Posts tagged as:

Trading To A Million

Shhh… Super-Secret Year-end Trading Update

December 29, 2009

This is for only select people. If you are not one of these people, and you know who you are, don’t read this.

I’m only $2k, or there abouts, from finishing the year with $100k in the Trading To A Million Account.

Updates coming soon.

Patrick

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Portfolio Review – Normal Doesn’t Count

November 27, 2009

So year over year performance of this portfolio stands at a gain of 338%. My goal was to best the S&P by 100% so I’m there. It’s at about 60%.

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Violating Your Own Stock Trading Rules – Don’t Do It

November 4, 2009

No matter how tempting it is violating your trading rules is never a good idea. This reminder came to me as an example to me when I violated my own trading rules a couple of times over the last two days.

The very first violation cost my portfolio $5K plus. The second made a measly $50. I immediately considered violating my rules another time but I remembered the adage, “Patience is a virtue”, and so stopped myself.

I’ll get around to revisiting this episode of trading later but for now let this serve as a reminder, “Never violate your own stock trading rules.”

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Keeping Your Eye On The Ball – Trading Different Time-frames

October 30, 2009

This makes the third day that I’m in the same position. So far, it’s paid off. However, today serves as a good example of keeping our eyes on the ball. I really wanted to sell the position when it was in the money by more than it has been since I bought it but on the 30-min chart which chart I’m following it’s not even close.

I’m aware that there is going to be larger swings and more temptations to sell early than on the 5-min chart I normally trade. If I’d sold yesterday I’d made a little money and not suffered the unbooked drawdown that yesterday provided.

It’s a trade-off. I don’t want to over-trade but it sure was tempting. This is why, if we buy on one time-frame we want to sell on that same time-frame. It saves us from constantly second-guessing our own trading rules.

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Trade Journal – What A Mistake!

October 26, 2009

1:23pm – Put a trade on today at 9:09am. It was a $44 put on the Q’s for Nov. @ $1.10. Well, I bailed to protect some of the profits too early. I just spaced an forgot to look at my confirming indicators before I punched out.

It only payed 34%. That is the good news. The bad news is that the trend down that I was following has resumed and currently that same option is at $1.62 which would have paid somewhere around 45%. Not a big mistake but I’m at the sidelines waiting for another trade to form and I’ll have another set of trading expenses.

Note to self: Check BB’s on a 5-min chart before ever making another trade.

1:43pm – looks like it wasn’t such a bad trade. The Q’s look to be moving up again. The confirmation for the trade I made earlier looks to be at hand. So I was just a little early. Just another case for the accuracy of my other indicators.

Patrick

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A View From A Balconey

September 29, 2009

I’ve been looking at all the pundits debating the market’s direction. Here are a few of my perspectives.

It’s not what the economy is doing but what is thought it might do. Therefore, even if the economy doesn’t recover very fast the market may.

On the other side of this is that sooner or later the market will exceed expectations and make a correction. It happens when it’s going up and it happens when it’s going down.

Expectations can change at any time for any reason.

The media isn’t the first voices to restate expectations but they are the largest voice. All this means is that once the media gets on the bandwagon you’re late. If you watch the media it’s like you missed the high but see the pivot point forming.

Statistics can be skewed to meet almost anyone’s expectations but find the truth behind them and you can be assured that the facts don’t lie.

When looking what the statistics are saying remember to consider the sources.

And finally, there are people, many people, that can’t except the truth that there can be simplicity in such a complicated era. More on this later.

Good Trading,
Patrick

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Trading Like A Hitchhiker

September 18, 2009

Many years ago I had a chance to travel from Hamburg, Germany to Flensburg, Germany along the Autobahn. I did it with 4 other students carrying 5 people’s luggage in a VW Bug. It seemed to take about 10 hours. The person that owned the 5th set of luggage had to work and didn’t start the trip until 4 hours later. He hitchhiked his way up. By choosing his vehicles right, a Ferrari and a Porsche, he got to Flensburg 2 hours ahead of the rest of us.

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