Summary:
Pfft... clobbered.
First trade on TNA, QLD, VXX, EDZ was golden, 1.2k on paper. The markets looked to be offering a killer of an opportunity, so I decided to go live. Ended up being an exercise in futility... Sometimes I had direction, lots of direction (>50 ticks), sometimes I had direction with big shares (1500 shares on EDO at 20 ticks profit). I found myself patiently waiting for the big move, seeing weakness, chanting the weakness mantra all day.... only to realize stop after stop after stop. Ended up down on the real account $2111.84.
Ranks with the biggest loss yet:
Here is the cumulative profit curve:
I dreaded posting this; airing my baggage, opening myself to criticism. But I keep this up for several reasons.
First - I have every intention of seeing this thru to the end, and I have enough of a background to believe that I will be successful at this (and this is not some hokey hot air talk myself into it kind of confidence). I intend to keep the journey as real as possible, for the benefit of anyone considering trading. Real emotions, real losses, real solutions, and real profits (err... coming soon).
Second - supposedly - studies show that journaling about trading wins/losses helps the trader to come to grips with the probability factor; the fact that it is not necessarily the trader's responsibility when the trade does/doesn't go in the expected direction. 'It's all his fault! Not mine!' (Wives don't always buy this)
Third - There were only 5 charts today, so it didn't take very long =)
So - what the hell happened today?
I traded in plan. Absolutely. Looking at my entries they all look great. Some loose stops on EDZ didn't help matters, and a lot of the stops were triggered way out on the wicks (worst possible scenario - EDZ is full of them). The 9:40 to 11:40 channel on the Q's offered enough S/R for me to keep trying.
The EDZ chart is probably representative of my mindset for the day: trying to patiently let the moves play out, letting them ride back to the stop. Or letting them trace almost all the way back and exiting right before the turn around. Overall I was expecting a weak market, but there seemed to be plenty of buyers out there. I am not sure what else to say.
Days like this can drive a man to scalping.
The 9:30 rise on the Q's had me ticked off at the markets. Silly me. After that I pretty much took things in stride and kept doing as best I could. The 50 tick moves thru TNA at EOD left me scratching my head. 5 minutes pretty much marked the reversals. If only I had anticipated; but I was looking for the >100 tick moves. Pfft.
Well - great first part of the week, and I traded the same today. Just one of those days that I don't trade very well. Bound to get over it or be able to recognize them eventually. Hopefully before I go broke.
Even Don Miller lost today. (Not that I am happy about him losing, but it is good to know this is normal.)
Trade well.
Details:
CELG (-$250.87):
CLR (-$241.53):
EDZ: what can be said about this? The first trade (on paper) caught the 7:30 to 7:45 move. Heh. All live and down hill from there. Went long after the first stop. Shorted on the next exit - and then nothing but stops and re-entries until the 8:20 short. Exited at exactly the wrong time with a reverse (I was thinking and expecting a weak market, so looking for the exit), and proceeded to hit stops all the way down. Long on the 8:50 and watched it climb then come back and stop me out on the 9:40. I was watching the market the entire time, and not believing any of the climb, expecting it to fail any second... watched it crawl right back to my stop.
Timed the bottom right with a long entry on the 9:45; exited with a short and stop central with some very small profits on the retrace. Just could not make this thing work. I entered 22 times on EDZ. 14 times I had direction and either got stopped or squeaked a profit out. (-$1392.04):
EGO: Direction on this, plenty of it on the second short. I doubled up and watched it climb all the way back up to the new stop; not believing what I was seeing the entire time. Came in with 1000 shares short on the 9:50, another 500 shares as it broke prior low, saw 20 ticks to the good and sold on the freakin pop. Of course I followed up with a long... and got stopped. Pleading either optimism or insanity on between the stop and the short (-$215.03):
TNA: Unreal.... so much direction, always expecting more (-$12.36):
dtf- you were revenge trading in EDZ i think. how about you have a rule that if you are stopped out 3 times on a stock you forget about that stock and find something else.if you are short long short and none of then work then you are not reading the flow.
ReplyDeletehow many cents are your stops?
at this point you don't have to trade 1000 shares to see if your edge and system works, trade smaller. you are still learning so making money is secondary to gaining skills
Yeah... I don't know. I have revenge traded before; today didn't feel like it. There seem to be a lot of arrows, but they are pretty much one entry/stop/reverse per candle. The stops were set at nothing more than $0.20, but EDZ would bounce around without trading and trigger way below/above - I noticed this towards the end of the day. Checking the records there was one stop at over $0.40. Probably not a good stock to be trading.
ReplyDeleteThe 8:50 long saw something over $0.70 unrealized and it came crashing down all crazy like and stopped out - then kept going down. Maybe the 'all crazy like' should of been a heads up. But market volume was pathetic... And I was seeing a short market bias... Maybe it was more a matter of having made my mind up about the market and putting blinders on.
I like the '3 stops and move on' suggestion. Plenty of other opportunities.
A little long winded here. Analyzing away. Heh. I will probably wake up with my stomach all knotted up tonight convinced there is no way I am going to get this thing. So very fickle.
Thanks for the input - very much appreciated.
i almost erased the rest of this because i thought maybe it was too harsh but here goes:
ReplyDelete100% in agreement. Revenge trading. i was doing the same thing as well today. that is a decent rule, 3 stops on same stock you are done. now i am not referring to you here, just airing out my thoughts, maybe 3-5 bad trades in a row in any number of stocks, step back and re-evaluate the situation. i know there are days were i have 5 losers in a row.
"making money is secondary to gaining skills". i have been at this for over a year and am still frightened of 200 shares let alone 1000 or 1500. the only reason i say the following is because i want you to stay in the game. like i have said before, what do you need to maker per day? if its $500, what do you need to get there? 200 shares * .50 * 5 trades =500. of course that is with all perfect trades but i am still trying to figure out why you trade 500 let alone 1500 shares. my good buddy in scottsdale who has been doing this for 8 years trades 300-500 shares in todays markets. the only answer you ever give is because its a nice round number and it will make you money. f*ck that, better to stay alive trying small than to blow up from a few days. having 100 or 200 shares is going to give you almost the same emotion as having 500. like if i bet on a football game, i get almost as much emotion on $5 then on $100. i think its that feeling of being right more than the money.
sorry for the harsh words my friend, but i don't want to see you blowing money just because you don't care anymore. i have been at that point, where you say, whats another 100, then its 500, then its 1000 and you say holy sh*t, how did i lose this much. you've worked hard for the opportunity to play this game, don't throw it away by having too many shares.
crush 'em tomorrow. you know you can do this. you know the right entries and exits. now, i am going to pound those ideas into my head as well.
peace
Bro - I need to hear stuff like this - keep it coming.
ReplyDeleteI had 70 ticks on EDZ: 70 * 500 shares = $350. I suppose that is why I am trading 500 shares. Confidence.
But I am not getting the exits, and maybe that is the point; doesn't matter if it is 70 ticks or 10 ticks, if I don't have the getting out skills I need more practice.
I guess that is the great thing about this biz, it is infinitely scalable once a guy gets the skill set.
I want to stay in this game. You are right. Thanks for looking out for me =)
Another reason to share my struggles on such a public forum. You guys will make me successful - despite my best efforts to reach the poor house. =p
Peace bro.
question: am i understanding your point correctly that $350 gives you confidence? (i must warn you, i flip flop further down) for me, confidence comes from doing the same thing over and over again, and seeing it work, whether its 100 shares or 1000 shares, whether the market is going up or down, whether the USA Today paper is telling me bull/bear market, whether the blogs are bullish/bearish. it is seeing the setup, believing in the probably outcome (which i have a hard time doing, no confidence, ha!), and seeing probabilities play out. yes, also "i was right, or i was wrong, come into play as well. but i don't think being more right, e.g. $350 on 500 shares or $70 on 100 shares, is going to make me more confident. it will make me feel like i am getting paid for all the hard work, but confidence, i don't know. this is very interesting. i wonder if i have a big trade, will i feel more confident. possibly. when i had my big losers, i felt less confident for a few hours, but i was ready to kill it again the next day. maybe if i have a big winner say $500 or $1000, it will instill confidence that i can do this. i think for sure, if i have my first $1000 day, i will probably be very confident that i can do it again. talk about a mind battle, back and forth, i think like lucas said, i may be bipolar or whatever word he used.
ReplyDeleteyou know, i may try to give the 10 min chart or 15 min chart more relevance tomorrow. maybe even attempt to trade just from those charts alone. the problem is, your stops are sometimes wider with the longer time frame candle. the benefit, much less doji and hammer signals.
i marked up some charts, starting with the 15 min, those marks carried over to the 10 min, where i marked the 10 min signals, and then i carried those over to some of the 5 minute charts. then i went back to the 15 after marking the 5,10, and 15 minute moves and its interesting.
peace out my brotha! get em tomorrow. a little bird once told me the following:
we need to believe we can do this: We have what it takes. We are excellent traders. We will keep our minds open to what the market is showing us. Anything can happen at any time. We will trade what the market is showing us. We will wait for the signals and we will trade them well. We will be rewarded for trading well today. We will follow the momo, we will have good entries, we will have good stops, we will exit when the momo stops, after a huge run (and before gravity sets in), or when we get stopped.
Sorry - I wasn't that clear. I am confident - which is why I trade 500 shares. Problem is my confidence is based on some limited experience. Too confident for now; I need to practice some more, and keep it affordable.
ReplyDeleteI have the entries.
I looked at Scott's trades yesterday and thought - patience is the key, read the market and be patient.
I read the market today. The market was weak this morning.
I look at the trade management on EDZ, and it is fairly obvious that I my mind was made up. The market was headed down, so EDZ wanted to go up. 'Just be patient.' I saw it going up forever.
Pfft. Then it changed and I didn't.
Oh well. I can keep analyzing and making stuff up. Fact is, I was not open to what was happening right in front of me.
Good words!
Rough day man. I concur with Scott. I know for myself, if I make a trade in a stock and it doesn't work out, no big deal. However if I make another trade in the same stock and it doesn't work, I will seriously rethink whether to keep trading that stock. Two losses in a row is a flag that something is wrong with my read. A third loss in a row is really a sign that I need to pack it up.
ReplyDeleteAlso I would ask you, whats on the line when you trade like this? Losses usually tell me that something isn't quite clicking with my trades, but they seem to be telling you something entirely different. What are losses telling you to do? To trade more? To try harder? Are they telling you anything about the ACTUAL market structure at that time, or can you only think of yourself and your problems trading? Losses are important (if they are high quality), they give you information about the market participants. Are you using this information?
Keep at it brother, keep asking the questions!