June 29th - Addendum

A review of today's trades reveals a few things of note:

I did not let the first trade of the day go to stop-loss.
Result: Bailed early and missed out on up to a 20 cent, $100 gain.

Fifth trade, I stopped it out at ten cents.
Result: That was the low point of the trade and within 3 cents of the low point of the entire day to that point and as soon as the stop triggered, the trade reversed and went up 39 cents from the stop-out point. It topped out at what could have been a gain of up to 29 cents, $145 gain. There's that frustration point again... so very close (couldn't be closer than that, actually) but just missed on a nice move. Success seems just a hair out of reach, sometimes.

It's after 10:00 pm and a very busy day-job tomorrow so I can't plot and study other trades but I've seen enough to know I am near Nirvana.

June 29th

I didn't get a chance to get to the markets until about 2:00 pm because of my day-job. I decided to watch AAPL instead of SKF as it seemed to be making larger dollar moves. As can be seen from the list of trades, I struggled with my entries and found myself stopping out often. I tried to stick to 8 cent stops but found on some occasions, quick movement blew through the stop and I took a larger loss than I'd like; 2:12 pm was a 10.5 cent, 2:16 pm a 15 cent, and a 13.5 cent at 2:34pm. However, most stops (7 of the 11) were triggered within 9 cents, so stop discipline was strictly enforced today. Also important: NO TRADES ADDING TO LOSERS TODAY. Unfortunately, this resulted in a terrible won/loss ratio and a small loss on the day. I say unfortunately because 4 of the 11 losses representing -$167 happened within 30 cents of the 2:05pm reversal in AAPL at $142.70. (on a stock which moved nearly $2.40 cents from HOD to LOD). There are other cases of being in close proximity to an anticipated turn only to be caught in chop. This seems to be a constant problem for me. I sense the changes in direction are near, so I play a stock to reverse. Then, I stop out numerous times as the stock goes through its machinations at the top or bottom of a trend. I am getting stopped/chopped to bits. My old method of buying and adding more trades to the position if it moved away from me insulated me from losses while a stock was consolidating. I enjoyed high success rates because the little moves in these difficult areas didn't take me out of the overall trade. It's tough eating all these losers while adapting to the new (but preferred) method of trading. It's worth the pain now during the change of style in order to avoid those infrequent but nasty breakouts from consolidation moving against me.

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I constantly look for encouragement... in this, I still seem to have a good feel for changes of direction which is primary to future success. I am now sticking to stops so i won't blow out my account a few times per month and offset the gains I might have. And, with all these losses because of my lack of experience, I still seem to be down very little. I can live with losses this small when I am in only my second or third day of adapting to true momentum/trend-trading. The gains will come eventually. I will sharpen my skills at picking tops and bottoms, I will limit my stop losses to under 8-10 cents, I will see and feel momentum such that I will stick longer with winners, and I will begin to see choppy consolidation areas after trends and not be suckered into them by the market-makers, et.al. Success: it's not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

... I just hope it doesn't take too long.

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8 for 19, a 42% win rate. Loss of $37 in 2.25 hours of paper-trading. Stops engaged on all losing trades except two, no trades added to losing positions.