Tommy

you can find the info you want in this topic.

Hi Rob, Im not quitting yet though I have been taking a break, work has been extremely busy, have been sleeping almost only in hotels the past weeks.. even now I’m in one that has not internet.. lucky I have my phone, but I didn’t bring my personal pc so I can’t use das. i have been doing some reflection though.. and reading. Im reading a very interesting book at the moment, it’s called the the willpower instinct, how self control works. I haven’t finished it yet,only halfway now taken it slowly in. But I do recommend this book already. It’s not particularly about trading but it can make you understand some “bad” behavior and maybe how to avoid it. My live account is now blocked actually, but I’ll open it to the end of the week. Probably next week I’ll be back. Thanx for asking! tommy

Hi Rob, thanx for your message. Yes if I wish to continue I definitely need to make some changes and if I can’t by myself, enforce them with risk control settings. A max loss is a must I think. I’m taking a break from trading this week, reestablish trading rules and consider some things. I want to give it another shot with a different approach. I’m understanding now how a max set Of trades per day isn’t a limitation at this point. I need to make this a part of risk control until I can actually control myself. Oh, I live in a concrete jungle. Yokohama, below Tokyo. But I travel a lot for work, spend about 100 night per year or more in a hotel for the past 9 years or so.(Its getting a bit much I feel now) So many times when I go to Hokkaido which is my favorite part of japan and I actually hope to move here some day, i try to make some time to go to the mountain. They do have a lot of bears here although I have never encountered one. Have a green week!

Last Friday I ended up trading after all.. I shouldn’t have. I had a bad day, very bad. I don’t feel like going in detail about this. I think I broke all my rules. Well I have never treated those as rules actually, more like guidelines. But they should be treated with the respect they deserve. i lost my discipline, again I should say, I’m on a business trip at the moment and decided to go a day earlier and go hiking in the mountain. I love doing that. While hiking It made me think I have a tendency for dangerous behavior.. like speeding with the car, I had to loose my license once before I actually changed a bit.. been stopped by police several times before that already.. when I go to the mountain I often start wondering off of the path and go exploring , at least I always have my gps with me for when I get lost which happens quit quickly in the mountain forests, and bear spray although that one not always. I’m usually even by myself telling nobody I even went to the mountain.. I often thought if I have accident now, I will never ever be found.. but I always managed to get back. well, with trading, dangerous behavior gets punished quickly and quit hard at times. And there is no gps to rely on to tell you to go south or north. The one that has not enough discipline will get punished. If I wish to succeed I must change this, I’m taking the week off, if I can not take the week off I might better stop completely. I’m wondering if that would be the wiser choice. I might regret continuing, I know I will regret quitting.. to be continued..?..

Today’s trading .... pl -80 but about 50 tickers... live account that is... i relapsed and started trading like a mad man xbcbcnx (I want to use some other words but not sure about the tolerance of this forum so I’ll keep it civil...xbsndndb) first I missed a trade on amd, my order didn’t go through, then I went short on roku but also I didn’t get in.... I thought what the hell and then I noticed my montages was still locked.. perhaps this was a sign that I shouldn’t trade today, boy did I ignore that. i traded roku , mu, jd, aapl..couple of times. In The middle of all of it I managed to get back to zero once but yeah, there was still some comission cost I had to pay for.. so I pretended it was happy hour and I continued, stupid idiot. i actually thought I had the revenge trading covered.. disappointed in myself now. ill update charts later on... edit well i really traded like a 90percenter... i made 18 trades of which 13 loosers, way too much, getting in and out too quickly with no real setup. i traded again off the 1 minute with little respect for the 5 i see now. the 1 minute was very choppy on mu, i think it was heavily influenced by the spy, so not very in play. broke some rules like only get in on a pull back, i watched jd, getting higher, told myself wait wait for about 2 min but then somehow i got in at the almost top lol, only roku was a bit of a success though i missed most of the move due to my playing around with mu. and i did loose some when i went short roku which i thought was a double top. double tops seem to be difficult, i find head and shoulders more reliable., double bottoms on the other hand are easier. so now im again about breakeven for the week, friday i may not be able to trade, might be back home too late. win percentage so far this week is now 46% so not the 65 i was aiming for before i should go back live.... yesterday it was still 84% to end with a positive note, i did not start increasing my share size to make up for losses and i did not go below max loss which i told myself 100$, so maybe this means im actually improving....10% here i come :)

may 29, PL 95, 22 tickets it was not bad again but a lot of room for improvement shows up, my execution must improve a lot to take advantage of a winning trade. a trade that i unfortunately missed was goos, i went short but got an invalid share size error, not sure why. maybe it was something to do with that the stock was on SSR. need to look into this. i traded AMD first, i went long for an ORB but the price just stalled right after i got in, it looked like it didn't want to go up so i got out, then i thought it would at least go down to vwap so i got in short, partialled out and took last part when it crossed the 50ma, it didnt hold the break so i went short again just below vwap which was good but i always partial out too quickly so again i missed the good move. i really need to work on this, not sure how. later in the day, i wanted to short amd 1 more time, wanted to short it on the 9ma but my montage wasn't selected, when i noticed i got in quickly but i really shouldn't have don that. the moment i got i knew its a bad entry. i wasn't happy with it and i got out, earlier then my intended stop because it crossed the 9ma and i thought it might go higher again which it eventually did before getting more bearish again. i regretted taking this trade, i just felt like being in a trade and let myself get a bad entry. i traded roku at the open for an orb but again it didn't feel strong so i first got out 50% to reduce my share size, then got stopped out the rest, further then i wanted, my initial order didn't go through, it stayed in open order, i canceled it and send another order which got filled promptly. again, i need to take a look at my hotkeys. roku was called out in the chat that it was forming a wig, i agreed on that but i wasn't sure what to put as a good stop target and while i was wondering it broke out. i then though i will get in on a retest if it crosses the high of the day, it didn't really want to retest this level but i still got in, i didn't really catch a nice move but it was enough to pay for the earlier loss and the commissions lol. I really must work on my exits, having a good entry is key but where you exit has a huge effect on your profit. i feel this will take some time to improve. but i have to work on this, losses will definitely come again so not being able to capitalize on winning trades is a problem

take care and there is always another day, i hope you can trade the next session

May 28 2 trades pl80 It sounds ok but I’m not really happy with this days trading. I let opportunity slip by. My psych wasn’t all that great, I felt good though and was eager to trade. I actually changed my account to live before the open. Perhaps that was why. But it turned out that I had a very good market feeling today. Just not the confidence to act on it. I was watching amd , roku, and momo. I seriously thought about scalping roku for a long at the 50ma in the first minute but couldn’t pull the trigger, could have been a good scalp but also risky so I didn’t mind not taking this. So at first I went long on amd, that was good however when I decided on a stop loss I actually pressed my hot key for twice that amount of stop, so half share size which was quit ridiculous really. It wasn’t a hot key mistake either. Not really sure why I did that. No confidence probably since I had changed it to live account . I got out way too fast it turned out too, it was still an ok move however because of the wide stop I didn’t even get a 2R on it. Such a waste. I kept on watching roku and about 3 times I was thinking , now is good entry where I can get a tight stop but everytime I hesitated and offcourse the stock don’t wait for you. I love/hate this stock. It kicked me in the balls quite hard multiple times so that’s also what makes me hesitate to touch it but one can not deny the opportunities it gives as well. I took a longtrade on momo instead which was a bit more risky but it turned out ok though again I couldn’t get 2r but that’s just because the move didn’t really happen. Still I’m happy with this trade because I didn’t stop out even though I came quite close to it. I took low from previous candle as stop. I missed out on some other entrys to get back in amd and also the reversal, I saw a head and shoulders and I have been quite successful with this pattern. But again I didn’t get in, I had a price in mind where I told myself to get in 28,30but it missed it by I think 2 cents. That was really close enough I guess to get in. So a bit mixed feelings about this day. Maybe It was because I went back live, maybe I should have stayed in sim, maybe I’m not cut out for this, maybe one day I will... I never once thought about chasing the stock though so at least that was something I did good.

it sure is not easy, i kinda thought i could be consistent quicker but i understand now that it was wishful thinking. the past weeks i have always kept a small chart of the spy open, it sure does help sometimes, i agree that small size on a live account is the better learning way, in my case i have messed up a bit too much so i have to prove myself first i can be green on sim consistently again. this will give me some pressure to take sim seriously because im eager to go live again but it just doesn't make sense at the moment. id love to trade all day even if its just for training but that is no option for me, ideally i should stop after the first hour. but in the end that is the best hour too even its difficult for a beginner. actually the biggest losses i have made so far are after 10h30 and the best wins in the first 10 min. im still trying to improve my journaling, i have come to understand the importance of this aswell. reasons why i document some in an open journal are, there is nobody around me that i can talk too about trading and this gets me more in the community which i also have come to understand the importance off, and another reason was to make myself a bit more accountable. knowing that you will share your trades with the world makes you be more aware of emotional trading mistakes. or so i thought anyway because while im in it, i tend to forget that. but its getting better. i know it.

i went over yesterday again, i did 13 trades, only 4 were winners, 4 i got out reaching pretty much breakeven and 3 rather big loosers. im not going to trade anymore after alcohol... in order to make my profit/loss more even across the trades i just adjusted my hotkeys, before i had them based on amount of shares. now i adjusted them based on the stoploss i believe would be needed to define weather the trade is a winner or a looser. one problem i have had is that i stop out early because im not willing to risk more dollars, so my stop was often based on PL in stead of the chart. adjusting these hotkeys i hope will prevent this and also it will make me more focused on a predefined stop where as before i didnt always think about that clearly. now i will have to. they look like this for long position, i set them for a loss target of 35$, ill see how it goes. they are not hard stops so i still need to get out by myself.

may 24, im not sure how many trades i made.. i came back home just in time for the open today, had a dinner and quite a lot to drink after work. i was thinking of not trading but since i got home in time and im doing sim anyway i figgured why not.i i just put on watchlist what andrew waas mentioning., in order to not be influenced by andrew i put the sound of chat off. So FL looked very much in play. at the open it was a bit choppy i found but i still got in in the first 5 min i went long twice to get out both times with a small profit, and short twice once i got out at breakeven and once i took a big loss. after this the stock finally seemed to have decided on a direction and it got in though with a bad entry. i got out with profit but again not a great trade. then i believed it had found a bottom, i wnet long with a stopless in mind when it broke the support below. it turned out to be good but moved so slowly i got out to quick. roku, first 2trades was in between FL, i looked like an abcd but i didnt wait for the c and got in at the b to stop out at the c (if that makes sense) once i got out with a small loss and the other time was a short i gout out at breakeven after partial. these 2 trades im not sure why i took, well, i really thought it would be a long first but i had my eye on FL too much (this was before my long on FL) i went long again on roku after a pullback but it turned against me, then i got out because it kindal looked like a bdouble top was forming. then i did a stupid thing, i tried to short the stock twice even though it was strong, the first time was kinda ok, i thought there was a possibility for a double top and i got out at breakeven since i realized i was wrong. the second time however there was no reason at all to go short and even worse i shorted it a third time. even when im holding the position i was thinking oh, this actually relly looks like it still wants to go higher but i didnt get out when i got a chance. this was a pain to write, i want to go sleep.. but i feel this is important i do this for the record. i had to look at my tradelog to remember what i exactly did so it confirms what i thought, dont trade when drunk... kinda obvious right... its also kinda because of sim i think. i likely would not have taken so big risk letting it run. i have learned my lesson with that. still i want to make sim as real as possible so i should not have done what i did. bad bad trading, although FL was not too bad except for overtrading at the open. ill update some more tomorrow i think. today is finished, goodnight

hey Man, you know what, you are not alone. been there done that. the important thing is that you realize how wrong you trading attitude was to not not do it again. dont try to forget the pain it causes, remember it , remember it well., when we work hard, one day(probably not in the near future in my case) we gonna take the money from suckers like you and me.

I took almost the same trade on mu. my theory on why the stock actually was not weak as I thought at the moment is, on the 2min the 2 candles with high volume, the first is a kind of indecision candle, the one after also has high volume but a relative small body, these both suggest quit a lot of buying power. Maybe this should have signaled that even with at vwap it could go both ways with no real preference. Meaning don’t get it. What do you think? edit, on edgewonk you need to manually combine the trades that are just partials into 1trade , it’s quit a pain to do this, I don’t really like it and stopped using it, the import also doesn’t work well for me. still trying to figure out a good way of journaling.

How many tickets are you watching at the same time? I watch 3 at the moment. I wish I could watch more but the truth is I am hardly capable (read not yet) of keeping an eye on all of them. But still, with just 1 you need to be a bit lucky I think and picky on what you are watching. I travel a lot for work, spend about 100 nights or more per year in a hotel and those days the past months I could always see just 1. I find it not enough to be safe.

Thanx guys today i did not trade that well, i did end positive though. i made 7 trades, 3 winners and 4 loosers. i went short TSLA before market open because it looked like a head and shoulders and close to the open they tend to move back to vwap once. I didnt want to hold it during the open so i got out but with some profit, i went short again, almost same as andrew i believe but got stopped out and didnt get back in again, that was unfortunate. i was also looking at LB, i went back to vwap and above but got sold off again quickly so i went short, it went down a little but went up again just as fast, my entry wasnt good, but i think it was not a bad try. This move however mad me think its a long and i went in on a little pullback on the 1 minute.i topok one quick partial but then it went down to my entry and i got out because i didnt want to go minus since i had a partial. i think i need to reconsider this as this threw me out of a nice ride. i was very strong so i got back in one more time on a pullback i got out again now just above breakeven, again i need to work on this. i took one more long at the point where it was making the wedge but got out without a really clear reason. but if not i would have probably get stopped out on the last wig down before it eventually popped... i took a shot on mu for a short at vwap, got stopped out at a bad spot, should have gotten out bit earlier. not great trading today, getting out early on a winner is not good trading . its been many times now i get stopped out on something that is just a short spike. i need to decide to get out more based on price action instead of entrypoint i think. but this could be very dangerous too... Still i may need to take a wider stop on some trades.

may 22, PL does not matter at this time i took 5 trades, 3 winners and 2 loosers. first qcom. i had my eye on it on the premarket and it looked like it wanted to break the premarket high, it broke it in min2, it went to test that level once but quickly got up again so i went long, stop would be a break below the support line. my target was 71,34 level. i took a partial then another which i actually tried closer to my target but was not that great, probably just popped back. then i got lower and i got out just above break even, from there it went actually to crack my target so maybe i should have stayed in. i went long once more after it bounced back from the support, my stoploss would have been below the support but i waited too long , this was a very bad trade. i also trade SE im trying to put more emphasis on the 5 min, there was an engulfing candle on the 5, most of the time it goes lower from there so i went short, it was at the low from the premarket so maybe a bit risky. i didn't really have any target nearby so i hoped for a big move but that didn't happen, still definitely not bad, my last partial was at break even which turned out to be just a spike but thats ok. i think this trade was ok i also traded roku my first trade, was pretty bad more like an impulse, there was this long wick on the previous candle and i went long but i really should have waited for some confirmation if this was actually gonna be a long so i got out and good thing i did. i continued watching roku i wanted to get in earlier around the moving average but i hesitated a bit. my stoploss would have been above the moving average, not a great entry. my last partial was too early but i knew that, there wasn't much shares left. i had more winning trades then loosers but 1 looser i let go too much so not good winning trade could have been better entry, it was too risky. i did try to pay more attention on the 5 then i did before. i will continue doing that, but i feel i need to see the 1 for a good entry

may 21, no trades for me. i had the intention of taken a day off, i did log into the chatroom and my das was ready just in case... But i stopped checking it after half hour and logged out without trades. may22 i start again in Sim. Before i go back live i have to prove myself in Sim. i'm not sure how long it will take. My first goal i want to set myself is a win ratio of over 65%, so to focus on making good setup trades. If i can reach this PL would be a next goal. hopefully with a good winratio the PL would be there automatic. this all depends on the loosers. its easy to let them run some in Sim and get lucky but i will try to not do this .

i dont think there is anything wrong with trading what is in your comfortzone though. so no reason not to trade aapl i believe. though i find it curious that you and also Mike B and some others do not take more trades. this i mean in a good way though. what do you do after your last trade ? do you keep on watching still?

i try to do both medium and high float, i cant say trading both types is my problem, i seem to make the same errors on all of them. for now i continue to do both i think. im not sure yet if one fits better then the other for me. but i do stay away from low priced and or very low float.

Hi Robert, yes you are right, it doesnt make sense to be live. ill give it a shot with the 2 min, i still think for the first few minutes the 1 min is better but yes im a beginner and i shouldnt think i know. i know the book but i havent read it yet.i just got "the new trading for a living " from alexander Elder as i read good reviews about it. i like reading actually so also the daily trading coach is on my list but ill move it up in priority. I was thinking im taking setups and patterns but lately i have been doing more impulse trades, its true. i will continue posting my trades but they will be on sim.

may 20, pl -39 but with 49 tickers... first trade on aapl , well there are 6 trades on this. first i went short at the opening, small share size. but it went above vwap, and i got out. it didn't show any sign to break higher and i believed its still a short so i got back in even still above vwap. well it turned out to be a really nice short but my execution was probably the worst i have ever done getting out way way too fast. i took a small size and if you scale out then there really isnt much left. but that really should not matter. i was in a winning trade at least my last partial i should have let it ride the wave and risking to get out at breakeven. its often said dont trade first minutes but in reality the few months im doing this my PL in the first minutes is green. 3th and 4th i tried to short it again. it looked like it was stalling near vwap but i let myself stop out. 5th, i went long took some off and last at breakeven, again maybe i shouldn t haven taken this trade. the volume didn't show it wanted to go bullish yet. but i dont think i was looking at the volume that time. 6th, i went short 1 more time be;low vwap thinking it was a fals breakout but stopped out amd i also had on my charts. i actually was thinking of going short if it crossed vwap but then Andrew was calling it out for a long so i was ok..im not going to argue with that. and i just blindly followed him. got in at vwap then stopped out. well that serves me right for following someone else. Even Andrew can not be right the whole time. some trades on roku, i went short on a pullback to the moving average and stopped out above, i tried it 1 more time but got a really bad entry unfortunately and let myself stop out again, that really wasn't necessary. i stepped back a little and saw this pattern coming up and went for a long. i planned to stop out with a break below the wick of the left shoulder but i let myself stop out just before that, what a shame. at that moment Andrew called it out for a long too. so i kinda jumped in again, it didn't move very much and i let myself get out of last piece at breakeven which was just a few seconds wick before going up again but ok,... so yeah.. what can i say. im not trading well. im getting in and out way too much, it seems the barrier to get in and out has become quite low. but im jumping in with the thought that it will go my direction immediately and if not im wrong. i need to learn more patience, patience to tell myself what is the reasonable stop which would confirm im wright or wrong. i probably need to learn more about what would actually be the more acceptable stoplevel. to tell myself something good, i at least dont let my loosers run anymore as i have done so in the past. quit the contrary mostly now. there is a balance which i have not found yet. over trading, most of the days, i have no idea how many trades i put. it starts with 1, and then i stop counting. i dont like it but i must accept im not ready to go life. my results are clear, in fact they are getting worse. go to Sim is something i would tell someone else for sure so why i have not done yet i dont know. i think im going to miss out on good trades if im in sim, the truth is im missing out on good trades while i am life . and it costs money. maybe i take a day off off trading.. but i must go to sim, its unfortunate but im not ready. i have know all along but didn't admit it to myself. im writing this down now because i need to tell someone so i can convince myself. one day at a time from now or ill pay when tomorrow comes today

i think im gonna do that too, watching a chart in hindsight is one thing but seeing the price actually move and the level2 behaviour at that time needs experience.

may 17 , another day, another mess up... PL: -150 mu had good premarket volume and i did a good trade on it the day before so i took it as my main stock in the morning. turned out i did pretty much same as Andrew though not quit.. i went short first, but it didn't run and i got out with a small profit, then i went long partialled, added some but it didn't want to push up and i got out again, i got out with a small profit but there really was no reason to get out and i just felt it wasnt moving and i wanted to trade something else. i dont have the nerves yet to do 2 trades at 1 time i went to pins, i also had my eye on this one and i really thought it would be a long since premarket. then when i was in mu i saw it did go up, thats part of the reason why i got out of mu. i thought i wait for a pullback but i still got in to quickly and got stopped out. i should have waited for some confirmation perhaps. or at least wait to see if it would go down to the moving average, well it went all the way to vwap, in between i got in once more and stopped out. i got in again at vwap and i could take a little profit but really it was not very good either, for some reason probably because i stopped out to much and the initial bounce of vwap didnt go further i thought , well i must be wrong and this is a short. even worse idea off course because it kept on bouncing vwap without actually breaking through much. if anything it should have confirmed to take a long position, but at that moment i clearly didn't think like that.. i took it short and pins finally went bullish as i had expected it to do the whole time... i had enough of it and went to bidu to basically repeat the same mistakes as i did on pins....this time to she short side. so review of today, i got out of a winning trade to enter a loosing streak. again disappointing execution, bad entry's, over trading. i go into trades without really thinking about what is an acceptable risk/reward. on pins the good thing would have been long at vwap with a clear break through vwap as stop. i should not decide myself what i think is a bottom of a pullback especially if its not near a technical indicator. i was long biased on pins but Being biased is not a technical indicator!!!! i need to reflect on myself, it seems as im in self destruction mode..time to go back to sim??

may 16, pl 62, 14 tickers and 2400 shares i traded mu for a short first, this partly because off andrew calling it out. i did not jump in and waited for a pullback so happy about that, i added on a second pull back i partialled out to soon but im kinda ok with that, this was a 100dollar trade. then i went mu long twice and got stopped out twice, i should not have stopped out maybe, it was just a bit choppy but i have wasted a lot of money already in the past with this type of price action. not a lot of trades today but since i got 2 losses after a nice win im going to stop for today...hopefully.. i feel like having a green day... will just continue watching the price action for a while

That’s awesome, so do you trade same stocks often or do you try to keep it different? Or does one go long and the other short LOL? Nice setup!