Summary:
Positive to the tune of +$134.11:
A very, very tough day for me. I wasn't positive until the last 15 minutes of the day. I hit a low of -$245, brought it back to -$10, then a low of -$445, then hovered at around -$200 until 12:42.
$134 and I feel like I earned this more than I did the $1k earlier this week... heh.
Had one bad round in TNA, I jumped around on the 9:05; 3 entries on one candle. Other than that I did ok with my entries. Feeling frustrated this afternoon, I found myself entering 'the market is my adversary' mode. I made it a point to concentrate on the exact opposite: 'The market is an easy going friend, just doing its thing and not out to hurt anyone, just hang out with it.' As silly as it sounds, this helped my attitude quite a bit.
I think I learned a few things today:
1. The new high/low ticker completely owns. I will never trade without it again. I have no idea how/what I did before having this. The more I use it, the more I start to depend on it - the more I realize that I should depend on it. The afternoon trades on TNA were a great example. 5 positive trades in a row, with a lot of back and forth going on. I see my trading improving a lot as I continue to learn to use this tool.
2. There are different kinds of momentum. Scott was cool enough to point this out via a comment on his blog today. There were several times that I had direction today, only to get stopped out. These types of trades find me anxious. I need to be able to trust my judgement on these, and exit as soon as I feel I need to. From now on, no more questions, no more trying to be patient; if I don't feel good about it, I am going to exit.
It could very well be that the stock will continue to go in the direction I wanted it to after I exit. That is fine. I have come to realize that some trades just move away from entry immediately and fast, and stay away. I have no problem hanging onto these, I think I have proven that to myself a few times. Then there are the stocks that slowly move in the expected direction, taking their time, but headed in the right direction. I don't have a problem hanging onto these either. The ones I have a problem with are the ones where I try to talk myself into waiting... only to get stopped. I shouldn't do this - no more talking myself into hanging on, I am going with my gut. I need to exit as soon as I think I should, and trust that decision. I may leave quite a bit of money on the table on a lot of trades, but I will make up for it on the big easy moves.
On a side note, I used IQfeed's demo for the first time today. IQFeed is a great data feed, no problems at all. But - I found out that they do not have a new high/low ticker. I may keep the feed, but I would like to find a feed with a hi/lo ticker that is compatible with NT.
So - 4 days positive on this method of trading - freakin' incredible milestone! Today was just a hard day, and it is clear I still have a lot to learn, but I call this progress!!
Have agreat weekend everyone - next week: big, fast easy momo for everyone =)
Details:
BIIB - the exit on the 12:35 was just a nasty piece of business. This happened several times today - I exited on the high/low of the candle (+$9.07):
CRM - 35 ticks at best (-$98.83):
JOYG - new lows with the market coming down strong, late on the entry, but it got stopped. I kept watching and caught some short action a few minutes later (+$86.55):
LULU - unfortunately this stock was about 5 minutes behind the market. 18 ticks in direction after my entry, 6 ticks worth of slip on the stop (-$108.68)
OXY - why short? I have absolutely no idea (-$53.73):
PWRD - the exit could have been better, but I was in the midst of the TNA transaction (+$25.77):
TNA - 30 ticks unrealized on the first trade. The 8:20 saw two stops, but I kept persisting, exiting at the 8:45 low. 11:20 saw a nervous exit, and the 11:30 stop was just poor entry price. Caught some of the late afternoon action going strictly by the ticker (+$144.47):
XEC - 37 ticks unrealized at best on the first trade (+$129.49):
and what is up with the rain theme, getting a little too much sun?
ReplyDeleteget some bro! did you ever think about selling half of the shares when you get to 1 times your risk (i.e. .25 stop, sell half when you get 25 ticks in your favor). if you do that, then that trade is technically risk free (although it never feels like that if you are already red). If the stock comes back to your original stop, you are flat on the trade. If you move the stop up to your original entry point after 25 ticks in your favor and you get stopped out, you locked in the 25 ticks on x amount of shares that you sold. does that make sense? (500 shares * 100/share = 50000...stop at 99.75...self half at 100.25 you get 25062.50...get stopped out on the other 250 at 99.75 and you got 24937.50...25062.50+24937.50=50000...move stop up to original entry after 25 ticks then 25062.50 + 25000=50062.50) now, there are two schools of thought about this. mark douglas says take pieces off, you will feel good about locking in profit and won't become frustrated. van tharp says to hold onto the whole position until you want to exit because you give up way too much money if you scale out. i asked scott about this once because i realized he goes all in and all out. he just said that is what he does. supposedly, when van tharp went through traders records, if they would have held the hold chunk they would have made a bunch more money. but slowly scaling out as douglas says, helps keep morale up.
ReplyDeleteHeh - I like the mountain in the background, symbolic. =)
ReplyDeleteThe scaling out idea doesn't appeal to me - after a scaled exit I can see myself resenting not seeing the gains on the full position.
I want to try and come to terms with my trading instinct (or lack thereof). Some positions are easy to hold (RMBS on 6-9 comes to mind), and some are not. I am going to go for the easy money. Otherwise fear, self doubt, and nervousness start coming into play.
Chances are, I will end up leaving a lot of money on the table on a lot of trades, and I may end up beating myself up for it - but I want to be okay with it. I am thinking something along the lines of 'Trade in the moment, it is what it is.' The plan is to get comfortable with my instincts and my ability to bring in consistent money. I think my instincts will keep improving... then it will be time to find my ski mask!
sounds like a good plan. i bet it will help you in developing your spidy sense of when to hold longer and when to scalp. the way your week went, i thought you were already wearing that mask. nice job this week, congrats.
ReplyDeleteyou better get on these people before the product launches. tell them they must incorporate h/l ticker through NT
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kinetick.com/features
did you know that you can save market data each day from NT and then replay it at 1x to 500x the speed. That is crazy. I have been looking for something like this. I know esignal has it but i didn't want to pay. with your iqfeed, it supports it. and, as long as i keep a market analyzer window open with the stocks i want recorded, it will record the data throughout the day. then you can spend you nights and weekends, playing the trade over again and practice. holy shit! unreal.
ReplyDeletewith your iq feed it is under file, utilities, download replay data. for me, since i don't pay for iqfeed, it is tools, options, data, record for market replay. i'll have to wait until monday to start recording data, but i would love to re-trade qld from friday, or tna, or or anything. unreal!
let me know if it works with iqfeed. i may sign up because then i can replay any stock from that trading day, like THO when it went crazy.
yeah - unfortunately I have not been able to get it work reliably at all, but that was based on TDA and IB data. It would crash nearly every time. I will check out the IQFeed version and let you know.
ReplyDelete