Not where I want to be but better than losing plus I think I learned a lot.
There is so much difference between trading for a living verus trading for extra income it's not even funny. It's literally two different games and what I've learned more than anything else is that you can trade on the side forever but in no way, shape or form will that prepare you for "real" trading.
Hopefully I'm moving in the right direction though. Last week was a big test and even though it hurt like hell I think I'm better for it. So far this week I've been quite pleased with my trading. Probably the best week I've had yet in so far as making good solid decisions day in and day out.
Mon- +343
Tues- +327
Wens- (436)
Thurs- +1769
=============
total- +2003
For the month of Apr.
week 1 (4/1-4/3) +2014
week 2 (4/6-4/10) +2080
week 3 (4/13-4/17) +2015
week 4 (4/20-4/24) (4459)
week 5 (4/27-4/30) +2003
======================
Total +3653
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Week ending 4-24
Ouch!
What a week. One of the worst I've had in quite some time. The difference is looking back I'm not really sure what I would have done differently. The biggest mistake I made I believe was not capitalizing more earlier in the month. Had I done that this week wouldn't have been so bad.
For whatever reason the market changed it's behavior this week. Setups that were working over and over just all of a sudden stopped. Thursday was the real killer and as I said I'm not sure I would do anything different even in hindsight. I guess it just works out that way sometimes. Oh well, hopefully I'll regain my mojo.
Mon- (2225)
Tues- +2037
Wens- +1445
Thurs- (4061)
Fri- (1655)
===========
total- (4459)
Month so far: +1650
What a week. One of the worst I've had in quite some time. The difference is looking back I'm not really sure what I would have done differently. The biggest mistake I made I believe was not capitalizing more earlier in the month. Had I done that this week wouldn't have been so bad.
For whatever reason the market changed it's behavior this week. Setups that were working over and over just all of a sudden stopped. Thursday was the real killer and as I said I'm not sure I would do anything different even in hindsight. I guess it just works out that way sometimes. Oh well, hopefully I'll regain my mojo.
Mon- (2225)
Tues- +2037
Wens- +1445
Thurs- (4061)
Fri- (1655)
===========
total- (4459)
Month so far: +1650
Friday, April 17, 2009
Week ending 4-17
Pretty uneventful week.
Even though I keep saying I have to quit grinding it out, I keep grinding it out. Had a chance on Thursday with a JPM short to really open the week up. I could have covered for $1500 gain but instead chose to go for a hero or zero trade and ended up stopping for a small gain. No regrets about that one however. The setup was there and the stock looked dead.
Mon (431)
Tues +697
Wens +762
Thurs +544
Fri +443
=============
Week +2,015
Month so far: +6,110
Even though I keep saying I have to quit grinding it out, I keep grinding it out. Had a chance on Thursday with a JPM short to really open the week up. I could have covered for $1500 gain but instead chose to go for a hero or zero trade and ended up stopping for a small gain. No regrets about that one however. The setup was there and the stock looked dead.
Mon (431)
Tues +697
Wens +762
Thurs +544
Fri +443
=============
Week +2,015
Month so far: +6,110
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Fear!
A friend once told me that the word fear is an acronym that stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. When I managed 100 sales people I would give these wonderful motivational meetings about conquering fear. How life is too short. You have to go for what is important to you and if you fail so be it. So long as you tried your best and did everything in your power you can sleep well at night.
But don't fail because of fear. Don't put yourself in a position where you end up having to look back and say, "if only I wouldn't have been to0 afraid". And you know what? Whatever it is someone is afraid of, whatever it is that's holding them back from what they want or need to do is almost always an unjustified emotion.
In fact, oftentimes when we are afraid we can't pinpoint exactly what we're afraid of. That's because the fear we feel is in our subconsciousness not our intellect. Most times when we stop and rationally think about things we can't even find a reason to be in fear. And that's what makes fear so difficult to overcome. Often we don't even realize when we're making decisions based on that subconscious fear.
So whats this got to do with trading. For me right now just about everything. I seem to have a fear of losing money. Not an outright fear, but a subconscious fear that rears it's head at the moment of executing a trade. I used to justify my actions from being told by other successful trader's that rule number 1 is don't lose money. Plus I had a big income and didn't need the money anyway. Which, actually is a better reason to trade aggressively, isn't it? Hmmm.
I've also tried to pass this fear off as a "comfort zone" issue that I've established over the years. There maybe some truth to that, but the truth is at very least I'm afraid of breaking out of that comfort zone. And that comfort zone is one in which I never lose much money.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about recklessly throwing money around when I say trade more aggressively. In the last 2.5 years my max draw down has been about 7% and that was only once. I've only had 4 losing months during that time. And I've always been profitable.
But I'm making virtually the same size trades a lot of times as when my account was 1/3 the size it is now. In the beginning that made sense. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was just following other trader's calls. But that's not the case today. Plus, I have a track record of consistently winning, Not every trade, not every day or even every week, but overall I have always come out on top.
So what's my problem? Best I can figure is it works like this. I start the day off not wanting to get in a hole. So my first trade is usually smallish in size. Not because it should be necessarily but because I'm playing defense against a bad day. Then, if the trade works now I'm playing defense because I don't want to lose those profits. And therein lies the problem. In order to really make money trading you've got to be looking at the big picture. It's not whether you have a good or bad day, or week, or even month. You're going to have bad periods. In the end it's how did you do overall?
I'm hoping that writing this will be a form of facing this demon head-on. It's weird, I always thought that picking the trades was the key to making money. There's no doubt that's a big part of being successful but there are a lot of emotional issues that come into play as well. If I can overcome those there is no doubt in my mind I can make more money trading than I can make doing anything else.
But don't fail because of fear. Don't put yourself in a position where you end up having to look back and say, "if only I wouldn't have been to0 afraid". And you know what? Whatever it is someone is afraid of, whatever it is that's holding them back from what they want or need to do is almost always an unjustified emotion.
In fact, oftentimes when we are afraid we can't pinpoint exactly what we're afraid of. That's because the fear we feel is in our subconsciousness not our intellect. Most times when we stop and rationally think about things we can't even find a reason to be in fear. And that's what makes fear so difficult to overcome. Often we don't even realize when we're making decisions based on that subconscious fear.
So whats this got to do with trading. For me right now just about everything. I seem to have a fear of losing money. Not an outright fear, but a subconscious fear that rears it's head at the moment of executing a trade. I used to justify my actions from being told by other successful trader's that rule number 1 is don't lose money. Plus I had a big income and didn't need the money anyway. Which, actually is a better reason to trade aggressively, isn't it? Hmmm.
I've also tried to pass this fear off as a "comfort zone" issue that I've established over the years. There maybe some truth to that, but the truth is at very least I'm afraid of breaking out of that comfort zone. And that comfort zone is one in which I never lose much money.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about recklessly throwing money around when I say trade more aggressively. In the last 2.5 years my max draw down has been about 7% and that was only once. I've only had 4 losing months during that time. And I've always been profitable.
But I'm making virtually the same size trades a lot of times as when my account was 1/3 the size it is now. In the beginning that made sense. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was just following other trader's calls. But that's not the case today. Plus, I have a track record of consistently winning, Not every trade, not every day or even every week, but overall I have always come out on top.
So what's my problem? Best I can figure is it works like this. I start the day off not wanting to get in a hole. So my first trade is usually smallish in size. Not because it should be necessarily but because I'm playing defense against a bad day. Then, if the trade works now I'm playing defense because I don't want to lose those profits. And therein lies the problem. In order to really make money trading you've got to be looking at the big picture. It's not whether you have a good or bad day, or week, or even month. You're going to have bad periods. In the end it's how did you do overall?
I'm hoping that writing this will be a form of facing this demon head-on. It's weird, I always thought that picking the trades was the key to making money. There's no doubt that's a big part of being successful but there are a lot of emotional issues that come into play as well. If I can overcome those there is no doubt in my mind I can make more money trading than I can make doing anything else.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Trading Thoughts
Coming into last week short term overbought readings were approaching fairly extreme levels and the market pulled back a bit early in the week. The rally resumed on Wednesday and Thursday was a climax day after WFC guided earnings substantially higher.
On the week the Dow gained +65 points and the Naz gained +30. The market has now posted gains in 5 consecutive weeks with pretty impressive cumulative gains since the lows on March 6. Since the low on March 6 the Dow has now rallied +25%, the Naz +30.6% and the SP500 +28.5%. Yet amazingly, year to date the Dow is still -7.9% and the SP500 is -5.2%, although the outperforming Naz is now green in 2009 with gains of +4.8%.
WFC was a huge catalyst behind Thursday’s broad surge higher as financials led the charge. WFC guidance was very impressive and very surprising, but several critical pieces of information were missing, including asset quality and security exposure. WFC will report earnings on April 22 and it will be very interesting to see what the full picture looks like. This upcoming week other key financials will report earnings (GS, JPM and C) and they better confirm WFC enthusiasm or this recent rally could run into a brick wall very quickly.
Everybody is slowly forgetting about the bear market and this could lead to a very surprising reversal mid May. The five week rally off the bottom has been fast and furious and is getting fairly extended now. Many have missed the rally completely and now feel like a deer in headlights. Chasing the long side now after the market has bounced so much seems very scary, while the short side isn’t any easier and has been getting squeezed hard the past 5 weeks.
Have we truly seen the bottom or has this been just a huge bear market head fake rally? That’s the dilemma right now. There has been a very noticeable change in market behavior over the past 5 weeks. During the prior year every rally, every bounce was an opportunity to sell or short stocks. The past month though, every dip and every pullback has brought in buyers. This is a major change in trader psyche and certainly requires a trading adjustment. I guess at the moment its ok to give the market the benefit of the doubt, but after huge gains the past 5 weeks it sure is hard to be bullish now, at least for me.
I really expected to see many warnings recently, but warnings season has surprisingly been a non-event. Perhaps expectations are so low that further revisions are not necessary or perhaps Armageddon was greatly overstated. Earnings season kicks off this upcoming week and will be an eye opener. With so much near term uncertainty, this is not the type of environment where you want to build and hold positions (long or short) and roll the dice on immediate market direction.
Here are the headliners scheduled to report earnings this upcoming week, but it’s only a prelude to an avalanche of earnings the following week: GS, JNJ, INC, NOK, JPM, GOOG, ISRG, SNDK, C, and GE The trend of late has brought in buyers on every pullback and this might continue throughout earnings season most of April and early May. Poor earnings and lower guidance are well expected and very much priced in, so perhaps the market holds up for now and maybe even builds on recent gains in coming weeks. I continue to believe the next turn time frame for the market will occur mid May. Sell in May and go Away has been a huge trend for decades and I feel will once again be revisited in 2009.
On the week the Dow gained +65 points and the Naz gained +30. The market has now posted gains in 5 consecutive weeks with pretty impressive cumulative gains since the lows on March 6. Since the low on March 6 the Dow has now rallied +25%, the Naz +30.6% and the SP500 +28.5%. Yet amazingly, year to date the Dow is still -7.9% and the SP500 is -5.2%, although the outperforming Naz is now green in 2009 with gains of +4.8%.
WFC was a huge catalyst behind Thursday’s broad surge higher as financials led the charge. WFC guidance was very impressive and very surprising, but several critical pieces of information were missing, including asset quality and security exposure. WFC will report earnings on April 22 and it will be very interesting to see what the full picture looks like. This upcoming week other key financials will report earnings (GS, JPM and C) and they better confirm WFC enthusiasm or this recent rally could run into a brick wall very quickly.
Everybody is slowly forgetting about the bear market and this could lead to a very surprising reversal mid May. The five week rally off the bottom has been fast and furious and is getting fairly extended now. Many have missed the rally completely and now feel like a deer in headlights. Chasing the long side now after the market has bounced so much seems very scary, while the short side isn’t any easier and has been getting squeezed hard the past 5 weeks.
Have we truly seen the bottom or has this been just a huge bear market head fake rally? That’s the dilemma right now. There has been a very noticeable change in market behavior over the past 5 weeks. During the prior year every rally, every bounce was an opportunity to sell or short stocks. The past month though, every dip and every pullback has brought in buyers. This is a major change in trader psyche and certainly requires a trading adjustment. I guess at the moment its ok to give the market the benefit of the doubt, but after huge gains the past 5 weeks it sure is hard to be bullish now, at least for me.
I really expected to see many warnings recently, but warnings season has surprisingly been a non-event. Perhaps expectations are so low that further revisions are not necessary or perhaps Armageddon was greatly overstated. Earnings season kicks off this upcoming week and will be an eye opener. With so much near term uncertainty, this is not the type of environment where you want to build and hold positions (long or short) and roll the dice on immediate market direction.
Here are the headliners scheduled to report earnings this upcoming week, but it’s only a prelude to an avalanche of earnings the following week: GS, JNJ, INC, NOK, JPM, GOOG, ISRG, SNDK, C, and GE The trend of late has brought in buyers on every pullback and this might continue throughout earnings season most of April and early May. Poor earnings and lower guidance are well expected and very much priced in, so perhaps the market holds up for now and maybe even builds on recent gains in coming weeks. I continue to believe the next turn time frame for the market will occur mid May. Sell in May and go Away has been a huge trend for decades and I feel will once again be revisited in 2009.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Back in the Black
Profitable albeit stessfull week.
I did increase my size some this week although it's not really reflected by my results. Just getting used to the bigger flucuations though was a move in the right direction I think. I really need to seperate myself from the money but that's so much easier said than done.
I do have the benefit of belonging to a chatroom that is home to a small group of very experienced and successful traders. They have been extremely helpful and supportive and that sure makes this a lot easier.
I must say though it's kind of demoralizing at times when your friends are making 15K a day and your making $500. As I said last week, grinding it out isn't a good plan. You need to make hay when things are going your way so that when the inevitable cold streak comes you can still pay the bills. A really nice run would be great, but for now I have to take it one day at a time and trade whats there.
Mon (665)
Tues (490)
Wens +2,873
Thur +362
Fri mkt closed
Week +2,080
I did increase my size some this week although it's not really reflected by my results. Just getting used to the bigger flucuations though was a move in the right direction I think. I really need to seperate myself from the money but that's so much easier said than done.
I do have the benefit of belonging to a chatroom that is home to a small group of very experienced and successful traders. They have been extremely helpful and supportive and that sure makes this a lot easier.
I must say though it's kind of demoralizing at times when your friends are making 15K a day and your making $500. As I said last week, grinding it out isn't a good plan. You need to make hay when things are going your way so that when the inevitable cold streak comes you can still pay the bills. A really nice run would be great, but for now I have to take it one day at a time and trade whats there.
Mon (665)
Tues (490)
Wens +2,873
Thur +362
Fri mkt closed
Week +2,080
Friday, April 3, 2009
Averting disaster
Whew!!!...
Week started out with a loss on Monday followed by an even bigger loss on Tuesday. On Wenseday I downsized the number of shares I traded by quite a bit and managed a small gain. Thursday was a comeback day and Friday did very little trading.
All in all it could have been much worse and I'm not sure if this week was a loss due to actually losing money or a gain due to working through Monday and Tuesdays losses and recouping most of them.
One thing I have realized is that grinding it out isn't the way to make money. The idea of making a little money everyday is appealing, but in truth it doesn't work. I need to take on more size when the setups are there and increase my tolerance for losses. Until now my goal has been to make 1000-1500/day and cap my losses at 1000-1500 max. It's going to take some real soul searching and guts but I need to bump those numbers up.
Part of my problem is comfort zone. I'm used to taking losses on a day of 1000-1500. I'm used to trading certain sized positions and risking a certain amount per trade. That was fine when I was trading as a hobby. Now that this is my job I need break out of that long established comfort zone and start manning up.
Results for the week:
Mon (1108)
Tues (1630)
Wens +276
Thurs +1490
Fri +248
===========
Total (724)
Week started out with a loss on Monday followed by an even bigger loss on Tuesday. On Wenseday I downsized the number of shares I traded by quite a bit and managed a small gain. Thursday was a comeback day and Friday did very little trading.
All in all it could have been much worse and I'm not sure if this week was a loss due to actually losing money or a gain due to working through Monday and Tuesdays losses and recouping most of them.
One thing I have realized is that grinding it out isn't the way to make money. The idea of making a little money everyday is appealing, but in truth it doesn't work. I need to take on more size when the setups are there and increase my tolerance for losses. Until now my goal has been to make 1000-1500/day and cap my losses at 1000-1500 max. It's going to take some real soul searching and guts but I need to bump those numbers up.
Part of my problem is comfort zone. I'm used to taking losses on a day of 1000-1500. I'm used to trading certain sized positions and risking a certain amount per trade. That was fine when I was trading as a hobby. Now that this is my job I need break out of that long established comfort zone and start manning up.
Results for the week:
Mon (1108)
Tues (1630)
Wens +276
Thurs +1490
Fri +248
===========
Total (724)
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