"I'm Not Afraid Of You..."
Gross: +$636.20
Net: +$441.82
Loss From Top: 0
Trades: 99
Shares Traded: 177580
Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
AT&T (T): +$310.62
Motorola (MOT): +$137.91
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$101.68
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$50.36
Home Depot (HD): -$14.39
Corning (GLW): -$44.24
Walmart (WMT): -$99.53
Boy, it was another day that traded in a tight range and if you missed opportunities, you missed a lot because they were far and few in between.
This morning I really had a hard time finding trades and because the overall markets just didn't want to go anywhere for almost two and a half hours. But I really had to sit tight and surprisingly things started moving around a little more during the lunch hour.
Today patience was a virtue...at least when it came to waiting for good trades and I think I did a pretty good job of that this morning.
However, patience was lacking for me today in another aspect of trading - patience in holding onto winners.
You can see that today AT&T (T) was my stock of the day and I made the bulk of my profits on it. BUT, it could have been a lot more IF I had more patience in holding my winners.
Instead of measly 3 or 4 cent winners, I could have easily had 8 or 10 cent winners on AT&T (T).
So why did I keep bailing out of AT&T so quickly and so frequently?
It was because I was afraid...afraid of big size on the Level II.
Whenever I got into a position on AT&T, it would go in my favor for a few cents...but then big size would suddenly appear, impeding AT&T's direction and blocking my way to further profits.
Well, I always seem to get spooked whenever this happened and I found myself getting out. But the shortly afterwards, AT&T would break through that size and continue in it's original direction.
I've really got to work on staring big size that blocks my way in the face and to say to it "I'm not afraid of you!", especially if there is a clear trend in the stock I'm trading.
Normally I would dump a portion of my position whenever I encounter this, however today I was extra careful and traded smaller positions. This meant that anytime big size got in the way, I ended up dumping my entire position.
However, I must say this: today I was on guard and on higher alert than normal simply because of the fairly choppy action of the overall markets, thus I took profits whenever I could.
But still, I've really got to work on this a bit more and try to hold onto positions a little longer.
Halfway through the afternoon, I discovered I was bailing out of good positions whenever big size got in the way, so late in the day, I had a chance to practice saying "I'm not afraid of you!" to big size on the Level II and it seemed to work.
I also found myself getting comfortable holding onto my positions whenever it encountered big size...I didn't feel that immediate panic or need to quickly get out.
Oh well...just more things I will work on next week.
Because my position sizes were smaller and I was quick to exit my positions, there were no good trades or any bad trades.
Have a great weekend all!
Good Trades
None.
Bad Trades
None.
Net: +$441.82
Loss From Top: 0
Trades: 99
Shares Traded: 177580
Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
AT&T (T): +$310.62
Motorola (MOT): +$137.91
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$101.68
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$50.36
Home Depot (HD): -$14.39
Corning (GLW): -$44.24
Walmart (WMT): -$99.53
Boy, it was another day that traded in a tight range and if you missed opportunities, you missed a lot because they were far and few in between.
This morning I really had a hard time finding trades and because the overall markets just didn't want to go anywhere for almost two and a half hours. But I really had to sit tight and surprisingly things started moving around a little more during the lunch hour.
Today patience was a virtue...at least when it came to waiting for good trades and I think I did a pretty good job of that this morning.
However, patience was lacking for me today in another aspect of trading - patience in holding onto winners.
You can see that today AT&T (T) was my stock of the day and I made the bulk of my profits on it. BUT, it could have been a lot more IF I had more patience in holding my winners.
Instead of measly 3 or 4 cent winners, I could have easily had 8 or 10 cent winners on AT&T (T).
So why did I keep bailing out of AT&T so quickly and so frequently?
It was because I was afraid...afraid of big size on the Level II.
Whenever I got into a position on AT&T, it would go in my favor for a few cents...but then big size would suddenly appear, impeding AT&T's direction and blocking my way to further profits.
Well, I always seem to get spooked whenever this happened and I found myself getting out. But the shortly afterwards, AT&T would break through that size and continue in it's original direction.
I've really got to work on staring big size that blocks my way in the face and to say to it "I'm not afraid of you!", especially if there is a clear trend in the stock I'm trading.
Normally I would dump a portion of my position whenever I encounter this, however today I was extra careful and traded smaller positions. This meant that anytime big size got in the way, I ended up dumping my entire position.
However, I must say this: today I was on guard and on higher alert than normal simply because of the fairly choppy action of the overall markets, thus I took profits whenever I could.
But still, I've really got to work on this a bit more and try to hold onto positions a little longer.
Halfway through the afternoon, I discovered I was bailing out of good positions whenever big size got in the way, so late in the day, I had a chance to practice saying "I'm not afraid of you!" to big size on the Level II and it seemed to work.
I also found myself getting comfortable holding onto my positions whenever it encountered big size...I didn't feel that immediate panic or need to quickly get out.
Oh well...just more things I will work on next week.
Because my position sizes were smaller and I was quick to exit my positions, there were no good trades or any bad trades.
Have a great weekend all!
Good Trades
None.
Bad Trades
None.
Labels: trading
posted by J.C. at
9:14 p.m.
2 Comments:
I realized a long time ago that big sized bids or asks are mostly fake. Weak stocks often have giant sized bids. They disappear quickly when people start to hit them. I used to be spooked by them. Still a little bit now.
I used Level II before and found it totally useless and distracting. The quotes there are mostly fake, IMO. One moment, you'd see over-whelming sizes on the bid side. A minute later, the giant bidders would all turn into giant sellers.
By
wincity, at November 18, 2006 7:45 a.m.
Wincity,
Thanks for your comments.
Yea - you see that a lot especially when the markets are going nowhere. You know for sure it's a fake when several big levels suddenly appear.
I should instead focus more on the charts once I'm more comfortable holding positions a little longer.
Have a good weekend!
By
J.C., at November 18, 2006 8:33 p.m.
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