Trading Statistics For Month Of September

Total Gross for Month of September: +$7,091.20
Total Net for Month of September: +$3,953.21
Total Fees (Gross - Net) for Month of September: $3,137.99
Total Trades for Month of September: 2363
Total Shares Traded for Month of September: 2,673,940

Best Day for Month of September: Fri Sept 15 (+$835.61 net)
Worst Day for Month of September: Wed Sept 6 (-$510.33 net)

Number of Positive Net Days for Month of September: 14
Number of Negative Net Days for Month of September: 5
Number of Trading Days Missed for Month of September: 1 (vacation - extra long weekend)
Number of Trading Days Lost Due To System Downtime: 0 (but throughout September the system was down as some point during the day everyday)

Compared to Previous Month: -$1,132.02 (down 22.3% from last month)
Compared to Same Month Last Year: +$1,953.21 (up 97.7% from same month last year)

Net Profit Distribution (# days):
(Excellent) +$1000 OR MORE: (0)
(**Good**) +$500 TO +$1000: ***** (5)
(*Average*) +$200 TO +$500: **** (4)
(***Poor***) -$200 TO +$200: ****** (6)
(****Bad****) -$200 TO -$500: *** (3)
(**Terrible**) -$500 OR LESS: * (1)

Top 3 Stocks For Month of September(Net Profit):
Home Depot (HD): +$1,982.28
Corning (GLW): +$1,038.65
Walmart (WMT): +$576.06

Worst 3 Stocks for Month of September(Net Profit):
Ford (F): -$529.32
Motorola (MOT): -$309.65
General Electric (GE): -$121.78

Top 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of September:
(3 stocks tied for first place - each traded on 19 out of 19 trading days)
Home Depot (HD)
Walmart (WMT)
Exxon Mobil (XOM)

Bottom 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of September:
(4 stocks tied for last place - each traded on 1 out of 19 trading days)
Bell South (BLS)
General Electric (GE)
Sprint-Nextel (S)
Texas Instruments (TXN)

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

List of Stocks Traded During the Month of September (with net profit):
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$220.04
Bell South (BLS): -$8.39
Boston Scientific (BSX): +$20.59
Citigroup (C): +$272.51
EMC Corp (EMC): +$9.62
Ford (F): -$529.32
General Electric (GE): -$121.78
Corning (GLW): +$1,038.65
Home Depot (HD): +$1,982.28
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$247.85
Motorola (MOT): -$309.65
Micron Tech (MU): -$66.53
Pfizer (PFE): +$15.19
Sprint-Nextel (S): -$19.83
AT&T (T): +$364.84
Texas Instruments (TXN): +$3.94
Walmart (WMT): +$576.06
Exxon Mobil (XOM): +$546.29


Monthly Recap

What a totally demoralizing month. It looks like another step backwards as far as my trading goes. This was supposed to be a defining month for me as I thought that the so-called summer doldrums would be over and it would be back to business as usual.

But this was hardly expected as I found that this month was one of the more difficult months to trade - one in which my patience was tested and one in which my emotions ran away with me.

You can see from my profit distribution that I had too many "stars" on the lower half of the chart and I wasn't able to pull off any "Excellent" days at all.

At the beginning of the month I had a slow start, but for two weeks I almost felt as though consistency was slowly starting to come back. But the last two weeks of September just turned out to be horrific in nature as I wasn't able to get any traction in terms of profits. Everyday I would come in not knowing whether I'd be able to come away with profits or not and my confidence level sunk to new lows.

This whole month has been a real roller-coaster ride with lots of ups and downs. There were times I woke up full of confidence, ready to conquer the world, but the markets ended up like yesterday - flat, choppy and directionless and I was unable to prove to myself I could do this.

Then there were other days when I woke up just feeling so demoralized and not 100% there, but then the markets would provide opportunity after opportunity, but I'd miss out because I was not 100% focused, which sunk me even lower.

I didn't really want to mention it too much in my blog, but we had a problem-ridden month as far as system downtime was concerned. Sometimes the Level II would be screwed up, sometimes the charts would screw up, sometimes we couldn't use certain ECNs, quotes would freeze, stickies would appear daily, execution would go down, sometimes everything went down at the same time - all of this was happening on a daily basis.

Did this have an impact on my trading? I don't really want to say so. Yea sure I missed out on some moves, or I'd realize my charts were not moving or I'd try to enter or exit a trade and try to hit size that wasn't really there, but all in all it was just bad trading decisions that ultimately led to a dismal month.

Many times I lacked focus and patience - especially when the markets were not providing opporunities. I will admit, in the mornings I somehow manage to do a great job in terms of waiting for the setups - but then my patience would wear thin and I'd start trading. For that point on, it would be all downhill - I started getting angry, reversing position after position. If only I had kept a level head and remained conservative, this month at least would have been respectable.

I just can't wait for October to start. I will be missing about a week in October for vacation so I won't be expecting too much from it - all I want to see is more trend and less chop. If the chopping continues, I'll really have to work on my patience and be able to sit still until a good setup shows itself.

What did I find good in my trading this month?

• I realized I was having problems trading this month and made a decision to trade with smaller share size and hopefully ride out these choppy markets
• Patience was a little better in terms of not trading - realizing what kind of markets we had, I made a real conscious effort to trade less
• Patience was a little better in terms of holding on to winners. I'm starting to see winners in the 10 and 20-cent range and some of the hold times on trades went up as high as 10 minutes (for me that's really long!)
• Sadly, that's about it - not much else was going for me this month

And what was not so good this month?

• Emotions, emotions, emotions! At one point, this blog could have been named "The Angry Scalper's Tale"; I just blew up several times and it cost me big money. I've just got to relax a bit more
• Pressure, pressure, pressure! Too many monetary targets, too many overall targets! I started forcing myself to trade and when time started running out, I felt as though I had to do something. This ultimately led to my blowups.
• Patience, patience, patience! Though patience in waiting for good trades was a little better this month, there could have been a lot more - I kept trading when I knew I shouldn't. I'll continue to work on this
• Focus, focus, focus! Too much junk going on in my head ("where is my trading going?", "other traders are doing well, why not me?") and not enough focusing on the task at hand. Many times I felt my mind start wandering and when I'd snap out of it, I'd see something and quickly go in without analyzing it.
• Rest, rest, rest! There were quite a few sleepless nights in September (late nights trying to figure my trading out, too much thinking and not enough sleeping). Many times I came in dead tired and really too groggy to make trading decisions
  
• Way too much "Level II" trading going on (trading based on what I see on the Level II) - I think it's because the charts don't show any setups, but the Level II sometimes just looks so tempting and makes it look so easy to make some money that way - yes, it's easy alright...easy to lose money!
• Too much comparing myself to the other trader in the office - if I'm negative and I see the guy beside me and in front of me positive, I felt like "Dang it! They are positive and I'm not! I suck!", which led to me forcing trades to make some money
• I found myself caring less and less about my positions - I cannot believe I actually started to let my losers run! The whole foundation for my trading is based on cutting losers short and here I was breaking that rule! Not good!

Finally, some goals for October:

• Let's just try to get some consistency back in your trading...this will mean really working on all the things that went bad this month
• No monetary targets! You want pressure? Try making $5000 on the last trading day on October or try making $1000 when you are only up $200 with 30 minutes to go! Good luck! I won't be surprised if I lose money on that day!
• Chill man! No need to angry or upset at the markets! Let's try to let go of all worries and troubles at the door and focus on trading this month
• Take better care of yourself - get more rest, eat healthy and let's exercise more often (September I didn't exercise at all and I felt physically drained all month) - too much pizza, too much chips and pop - this isn't good for me and I sure as hell didn't feel all that good either!
• No more Level II trading! I don't know how much money it cost you in September but I say for sure that it's a lot!
  
• I've got to keep my spirits up! The moment I start thinking of failure is the moment everything associated with the anti-trader will appear

This is my lifelong dream and I sure as hell won't give up without a fierce fight! You want to take me down Mr. Market? Go ahead and try.