June 15th

I spent much of the morning trying to set up my real money trading account to match my simulated account. This was, in one word, trying. I typically don't mess with the IB setup and yet I managed to screw up both the paper-trade acct and the real money acct in ways I still don't understand. Over the week-end, I decided that I'd try to get some trading time on the live account but with reduced position sizes. This is only natural as I still think that I'll be fighting my"head" when the switch occurs to real-money trading. Small positions=small worries, I say. After finally getting my paper-trade acct back to normal, I practiced with it, found some more bugs, fixed them, then tried it out some. Before, I was using 1000 share trades. I am now using 250 share lots. I made two paper-trades for winners in SKF, netting $82.50 & $113.50 . then, I went to the live account and messed with the settings to match it to the simulated account. Then, I tried it for real... and it was still screwed! :-) It traded 100 share lots and not 250. It didn't make the "one-click" trade that I prefer... it asked for trade confirmations instead. So, I found and fixed the problem (I had made the correct changes earlier but apparently didn't click on "APPLY" to save them). Needless to say, my trade was more than a safe one as it netted out a whopping $21.02! Ha! Had it been correct, it would have netted out $52.50. Had I been trading my 1000 share lots from the past few months, it would have netted out $105. Basically, I took 12 cents out of it. The need for a new cellphone required a visit to the Verizon store and then a day-job project estimate took the remainder of my afternoon. Was it just me or were the stocks pretty lackluster after the early drop? Sort of like a bunch of wet dish rags, I think. I didn't check charts to see if the close offered any momo. I'm worn out and I'm leaving the computer now. I'll check on today's closing action tomorrow morning.
-

3 for 3, a 100% win rate. Gain of $217 in 4.25 hours of paper ($196) and real ($21) trading.

June 12th

A number of positive distractions kept my focus away from the computer today although the full day was available to trade had I made the time. A lunch appointment, some day-job admin. responsibilities, a brief shopping trip to a local outdoor outfitter, and a slight "under-the-weather" feeling just kept me from the full focus that I had yesterday. Just the same, I took three trades in X and connected for winners on all three. I had a very nice entry short at 10:24 am at $40.34. As you see from the chart, I got out early with a paltry $60 gainer. As you also see from the chart, I marked the entry/exit diagram with the big magenta colored line which is my indicator that I missed a large percentage of gains on the trade. Boy, did I ever. The stock did not bottom out until it hit $38.80 at 2:25 pm! That's a potential gain of $1,540, more than that if I had doubled up on the trade as it sank. After returning from my lunch appt and a bit of shopping, I had a chance to short the 2:30- 2:40pm jump in X. This one also had a premature exit but I did manage to get about 11 cents of the 45 cent drop; approx. 24% of the entire move. I took about 13.5 cents out of X on my final trade; getting 42% of the 32 cents available.

In the "missed trades" department, I offer the following:

I found VMC as a big mover this morning in pre-market through the IB market scanner I use, Listed as the Top Percentage Gainer and the top Price Range stock, I decided to keep an eye on it. At 10:55 am, it peaked for the morning and I was quite tempted to take the short at that point. However, the fact that it was not tracking with the indices made me a bit uncertain... I watched and learned. It broke down very nicely with a $1.26 drop. Oh, well. I will now have a better feel for these big runners next time!

-

3 for 3 winners, a 100% success rate. Gain of $671 in 2.25 hours of trading.

June 11th

It was nice to spend the whole day in front of the markets, paper-trading the SKF and POT. A couple of bad decisions to not mind my stops caused me to slip back to my old habit of averaging in for a better price on losing positions. While all of them yielded winners, this really is a tough habit to break but one I must. The one loser was a POT short at 1:10 pm which I felt had a great likelihood to come into the money. It just felt like POT had run up so much for most of two days plus it started to show some weakness in relation to the indices when earlier it had been showing strength. It was tiring and poised for a breakdown. Unfortunately, I was about two hours early for the break and I let the trade go a bit tooo long before I shut it down. A loss of $381 is more than I like to take on a stop out. Interestingly, there was a clear sign that I should not have taken the trade at all but at the time, I was so focused that I did not see the forest for the trees. On the 3-minute chart at the 1:06 pm candle, there was a huge volume spike coupled with a good divergence from the mean... both my signals for reversal. But, I was so convinced that I KNEW what the stock was going to do that I didn't heed my signals... and I paid for it. I know to NEVER pre-judge a stock but I was so intense that I didn't take a step back and look at the big picture. Had I done so, I would have waited for the breakdown.

As is quite often the case, many of my winners today were cut short much too soon; gains in the thousands were left on the table. But, as I usually write, I am grateful for the winners! All are paper-trades and as such, make terrific learning opportunities. The education rolls on...

-

8 for 9 winners, an 89% success rate. Gain of $1,443 in 6.5 hours of paper-trading.