Friday, March 11, 2011

Fri. 3/11 Tsunami

10:45am CST - The Japanese earthquake hit my account today. Partly to blame, and which I am now rethinking, is the way I set stops. When I get a fill to enter a position, I wait for the entry bar to close before setting my stop. If next bar opens beyond where I would have set my stop, I exit at open. I should use a market order for this but normally use a limit order and if I don’t get filled (twice this week alone) I often chase price and take an even bigger hit when I finally exit. 1 trade today I took a nearly 6 cent hit when my normal stop is 1.5 cent. In addition, grain prices were very erratic today and moved in spurts and jumps on the DOM in the opening hour. This did not make things any easier. Net loss for the week, -$6466. MTD -$3778. YTD $2222.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$5358(50), ZC -$401(5), GCL -$67(6)
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:61
Net $P/L:-5825
Wins:3
Losses:9
Win%:25
Avg$Win:128
Avg$Loss:-690

6 comments:

  1. I can feel your pain, MBA. The soybean really very annoying today. You still have the nett ytd, that's perfectly good.

    Wish for both of us better result next week :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've got a cast iron stomach MBA. To use a dreadful football analogy, your cornerbacks were playing a bit deep today. But the game isn't over and as was pointed out already, you're still in the lead as we near the end of the first quarter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There comes a time when you have to ask yourself if the opportunity cost is worth it..lets be honest, we all barely make minimum wage doing this
    Thanks for being honest and posting the bad/good on your blog..wish everyone was doing this, instead of saying how great they are and selling Roads to Profits

    ReplyDelete
  4. MBA I see you are doing quite well lately how are the "nibbles" working? I`m sure you remember the "Thoughts of a trader" blog and my crazy "you cant do that" -in some people view- trading style. Just wanted to say hi, to you and to some old acquaintances that still wander around here, I`m back to trading - don`t buy when i sell ;) :)) lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. De'T- thanks. Many weeks left in the year!

    YM- yeah I didn't have much "game" this week. Hope overtime is not needed.

    Anon- if opportunity cost drove my decision making, I would have quit trading years ago. But there is an opportunity cost for a regular job too once you experience the freedom of trading.

    Paul- thanks. Not too well this week but I'm surviving. I see you started a new blog - I'll be following!

    ReplyDelete
  6. To Anon:

    Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but if you're going to dole out criticism that essentially kicks someone when they are down, you should at least add the personal courtesy of doing using your blogging identity rather than being anonymous.

    "We all barely make minimum wage doing this..."

    This is a misguided statement at best, and very inaccurate. Do you believe that there are no day traders out making a good wage with their talents? I've read the blogs of a person who managed a trading firm and his best traders were pulling in on average $3K - $10K per day. During the 2008 market crisis, they were off the hook with the best trader pulling in a half million in one day.

    The fact is trading is a business, and all business have to start somewhere. It can take a new business years to be self-sustaining until they build enough of a client base. With trading, it's about improving one's method and system execution to minimize losses while maximizing gains.

    For the same reason you dislike blogs that in your opinion try to make trading seem easy, you need to keep a balanced perspective rather than a negative outlook. There are successful people trading - which is why all traders train and practice - in hopes of making it to that level. It's no different than striving to succeed at a challenging corporate job.

    ReplyDelete