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

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Baboon

Gross: -$361.00
Net: -$530.67

Loss From Top: $530.67
Trades: 82
Shares Traded: 161400

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
General Electric (GE): +$42.91
Corning (GLW): +$9.60
Walmart (WMT): -$46.77
Home Depot (HD): -$84.61
Motorola (MOT): -$116.97
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): -$334.83


Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzz!

A baboon could have traded better than I did today...

I simply could not believe the number of scratches and losers I had today! It seemed like practically everything went against me and there was nothing I could do right today.

More than 85% of my trades today were for either losses or scratches, which is not a very good thing. We did have a bit of a Pop n' Chop day and I was able to recognize it when I saw it, but I just couldn't adjust my trading plan accordingly, and I ended up losing big today.

Right fr
om the get-go, I knew I was going to be in for some rough trading and as a result, I reduced my share size early in the trading day. However, things still never went my way and I reduced my share size even more.
I kept reducing my share size until I was actually trading only 500 shares at a time! Coming up to 2PM, I put on losing trade after losing trade until I had enough and decided to go home. I ended the day on a 12-trade losing streak. Yay!

I guess it was a good thing I reduced my share size - there wasn't any one particular trade in which I lost a bunch, but losing 3-cents here, 5-cents there, 2-cent here all adds up (even if they were on 500 and 1000 shares). I couldn't even make a 1-cent winner to save my life today!

Anyways, I know what went wrong today and I'll just throw this day on the backburner and not worry about it too much.

After reading Trade Guild's post about being a slacker, it made me realize that lately I have hardly put links in my po
sts. There are a lot of great bloggers out there with very good posts and so I will try to make more of a conscious effort to put more links in my posts to articles that would be of help to everyone.

I also have the feeling that this blog is becoming a little too dull and repetitive, and so I will start posting a variety of different posts starting soon. This will mean there may be more than one post daily and I may also begin posting on the weekends. I'm also going to try to make an effort to put more color in my posts by trying to add more images and such.

I wanna be a fighter too! I am referring to the Wall Street Fighter. I've been visiting his site regularly for several weeks now and he's done some great work in getting lots of traffic to his site. Though I hardly have the same level of sense of humor he has, I too also wish to post things that may be of interest to readers out there (though I don't know if I'm willing to post up the same kind of material the WallStreetFighter has up).

Tonight I'm going to go baboon shopping and have it trade for me tomorrow. I'll get one of those "red-ass" ones so that if it screws up, I can kick it's ass and no one will know that I kicked it's ass 'cause it's already red.

P.S. Sorry for this silly post - I just don't want to think about today's setback...hope you all understand :)


Good Trades
None

Bad Trades
None

8 Comments:

  • Sounds good JC! I'm ready to make millions!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 5:52 p.m.  

  • You don't need my 2 cents in your cookie jar today but sometimes that 2 cents goes a long ways.

    2 cents worth: Remember, just because you are sitting at the trading turret doesn't mean you have to take a shot. Assess the battlefield, take aim and only shoot when it really counts. Comeback to fight another day ;-)

    You're a champ, champions find a way to win.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 6:45 p.m.  

  • Keep your head up man :)

    Fernando

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 7:22 p.m.  

  • I noted you didn't say anything about being frustrated or upset, or apathetic about whether the trades would win or not. That's real progress (unless it was just on omission!). You should be proud of that.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 7:42 p.m.  

  • Boogster,
    Me too! Let's see who can get there first (tho I have a feeling you're further up the road than me!) Best of luck to you man - I'll be watching!

    Stockroach,
    Hehe - you're right of course (man! when are you gonna start your own blog! You've got some good advice!). I realized now that I did trade quite a bit too much, considering I only stayed until 2PM. I'm gonna try to work on just sitting tight until something trade-worthy shows up!

    Fernando,
    :) I'll try to keep my head in the game - just gotta stay focused...lots of times today I didn't even realize I was breaking some of my trading rules because I wasn't focused enough. Gotta keep looking forward!

    Richard,
    Come to think about it - you're right! I didn't really feel all that upset about what happened today, it was more of a "wow, I can't believe how many trades are going against me" kind of feeling. By about 2PM, I figured that "today wasn't going to be my day so I might as well just call it quits now and come back tomorrow".

    Let's see if I can pull things together in tomorrow's trading. Best of luck to all and happy trading!

    By Blogger J.C., at November 07, 2006 8:05 p.m.  

  • JC, thank you for your kind words.

    Blog = Time + Time + Time..........

    I think you are doing a great job of sharing your thoughts and experiences. I like to lend perspective when I feel it might be of help.

    Thanks JC

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 8:55 p.m.  

  • Thanks for the kind words (I think) My site is a bit random I admit but so is my brain. I'm having fun with it and that's all that matters. Make sure whatever you do, have fun. Good luck on that baboon.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at November 07, 2006 10:26 p.m.  

  • Shane,

    Hehehe - all kind words my friend! Keep up the great work at your site! I really like the way you have lots of fun with your blog, which keeps it interesting (and keeps me coming back for more!)...too bad I couldn't get anywhere near the high score Downtowntrader and Ugly had on that Circles game you had on earlier.

    Keep those posts coming and I wish you the best of luck in your trading!

    By Blogger J.C., at November 07, 2006 10:39 p.m.  

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