to that.
Well, if someone copies my trades then it will have an effect. I'm not trading EURUSD here, like I said before, in equity markets the liquidity is very different.