Trying to make it on my own

The biggest thing I need to work on is my productivity. I find it very hard to focus on my research during the day when I have significant trades on. I tend to overly obsess over how my trades are going during the day, which doesn't add any value and distracts me from my research. I have the ability to make or lose a lot of money on each trade, so its this focus on money that is counterproductive. For some perspective the most I've lost in one day from my core strategy is about 15k, and the most I've made is about 34k.

I do not consider myself a naturally hard working person, but it is something that I'm working on. One trick that I use is that I use a stopwatch to track how many hours of work I do each day using a very strict method. Any time not directly related to my research is not counted. If I stop working for a minute I immediately stop the timer. Even if I stop to look at stock charts for a while, I stop the timer since I don't consider this very productive. I used to log my work times into an excel file at the end of the day, and it would give me some simple pleasure watching the hours add up and satisfying my personal quotas. But I lost my damn USB drive that had this file! I find even something small like this has decreased my productivity.

Guess its time to start a new excel file..
 
Quote from doublet83:

The biggest thing I need to work on is my productivity. I find it very hard to focus on my research during the day when I have significant trades on. I tend to overly obsess over how my trades are going during the day, which doesn't add any value and distracts me from my research. I have the ability to make or lose a lot of money on each trade, so its this focus on money that is counterproductive. For some perspective the most I've lost in one day from my core strategy is about 15k, and the most I've made is about 34k.

I do not consider myself a naturally hard working person, but it is something that I'm working on. One trick that I use is that I use a stopwatch to track how many hours of work I do each day using a very strict method. Any time not directly related to my research is not counted. If I stop working for a minute I immediately stop the timer. Even if I stop to look at stock charts for a while, I stop the timer since I don't consider this very productive. I used to log my work times into an excel file at the end of the day, and it would give me some simple pleasure watching the hours add up and satisfying my personal quotas. But I lost my damn USB drive that had this file! I find even something small like this has decreased my productivity.

Guess its time to start a new excel file..
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I don't know if your platform has the ability, but I have alerts automatically set so when my stocks moves significantly higher, I am notified. I could also set them to notify when they have moved lower. This way you would know it is still in a range unless an alert is triggered, so you wouldn't need to watch the chart.
 
I haven't looked for it but it probably has the ability to do this. My concern though is that I can't help stressing about my trades (intraday) when I have them on.

My goal is to detach myself from the money.

Try not to make X amount of dollars every day or month or year.

Focus on the research and making smart trades and the money should come.
 
The month is coming along quite nicely for the core trading strategy, but very poorly for the long term strategy.

Despite a typically slow month for trading, so far I'm up 47k, making very consistent profits and coming close to making money every day I trade. On the other hand, I am down 37k in the long term strategy, with several holdings performing very poorly. Over the past 4 months I have lost 79k on the long term strategy, very discouraging, although I do understand that one can not expect this portfolio to produce consistent returns.

Interestingly, I took my largest position ever on 9/15 with a 500k short position on NFLX after their guidance update announcement. I got in at a fairly poor price in the early premarket, took a lot of heat as the stock initially moved materially against me and at one point was down about 23k on the trade. Ended the day up about 13k on the trade, a huge intraday swing in my net worth that rendered me completely unproductive for the day as I stared at numbers on a screen.

I took profits on most of the position at the end of the day..had I held on to the entire position now, I would be up about 130k. Not too meaningful since my strategy has been proven to have limited predictive ability beyond one day, but always interesting to ponder on these possibilities.
 
For the most part I don't hold overnight in the core strategy. Rarely I will hold a smaller position (maybe 100k) for a second day. Then I will sometimes hold an even smaller position (around 20k) for the long term, allocating these results to the long term portofilo.
 
Are you using leverage at all?

I'm really enjoying the journal so far. 400% in 2 years is a great return. Way to go!
 
Quote from doublet83:

The biggest thing I need to work on is my productivity. I find it very hard to focus on my research during the day when I have significant trades on. I tend to overly obsess over how my trades are going during the day, which doesn't add any value and distracts me from my research. I have the ability to make or lose a lot of money on each trade, so its this focus on money that is counterproductive. For some perspective the most I've lost in one day from my core strategy is about 15k, and the most I've made is about 34k.

I do not consider myself a naturally hard working person, but it is something that I'm working on. One trick that I use is that I use a stopwatch to track how many hours of work I do each day using a very strict method. Any time not directly related to my research is not counted. If I stop working for a minute I immediately stop the timer. Even if I stop to look at stock charts for a while, I stop the timer since I don't consider this very productive. I used to log my work times into an excel file at the end of the day, and it would give me some simple pleasure watching the hours add up and satisfying my personal quotas. But I lost my damn USB drive that had this file! I find even something small like this has decreased my productivity.

Guess its time to start a new excel file..
More...

Congrats on your success in trading. Based on your results this year, seems like you have a trading system with a positive expectancy. Maybe keeping that in mind will help you with your anxiety while in a trade. You have a trading plan based on rules that have been proven out so set it and forget it.

As far as productivity, some are able to do research during the day, others are not. Our brains are all wired differently; accept it.

As you are fully aware, trading is a full time job. A majority of successful careers require more then the standard 40 hour work week. Do your research outside of regular market hours that way you are not stressing about it during the day.
 
Quote from doublet83:

I took profits on most of the position at the end of the day..had I held on to the entire position now, I would be up about 130k.
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"Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon."

It's simple to employ a stop that will get you out with most of your profits or a small loss when a position has gone 'too far' against you. Once that stop is hit, re-enter when the trend is back on your side. Yes, you will forfiet a small ammount of money, but will it be worth it to achieve that profit?
 
Quote from Trend Fader:

Thats strange.. i never heard of an 99% fundamental system thats intraday.. because 80% of the correlation in the stock is based on the market on a non news day.. so you are basically guessing overall market direction each day.. unless you are hedging it against something else.. to neutralize. Are you trading a basket of stocks.. or individual stocks?
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Quote from flipside21:

Yes, that is very strange. The fundamentals don't change every day.
If trading intraday, it's using 99% technicals with fundamentals only in the background as a filter.
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Quote from RobtF:

I've never heard of day trading on fundamental anlaysis. Could you please explain?
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I'm surpised everyone is baffled by how he trades. The best signals are the ones you come up with yourself, and that everyone else woudln't think to do. You all just proved him more justified in using 99% fundamentals to trade because 99% of you wouldn't think to do it.
 
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