An NYSE Scalper's Tale - A Trader's Diary

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Trading Statistics For The Month Of June

Total Gross for Month of June: +$12,336.13
Total Net for Month of June: +$8,889.46
Total Fees (Gross - Net) for Month of June: $3,446.67
Total Trades for Month of June: 1666
Total Shares Traded for Month of June: 3,319,728

Best Day for Month of June: Fri Jun 23 (+$1,376.12 net)
Worst Day for Month of June: Thu Jun 29 (-$686.24 net)

Number of Positive Net Days for Month of June: 18
Number of Negative Net Days for Month of June: 3
Number of Trading Days Missed for Month of June: 1 (for bereavement)
Number of Trading Days Lost Due To System Downtime: 0

Compared to Previous Month: +$3,355.56 (up 60.6% from previous month)
Compared to Same Month Last Year: +$8,786.40 (up 8523.0% from same month last year)

Top 3 Stocks For Month of June (Net Profit):
Citigroup (C): +$2,390.30
Walmart (WMT): +$1,340.85
Motorola (MOT): +$1,197.38

Worst 3 Stocks for Month of June (Net Profit):
Pfizer (PFE): -$607.24
Disney (DIS): -$250.53
Tyco (TYC): -$68.51

Top 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of June:
(2 stocks tied for 1st place)
Citigroup (C) - Traded on 20 out of 21 trading days
Home Depot (HD) - Traded on 20 out of 21 trading days
(2 stocks tied for 3rd place)
JP Morgan (JPM) - Traded on 16 out of 21 trading days
Micron Tech (MU) - Traded on 16 out of 21 trading days

Bottom 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of June:
(3 stocks tied for last place - each traded on 1 out of 21 trading days)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
Merck (MRK)
Sprint-Nextel (S)

Total Number of Different Stocks Traded for Month of June: 18

List of Stocks Traded During the Month of June (with net profit):
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$23.52
Bank of America (BAC): +$581.18
Citigroup (C): +$2,390.30
Disney (DIS): -$250.53
General Electric (GE): +$701.04
Corning (GLW): +$835.00
Home Depot (HD): +$381.21
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$833.84
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): +$25.44
JP Morgan (JPM): +$482.14
Motorola (MOT): +$1,197.38
Merck (MRK): +$24.21
Micron Tech (MU): +$741.98
Pfizer (PFE): -$607.24
Tyco (TYC): -$68.51
Walmart (WMT): $1,340.85
Exxon Mobile (XOM): +$263.09

Monthly Recap
In all honesty, I had expected so much more this month. This was another long month with 22 trading days and although I had met some of my goals for this month, I narrowly missed the most important goal: to exceed the $10,000 net for the month.

I was so close, but unfortunately I lost close to $700 on the 2nd last day of trading for the month. What made it worse was the fact that I lost this amount of money on a day that I should have easily made a ton of money.

This month was also about steady improvements and I worked up more courage to trade more 10,000 share positions. At this point, I feel much more comfortable than I did in the past and I can now say that I wouldn't mind putting more of them on.

One thing that has kind of bothered me about this month...there were three negative days, which in itself is alright, but I am concerned with how much money I lost on those days. On the three negative days, I lost $603, $360, and $686, which means I collectively lost $1,649 over the course of those three days.

And it wasn't because of a single trade that caused me to lose so much on those particular days...which means something happened on those days to break me down mentally and I spiralled down to lose even more.

This is something I have to work on. I can recall about 5 trading days in which I had a rough start (I lost a lot of money in the morning), and on 2 of those days I was able to climb back into positive territory, but on the other three, you can see I was never able to recover mentally and continued to lose more money.

I have tried hiding my net profit so that I wouldn't know if I was positive or negative on the day, but I am still not sure if this is having a positive impact or not. The reason I'm not sure is because I know if I'm having a rough morning (if I put on a couple of bad trades, it's pretty obvious if I'm positive or negative). Nonetheless, I will continue this practice into next month.

Some positive things I found this month:
  • I met my goal of having multiple $1,000+ days - there were 5 trading days in which this occurred
  • I am being more comfortable putting on 8,000 and 10,000 share positions
  • Exxon Mobile is becoming a pleasant surprise - this is a stock I have avoided due to the volatility, but now it seems like the volatility is what attracted me to it
  • I broke several personal records this month, including most trades, most shares traded, most profit, and most profit on a single trade ($880 profit on Citigroup (C) on Tues Jun 13 on a single trade)
  • I had to adjust my trading strategy due to the change in the overall way the market moved this month (more chop, less momentum), and I was able to adapt
And here are some things that were not so great this month:
  • I narrowly missed achieving my goal of exceeding $10,000 by month end - it was a lack of focus and not being able to pinpoint where the problem lay (PFIZER!)
  • This month was by far the most emotional for me because the big positions hurt so much more when they went against you...and unfortunately there were times when I succumbed to revenge trading
  • I must be more aware of what should constitute an all out trade (one in which I use maximum position size) and trades in which I should scale back the number of shares I use (if not all my criteria for a trade are met)
  • I must not be afraid to get into a position...there were several times this month in which I hesitated and missed a great trade
  • I must continue to adjust and weed out things that are not working from the things that are working
  • There were far too many sub-par days (days in which I was positive, but made less than $500); there were 9 such days this month...to tell you the truth, I'd rather lose money and learn something from it than to have so many sub-par days
And finally, here are some goals and expectations I will have for myself next month. I am really going to push myself in the month of July, and hence my lofty goals. My goals are:
  • Double the number of $1000+ days...this means I'll need to have at least 10 trading days that are over $1000. There are only 19 trading days in July, which means that more than half the days will have to be more than $1000
  • Since I could not break $10,000 in June, I'll keep this goal for July. Granted, if my goal is to have 10-$1000 days, that'd be $10,000 already, but I will give myself some room for some big negative days (which I'll expect next month)
  • I'll trade Exxon Mobile a lot more...I can't sit around all day waiting for moves from my usual core of stocks; however I can always expect Exxon to move...I'll start trading bigger sizes on it (3000 or 4000 shares)
  • Put on more 8000 and 10000 share positions more frequently to the point that they become the norm for me. I'll still use my typical 4000 and 6000 share positions on trades I'm not 100% comfortable with, but all others should use 8000 and 10000

1 Comments:

  • I like your whole approach to the aspect of trading.
    It's very important to have an effective way to cope with stress whilst taking cash positions of 100K

    Very good that you're consistently in the green. Just continue what you're doing and milk the market dryyyyyyyy!

    All the best

    By Blogger Unknown, at June 09, 2010 8:46 p.m.  

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