I had previously been a retail broker for the last 15 years, all the while trading my account, but not actually daytrading, more like positioning and swing trading. I was quite successful at both. I decided to leave the retail game and joined the RBC prop desk. I initally put up $50k with the usual 20x match and pay .0075 and work on a 95%-5% split. Here are my results and afterwards my thoughts.
August:
I got caught up too much with what the other guys were doing. They were going for chops here and there and that was way outside my comfort zone. I would normally buy a position and park it for a few days; that look good technically and looked like it might have a nice move in front of it. I really didn't care about the minute to minute moves.
Needless to say, when I tried to take trades for a chop, and the fact I was new, I couldn't handle the small swings down. I was selling stock down .10 from where I bot them.
That, coupled getting my lungs ripped out on a UAUA short, I wound up losing $12k in 2 1/2 weeks. It was not fun. What did I get my self into I thought.
September
After examining my approach, I went back to doing what I knew best, that is holding positions for a few days, and trading off of news. I am heavily into gold and gold stocks, and felt a big move was coming. I was heavily loaded into gold stocks and caught a huge move up. Combine this with a few chops here and there, catching some stocks off news gave me a very nice profit of $35k for the month.
I got this trading stuff down, I thought to myself.
October, November, December....
Very tough months in the market as everyone here knows. I caught some nice trades, wasn't patient in some others, made some stuuupid trading mistakes and for the three months ended up relatively flat.
So, at the end of Decmeber, I ended my account with roughly a little north of $49.5.
I truthfully felt that as a rookie daytrader, given the horrible markets, this wasn't a terrible performance. If I had given myself a little patience in some stocks, I would have had a bigger profit.
January:
So far so good. I am up about $5k. But I am still lacking in patience, probably taking profits too early and taking losses when I don't have too.
For example, yesterday I bot X and $108.20 at what I thought was good entry point. The stock cratered and I wound up selling around $107.25 when the market tank. I felt it was prolly dumb to sell here, but gotta protect the capital. Sure enough, the stock rebounded and could have sold the stock for a point profit if I was patient.
It is things like that, I feel that are holding me back.
Another example, is on Thursday, I saw that OMRI got an FDA approval for something. I bot some shares at $34.12 and the stock flew, I put a sell at $36.59. The stock hit $36.30 and came down.
Now I knew I prolly should have dumped it there, but didn't. Long story short, I broke even on the position.
Again, things like that are killing me.
I realize, that these are experience type of mistakes and hopefully in the future, I will eliminate them.
I have been trading anywher between 300sh-1000sh lots. I am very careful to limit my exposure and the most I have ever carried on my $1 million bankroll is slightly up $200k, so I have the risk aspect nailed down.
One other question, anyone know some good psychology books on trading.
I appreciate any and all comments.
thx
August:
I got caught up too much with what the other guys were doing. They were going for chops here and there and that was way outside my comfort zone. I would normally buy a position and park it for a few days; that look good technically and looked like it might have a nice move in front of it. I really didn't care about the minute to minute moves.
Needless to say, when I tried to take trades for a chop, and the fact I was new, I couldn't handle the small swings down. I was selling stock down .10 from where I bot them.
That, coupled getting my lungs ripped out on a UAUA short, I wound up losing $12k in 2 1/2 weeks. It was not fun. What did I get my self into I thought.
September
After examining my approach, I went back to doing what I knew best, that is holding positions for a few days, and trading off of news. I am heavily into gold and gold stocks, and felt a big move was coming. I was heavily loaded into gold stocks and caught a huge move up. Combine this with a few chops here and there, catching some stocks off news gave me a very nice profit of $35k for the month.
I got this trading stuff down, I thought to myself.
October, November, December....
Very tough months in the market as everyone here knows. I caught some nice trades, wasn't patient in some others, made some stuuupid trading mistakes and for the three months ended up relatively flat.
So, at the end of Decmeber, I ended my account with roughly a little north of $49.5.
I truthfully felt that as a rookie daytrader, given the horrible markets, this wasn't a terrible performance. If I had given myself a little patience in some stocks, I would have had a bigger profit.
January:
So far so good. I am up about $5k. But I am still lacking in patience, probably taking profits too early and taking losses when I don't have too.
For example, yesterday I bot X and $108.20 at what I thought was good entry point. The stock cratered and I wound up selling around $107.25 when the market tank. I felt it was prolly dumb to sell here, but gotta protect the capital. Sure enough, the stock rebounded and could have sold the stock for a point profit if I was patient.
It is things like that, I feel that are holding me back.
Another example, is on Thursday, I saw that OMRI got an FDA approval for something. I bot some shares at $34.12 and the stock flew, I put a sell at $36.59. The stock hit $36.30 and came down.
Now I knew I prolly should have dumped it there, but didn't. Long story short, I broke even on the position.
Again, things like that are killing me.
I realize, that these are experience type of mistakes and hopefully in the future, I will eliminate them.
I have been trading anywher between 300sh-1000sh lots. I am very careful to limit my exposure and the most I have ever carried on my $1 million bankroll is slightly up $200k, so I have the risk aspect nailed down.
One other question, anyone know some good psychology books on trading.
I appreciate any and all comments.
thx
