My Stock Trading Progress

[DeletedUser397]

When I was in highschool, I'd saved about $5k from working a fastfood job for a few years. I thought I could multiply it with penny stocks, but ended up losing it all instead. My parents/friends were quick to say they told me so, and I vowed never to touch stocks again.

Fast forward 10 years... a few weeks ago I decided to invest $3k into a gold ETF to hedge my savings long-term. But seeing gold fall a bit last month, I was tempted to give trading another shot. Looking back, I realize my first attempt was full of mistakes. Some of which included... using an expensive broker with high commissions, didn't have patience, didn't set any targets/goals, didn't read into financials, traded primarily based on the company's product/service, etc.

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Having read the MFL book, I realize trading shouldn't be my primary wealth vehicle, and it's not. I've got a web app in the works and other stuff too. This is just an experiment for now. In this thread I'll keep track of what stocks I buy/sell, the quantity, prices, what I'm watching, etc. I'm particularly focusing on small and micro caps. Huge risk, which I know well from my own past experience - but, with great risk there is also great profit potential. I think that with due diligence and research I can minimize that risk and generate consistent gains.

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Lastly, keep in mind that my posts in this thread are purely for entertainment purposes only. Although I appreciate any feedback or trading discussion, I'm not trying to encourage any buying/selling activity whatsoever.

 

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[Bozigian]

So what is your route going to be? Are you going to trade penny stocks again or are you going to use leveraged etf;s FAZ,FAS?

 

[DeletedUser397]

With that intro out of the way, I'd like to share my current positions and watch list. I'm going to disregard the gold ETF I bought and sold because that wasn't exactly a "stock" per se. In terms of positions, I'll post the average price I bought at (so if I bought in chunks, I'll calculate the initial purchase prices together and divide by the total shares). Same thing with selling. I'm also not including commissions in my buying numbers, but will subtract them from the sale amount. I'll try to include some notes on why I buy/sell each stock.

So what is your route going to be? Are you going to trade penny stocks again or are you going to use leveraged etf;s FAZ,FAS?

My overall focus as of now is stocks in the small cap range that are on the $1 borderline minimum price for Nasdaq listing requirements. From the reading/research I've done lately, there's a lot of bouncing that goes on when stocks drop below, get a warning and try to pick back up to meet the minimum requirements. Some in this range tend to be very bullish, IMO. I look at volume, financial improvements, short interests, look up if there's any INSIDERS purchasing/selling of interest, 52-week range, and do some chart analysis and compare to other stocks in the same industry/market.

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Pick #1:

Ticker: BWEN
Purchase Date(s): 12/5, 12/6, 12/7
Average Purchase Price = $.7459
Total Shares = 10,750
Total Purchase Equity = $8,018.42
Total Commission for Purchase(s) = $60.79
Target Price to Sell @ = $1.10 (before mid-January 2012)
Target Equity = $11,825
Potential Profit = $3745.79
Potential Gain = 46.7%

Reasoning: Recently received a "deslisting warning" from Nasdaq. Hit a 52-week low in October, and has since bounced back and more than doubled. Has new contracts which seem to be initiations of more-to-come, financials improving, and CFO made a big INSIDERS purchase in mid-November. They have a 1-year target of $1, and price is getting close. Chart pattern is quite consistent "stair-step" upward movement... goes up sharp one day, balances out, and repeats. Revenue right now matches levels in March '09 when stock was trading at about $7. Volume is increasing steadily above average, short interest appears to be decreasing, and from past history, it appears the company does well in a down-market...

 

[DeletedUser397]

Well this thread is done for. I lost about $5.2k with this. Sure there were trades where I made $1.5k in a day, but in the end I realize that while I could make it back, it's not doable while I have a day job. It's something that requires full-time focus, and not something I can just do on the side.

When I started this thread, I was still stuck on the thought the 'event mindset' ... and as I'm reading the Fastlane book for a second time (this time on audio), I realize how stupid it is to be doing this right now. I'm trying to tear myself away from the 'event mindset' and day trading at the same time is like having one foot on the gas while having the other on the brakes. I need to put my full efforts into more controllable business projects for some passive income.

 

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[MakeItHappen]

I am sorry that you lost you hard earned money but a lot respect for posting this here.
However nice to here that you are learning out of you mistakes which is something that most people never do.
With the lessons learnd in this venture you will make than just you money back in the future!

I wish you all the best.

 

[DeletedUser397]

When I started this thread, I was still stuck on the thought the 'event mindset'

Even though I stopped posting in this thread, I kept trading and lost another $7,000 over this past year. It's been a little over a year since my last post, and the reason I'm back is because I've finally figured out how to turn a consistent profit in my trades. I only discovered this in the past few months, but it came with a true shift in my mindset. I knew I was 'event-oriented' before, but nothing I read or whatever was able to change that. It only changed when I looked through my past trades and looked for a pattern.

I realized that all the times I made a profit were small gains. I went through these gains and wrote up a list of 'factors' that were in place. I basically narrowed down the most important factor to day trades that were done while closely watching MM movement on L2. So about a few weeks ago, I started compiling a list of observations/patterns in Market Maker movements, and I am still in a state of disbelief as to how clearly I can read the price movements now. I'm trying not to be too over confident in my trades, but the numbers don't lie. Just about 9/10 of my trades are resulting in a profit.

But here is the mindset shift that allowed this to happen - my goal is no longer to make a huge gain on each trade. My strategy is HFT (High Frequency Trading). I go for many trades with the aim of being profitable on each one, no matter how small. So even if I make $20 profit on the trade, it's still profit. I look at that in terms of what I could actually buy with it. $20 is a shirt. The $700 I made today is the cost of a laptop. I don't knock that. Even if I feel like I sold too early for a smaller profit than what could have been, I don't knock that. And each time I make a profit or loss I make specific notes to learn more and build on my strategy.

My New Trading Strategy (Some Specifics)

To be a bit more specific, I don't care what the company does, what their financials look like, or even what their name is. At the end of a business day I look at the Market Movers list for the Nasdaq, and find the highest volume gainers or losers. I look at their after market activity. Then I get up early the next day and look at their premarket activity to try to get an idea for what the big movers of the day will be. I look at L2 very closely and determine the potential price swings based on the market makers that are on the bid/ask. I get in/out within very short time increments. I hold for no more than 20 minutes. I set limit buys/sells. I only go for stocks with very high dollar volume (not just volume). I don't trade after 8am (Pacific Time).

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I've found that if I stick to these rules (and of course the technical strategies that I've set within the watching of L2), I've profited almost every single time. I'm getting so good I almost think I've cracked some secret formula. My goals now are:

1. Make back my losses, one day at a time. It doesn't matter if it takes a year to make back the $12k, if I can make it back with consistently profitable trades, I'm making progress
2. Perfect my strategy and improve upon it every day
3. Try to trade consistently each day (sometimes I wake up late and miss the market)...I have to wake up before 4am to be on target for premarket activity. This is a big factor, because the major swings in premarket happen at 4am, 5am, and 6am give or take 5min. Those each time spans are the deciding factors, and I need to be awake then.
4. Eventually would like to create a program that takes my strategy and builds a stock scanner or L2 scanner that can essentially place trades for me based on my principles, because I do think I have a solid formula that can be programmed

-----------

With those goals written, I'd like to restart this thread. I'm going to attach screenshots of my last week of trade executions from Etrade. I'm also going to sign up for profit.ly since they essentially verify your trading profits/losses. I really think I'm onto something here, and would like to share this journey and have somewhere that I can be held accountable for sticking to my goals.

I'll post an update once per week, after the end of about 5 trading days, with screenshots of my trading executions or just a summary of my trades and gains/losses. I'll also use this to keep various notes about my progress.

 

[DeletedUser397]

There's my stock trading for the past month or so. The green-highlighted blocks are all profitable trades, which outnumber the losses. Every loss seems to carry a bit of learning experience with it:

- The TSLA trades, I was buying on hype and didn't even take a single look at L2.
- On DSS, I listened to someone else telling me the stock would go up on market open. Lesson learned, don't just take someone else's word about a stock. I also didn't have the patience (mainly because I can't watch stocks at work)... but the stock went back to close at 2.13 that day, so I could have almost broken even had I waited. I took that whole trade as a lesson to take other people's comments with a grain of salt, and not trade a stock unless my own strategic conditions are fully met. That wouldn't have past the volume requirements in my strategy guidelines.
- The CAMT loss ... need to watch L2 better
- The PLUG loss at the end of today... itchy fingers and getting too confident after I'd made almost $1k on the day. I've realized after this one though, that as I make gains in a day, my risk should be such that I'm willing to lose that amount of profit, but no more. Or maybe 50% of that profit should be my risk. I'm still trying to figure out the numbers.

I also need to buy a legit calculator to ensure I can do quick calculations while watching L2.

But overall, I've never had this many consistent trade gains before. I knew I was onto something when I was able to make those profits between all the OXBT to CAMT trades. And then the last 2 days of trading OMED/PLUG really solidified it. I know I've got something. I'm learning, this isn't luck, it can't be luck. The reason that it also can't be luck is because these stocks aren't necessarily always going up. Some of them lose on the day, but I'm still making money on them.

 

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[Darius]

Keep going!

 

[Shuffle]

Even though I stopped posting in this thread, I kept trading and lost another $7,000 over this past year. It's been a little over a year since my last post, and the reason I'm back is because I've finally figured out how to turn a consistent profit in my trades. I only discovered this in the past few months, but it came with a true shift in my mindset. I knew I was 'event-oriented' before, but nothing I read or whatever was able to change that. It only changed when I looked through my past trades and looked for a pattern.

I realized that all the times I made a profit were small gains. I went through these gains and wrote up a list of 'factors' that were in place. I basically narrowed down the most important factor to day trades that were done while closely watching MM movement on L2. So about a few weeks ago, I started compiling a list of observations/patterns in Market Maker movements, and I am still in a state of disbelief as to how clearly I can read the price movements now. I'm trying not to be too over confident in my trades, but the numbers don't lie. Just about 9/10 of my trades are resulting in a profit.

But here is the mindset shift that allowed this to happen - my goal is no longer to make a huge gain on each trade. My strategy is HFT (High Frequency Trading). I go for many trades with the aim of being profitable on each one, no matter how small. So even if I make $20 profit on the trade, it's still profit. I look at that in terms of what I could actually buy with it. $20 is a shirt. The $700 I made today is the cost of a laptop. I don't knock that. Even if I feel like I sold too early for a smaller profit than what could have been, I don't knock that. And each time I make a profit or loss I make specific notes to learn more and build on my strategy.

My New Trading Strategy (Some Specifics)

To be a bit more specific, I don't care what the company does, what their financials look like, or even what their name is. At the end of a business day I look at the Market Movers list for the Nasdaq, and find the highest volume gainers or losers. I look at their after market activity. Then I get up early the next day and look at their premarket activity to try to get an idea for what the big movers of the day will be. I look at L2 very closely and determine the potential price swings based on the market makers that are on the bid/ask. I get in/out within very short time increments. I hold for no more than 20 minutes. I set limit buys/sells. I only go for stocks with very high dollar volume (not just volume). I don't trade after 8am (Pacific Time).

-----------

I've found that if I stick to these rules (and of course the technical strategies that I've set within the watching of L2), I've profited almost every single time. I'm getting so good I almost think I've cracked some secret formula. My goals now are:

1. Make back my losses, one day at a time. It doesn't matter if it takes a year to make back the $12k, if I can make it back with consistently profitable trades, I'm making progress
2. Perfect my strategy and improve upon it every day
3. Try to trade consistently each day (sometimes I wake up late and miss the market)...I have to wake up before 4am to be on target for premarket activity. This is a big factor, because the major swings in premarket happen at 4am, 5am, and 6am give or take 5min. Those each time spans are the deciding factors, and I need to be awake then.
4. Eventually would like to create a program that takes my strategy and builds a stock scanner or L2 scanner that can essentially place trades for me based on my principles, because I do think I have a solid formula that can be programmed

-----------

With those goals written, I'd like to restart this thread. I'm going to attach screenshots of my last week of trade executions from Etrade. I'm also going to sign up for profit.ly since they essentially verify your trading profits/losses. I really think I'm onto something here, and would like to share this journey and have somewhere that I can be held accountable for sticking to my goals.

I'll post an update once per week, after the end of about 5 trading days, with screenshots of my trading executions or just a summary of my trades and gains/losses. I'll also use this to keep various notes about my progress.

Hey, I'm glad you found your groove It's a brave thing to admit your wrongs and I respect that. I've gone through many frustrations as well and stumbled upon Wyckoff if you want to give him a read.

Rarely do people find their way into the Volume/Market Maker aspects of trading coupled with Price. Usually happens after a long period of trial and error, frustration and stress, assuming you stuck with it. Whether it be Scalping or Swing trading, Price and Volume are the keys to the whole picture. Almost like a couple made for each other. What people can't get behind computer screens are the emotions that were tossed around as high VOLUME went around the trading floors. It's easy to see price move, but it's hard to tell whether its movement was backed by real volume/strength. It could be the difference between the dense muscles of a strongman compared to the show muscles of a bodybuilder. I trade currencies but with what you learned, it's the same in any market. It'll be interesting from here on out as your views on price movement will surely start changing for the better. I will say that even though you've found your groove, you will fine tune it again and again. Just be sure to believe in your abilities as you do so

Quick question, what did you do before that gave you your losses? Discipline? Strategy? It's always advantageous to learn from others