Gross of $35 day trading, but very good discipline. I didn't fight the market on the SPY's, and I was patient enough to let things work. I did several other trades beside the spys and only had one loser, although only for pennies, 7 cents and 12 cents.
I was very disappointed in myself at the loss from the week before last and even last week when I was showing wrong discipline by going against the market. I felt like a fraud, like everything I've said or worked towards was a lie because I had failed to put any air in the tires.
I did good, though, I spotted a cup and handle formation and a pennant that both indicated a higher market.
Its interesting, I'm exploring how easy or hard it is to just run with the SPY's vs. doing the other kinds of trades. I'm not a fast momentum trader, almost for sure, I just have no confidence and usually the stops are very wide. The trades I picked were slow movers and felt ok.
It may be, though, that aside from a few very specific opportunities, like when the 30 minute and 10 minute are turning together, it may not be possible, meaning that I get chewed up on trading losses that more than make up for the gains.
I feel like I need to try it, though. It could be one of those things that resists being pinned down in the moment. Its so obvious in hindsight. I did make a couple of good SPY calls, I've noticed how there is a pattern of 3's in waves in the 2 minute and that a typical run is an hour so, and I caught the end of one of those.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
about even on the day, but 8 for 11 day trading
I had a pretty good morning day trading. A gross of $91, but 8 for 11 winners in the SPY, FAZ and in BAC.
I got chopped up in the futures when there was not much range and an unclear direction, so I'm probably about even on the day.
8 for 11. That is very good.
I got chopped up in the futures when there was not much range and an unclear direction, so I'm probably about even on the day.
8 for 11. That is very good.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
A choppy day
I started out the day up on the futures but lost enough on a couple of trades that I ended up down more than $100. On day trading I was down a little.
My head wasn't in the game, I kept saying I was going to work on other stuff today but kept it open and kept making trades without giving it my best.
I didn't make the transition from 'up day' to 'down day', the day turned around, and the 30 minute futures clearly showed this but I kept fighting it.
Head not in the game.
My head wasn't in the game, I kept saying I was going to work on other stuff today but kept it open and kept making trades without giving it my best.
I didn't make the transition from 'up day' to 'down day', the day turned around, and the 30 minute futures clearly showed this but I kept fighting it.
Head not in the game.
down 3.5 pounds in the last month
I went in for my weigh in/med refill this morning, I'm down 3.5 pounds in the last month. That is very solid weight loss, not too fast and steady progress.
230.75 is the new official weight. If I can keep losing weight at even 3 pounds a month I'll be at 200 by my next birthday in September. I want to keep the goals reasonable. 4 pounds a month would be awesome, 3 pounds a month is solid.
The number 200 is important because it would represent a transition in my Body Mass Index (BMI) from medically obese to just overweight. Obese is a sucky word. There are no good connotations to being obese. Its just a label, its just a word, of course, but what it stands for is real. I can't change the word but I can change the underlying reality, which is what I'm working on. At my highest weight, around 280, I was morbidly obese because I was 100 pounds overweight. Talk about a fun pair of words!
Its important to just take every pound as it comes, of course, I've noticed this three pounds, clothes have felt different, my face looks different and my body seems different.
230.75 is the new official weight. If I can keep losing weight at even 3 pounds a month I'll be at 200 by my next birthday in September. I want to keep the goals reasonable. 4 pounds a month would be awesome, 3 pounds a month is solid.
The number 200 is important because it would represent a transition in my Body Mass Index (BMI) from medically obese to just overweight. Obese is a sucky word. There are no good connotations to being obese. Its just a label, its just a word, of course, but what it stands for is real. I can't change the word but I can change the underlying reality, which is what I'm working on. At my highest weight, around 280, I was morbidly obese because I was 100 pounds overweight. Talk about a fun pair of words!
Its important to just take every pound as it comes, of course, I've noticed this three pounds, clothes have felt different, my face looks different and my body seems different.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
changes in forex trades
As part of the work on forex I've gotten away from trying to day trade forex and instead just take small stakes and swing trade them. One of the key advantages of trading a currency pair is that there is not a natural up or down. All other securities will eventually trend higher because everything becomes more expensive, and going short in anything is, well, against the long term natural way of things. Currencies only have relative value, and they move within that, so going short is something that is natural.
After I had placed all the forex trades the other day I looked at them on their dailys, and all but one were directionally placed in opposition to the daily MACD. The other day all of the ones that I had out of sync with their MACD (4 out of 5) went hard against me. The one that was with the MACD went up.
The absolute dollars in loss were small ($40) but percentage wise it was a massive move. This is a good reminder that leverage cuts both ways, and a reminder to me to keep the positions small relative to the amount I want to use for forex.
I sold the losers and today went through the currency pairs available to me and picked things that were all macd black (just to pick a direction) and I have 4 new positions. I also picked things that were other than dollar positions, like AUD/JPY. This can get me away from positions which are purely based on how the dollar does and are also not correlated so much with each other.
I'm not sure what the right number of positions is. 5? 10? I'll hold onto these and see how it goes. My strategy will be to swap in and out based on the MACD change and just swing them. I'll keep the risk as a proportion of the amount to invest so I'm not wiped out. By having a number of positions that are disparate across different currencies I hope to balance out the risk of everything going wrong at once and see what sort of aggregate return I can get and smooth out the return.
I'm up 50% on the one winner, AUD/USD, over a week or so. A position of $3000 at a risk of $60 and its up $38. This is the sort of movement that can provide a chunk of return. If I can maintain any sort of consistent aggregate return it could be very powerful. My plan is to use the house's money if I win and allow that to grow.
After I had placed all the forex trades the other day I looked at them on their dailys, and all but one were directionally placed in opposition to the daily MACD. The other day all of the ones that I had out of sync with their MACD (4 out of 5) went hard against me. The one that was with the MACD went up.
The absolute dollars in loss were small ($40) but percentage wise it was a massive move. This is a good reminder that leverage cuts both ways, and a reminder to me to keep the positions small relative to the amount I want to use for forex.
I sold the losers and today went through the currency pairs available to me and picked things that were all macd black (just to pick a direction) and I have 4 new positions. I also picked things that were other than dollar positions, like AUD/JPY. This can get me away from positions which are purely based on how the dollar does and are also not correlated so much with each other.
I'm not sure what the right number of positions is. 5? 10? I'll hold onto these and see how it goes. My strategy will be to swap in and out based on the MACD change and just swing them. I'll keep the risk as a proportion of the amount to invest so I'm not wiped out. By having a number of positions that are disparate across different currencies I hope to balance out the risk of everything going wrong at once and see what sort of aggregate return I can get and smooth out the return.
I'm up 50% on the one winner, AUD/USD, over a week or so. A position of $3000 at a risk of $60 and its up $38. This is the sort of movement that can provide a chunk of return. If I can maintain any sort of consistent aggregate return it could be very powerful. My plan is to use the house's money if I win and allow that to grow.
I lost $9 today
believe it or not I actually feel good about that, there was some serious choppiness that cost me $100 in the futures, a problem with the platform that cost me $60, and I had a fat finger mistake that cost me $40. And, I was in the market all day.
The futures issue is correctable, I didn't use use all the data I had when I entered and got chopped up on a couple of trades. However, I still ended up upon the day on the futures.
I've also learned that I can cut commissions cost by over 2/3 by switching brokers. It doesn't sound like a lot, $1 for a trade as opposed to $3.50, but I had 18 futures trades today, and that's $45 right off the top and can make the difference between an up day and a down day. To put it in perspective if I can make $200 a day I can make a living, that would have been 25% of earnings. It would have meant that today would have been an up day.
I made many, many good decisions, and the ones that didn't go well I got out of. My discipline was very good. A fat finger mistake (buying more when I meant to sell) is a form of discipline and I need to have zero of those mistakes. I had a problem with the platform in a pre-market trade and that cost me, but now I know how to execute properly.
Believe it or not this is a good day. I was in the market all day and came out at about even. I'm very happy with that.
The futures issue is correctable, I didn't use use all the data I had when I entered and got chopped up on a couple of trades. However, I still ended up upon the day on the futures.
I've also learned that I can cut commissions cost by over 2/3 by switching brokers. It doesn't sound like a lot, $1 for a trade as opposed to $3.50, but I had 18 futures trades today, and that's $45 right off the top and can make the difference between an up day and a down day. To put it in perspective if I can make $200 a day I can make a living, that would have been 25% of earnings. It would have meant that today would have been an up day.
I made many, many good decisions, and the ones that didn't go well I got out of. My discipline was very good. A fat finger mistake (buying more when I meant to sell) is a form of discipline and I need to have zero of those mistakes. I had a problem with the platform in a pre-market trade and that cost me, but now I know how to execute properly.
Believe it or not this is a good day. I was in the market all day and came out at about even. I'm very happy with that.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Check your intuition at the door
One of the things I'm coming to realize about day trading is just how little intuitions matter. In all of our other ventures we get a 'feel' for things. Trading and the markets moving defy this, especially when it comes to 'is this move done', etc.
Experience teaches, of course, and to the degree that we've internalized lessons those count as intuition, the ability to quickly know how to react and how to take steps.
However, The Big What is what happens next, and intuition will not, I believe, ever help here. Sometimes we guess correctly and sometimes we don't. I see and hear people in the room all the time talking about their gut telling them what's going to happen next, and they are frequently wrong, and I doubt that they are right more than chance. Its a big lie that we tell ourselves. I've done it a lot, and I was really, really hoping that it would be the key that unlocked the door in the same way that it unlocks so many other things in life. We eventually just lean on our intuition in so many situations in life, and in the case of the markets its worse than a mistake, its a fool's errand.
What tricks us is that the times when we are right make us feel like we are harmony with market motion, when we're really not, we just guessed right. I think this is also why we think we are being punished when we are wrong, its like we have been jilted by something that we know and are strong with and now its turned our back on us.
I have really studied the curious emotions around the way that I fear the market's reprisal, being humble, not boasting, etc. because I think deep down I don't want it to get mad at me and punish me by not whispering into my ear what the future holds. The only reason I would think such a ridiculous thing (and it is ridiculous) is because I've convinced myself that there is a relationship there when, in fact, there is not. The market is not a being, its the cumulative results of the actions of people and software. Its an outcome. Every tick is an outcome.
Again and again they say that the best traders are not emotional, and I believe that I have a glimpse into what this means: that decisions are made based on some criteria (even if its 'this looks strong' or 'this looks weak') based on experience, and then you execute and see the results.
This is an 'aha' thing for me because I wanted to be able to feel it, and I think I see that that's the wrong goal. The goal is to detach not emotion but any sense that our intuitions will be a good guide to the action.
Now, if things are going down and the technical analysis says there is further to go then its reasonable to conjecture that more will come -- that's basic trading. However, that's based on something objective -- the MACD or the stochastic or a pennant being created or whatever.
This will help, I think, I can work on the discipline of 'not feeling it'.
Experience teaches, of course, and to the degree that we've internalized lessons those count as intuition, the ability to quickly know how to react and how to take steps.
However, The Big What is what happens next, and intuition will not, I believe, ever help here. Sometimes we guess correctly and sometimes we don't. I see and hear people in the room all the time talking about their gut telling them what's going to happen next, and they are frequently wrong, and I doubt that they are right more than chance. Its a big lie that we tell ourselves. I've done it a lot, and I was really, really hoping that it would be the key that unlocked the door in the same way that it unlocks so many other things in life. We eventually just lean on our intuition in so many situations in life, and in the case of the markets its worse than a mistake, its a fool's errand.
What tricks us is that the times when we are right make us feel like we are harmony with market motion, when we're really not, we just guessed right. I think this is also why we think we are being punished when we are wrong, its like we have been jilted by something that we know and are strong with and now its turned our back on us.
I have really studied the curious emotions around the way that I fear the market's reprisal, being humble, not boasting, etc. because I think deep down I don't want it to get mad at me and punish me by not whispering into my ear what the future holds. The only reason I would think such a ridiculous thing (and it is ridiculous) is because I've convinced myself that there is a relationship there when, in fact, there is not. The market is not a being, its the cumulative results of the actions of people and software. Its an outcome. Every tick is an outcome.
Again and again they say that the best traders are not emotional, and I believe that I have a glimpse into what this means: that decisions are made based on some criteria (even if its 'this looks strong' or 'this looks weak') based on experience, and then you execute and see the results.
This is an 'aha' thing for me because I wanted to be able to feel it, and I think I see that that's the wrong goal. The goal is to detach not emotion but any sense that our intuitions will be a good guide to the action.
Now, if things are going down and the technical analysis says there is further to go then its reasonable to conjecture that more will come -- that's basic trading. However, that's based on something objective -- the MACD or the stochastic or a pennant being created or whatever.
This will help, I think, I can work on the discipline of 'not feeling it'.
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