Trading Statistics For Month Of October 2006

Total Gross for Month of October: +$5,257.46
Total Net for Month of October: +$3,116.02
Total Fees (Gross - Net) for Month of October: $2,141.44
Total Trades for Month of October: 1,412
Total Shares Traded for Month of October: 1,923,106

Best Day for Month of October: Mon Oct 30, 2006 (+$658.33 net)
Worst Day for Month of October: Thu Oct 19, 2006 (-$479.61 net)

Number of Positive Net Days for Month of October: 13
Number of Negative Net Days for Month of October: 3
Number of Trading Days Missed for Month of October: 6 (one for Canadian Thanksgiving, 5 for vacation)
Number of Trading Days Lost Due To System Downtime: 0 (lots of system glitches, but no days lost)

Compared to Previous Month: -$837.19 (down 21.2% from previous month)
Compared to Same Month Last Year: +$1,116.02 (up 55.8% from same month last year)

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

Top 3 Stocks For Month of October (Net Profit):
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$1,396.43
Motorola (MOT): +$775.35
Corning (GLW): +$524.98

Worst 3 Stocks for Month of October (Net Profit):
Home Depot (HD): -$288.70
Pfizer (PFE): -$207.12
Bank of America (BAC): -$81.48

Top 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of October:
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) - Traded on 16 out of 16 trading days
Home Depot (HD) - Traded on 16 out of 16 trading days
Exxon Mobil (XOM) - Traded on 15 out of 16 trading days

Bottom 3 Most Traded Stocks for Month of October:
American Express (AXP) - Traded on one out of 16 trading days
Bank of America (BAC) - Traded on one out of 16 trading days
Ford (F) - Traded on one out of 16 trading days

Total Number of Different Stocks Traded for Month of October: 16

List of Stocks Traded During the Month of October (with net profit):
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +$1,396.43
American Express (AXP): -$46.19
Bank of America (BAC): -$81.48
Citigroup (C): +$89.51
EMC Corp (EMC): +$153.36
Ford (F): +$42.91
General Electric (GE): +$139.82
Corning (GLW): +$524.98
Home Depot (HD): -$288.70
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$296.03
Motorola (MOT): +$775.35
Micron Tech (MU): +$5.57
Pfizer (PFE): -$207.12
AT&T (T): +$138.31
Walmart (WMT): +$348.04
Exxon Mobil (XOM): +$184.89

Monthly Recap

October marks the fourth straight month of declines in my profits this year. November will be my one year anniversary of becoming a full-time trader and I had really expected that I'd be steadily improving in terms of profits as I approached my anniversary - I even wrote somewhere that one of my goals would be to average roughly $2000 daily after one year.

Ha!

As always, it's easier said than done. Instead, I find myself sliding backwards and steadily getting worse as my anniversary approaches.

I feel just like a stock - I launched as an IPO and I had all the confidence in the world and that the only direction I'll be moving is up! After a few months, things look good - I steadily increase and it looks like the sky's the limit. But then something unexpected happens and I start falling. Month after month results in poor performances and things start looking really bad. I keep falling and falling and many start wondering how low can I go?

I am hoping that, like many stocks, we'll be asking "It can't possibly get any worse than this! The only place this stock can go from here is up!".

Seriously, I really hope I've just finished visiting a short-term bottom in my trading and that I can continue moving on upwards.

I came into this month not expecting much as I knew I'd be missing at least a week for vacation. However I still felt that some of the problems from August and September persisted in October, and though I was completely aware of them, I had a tough time trying to get them under control.

There were 3 negative days in October, however on all three of these negative days I lost over $400 - not good considering I wasn't able to pull off any spectacular trading days.

The first week of October started off slow, as I hardly made anything the first day and lost a bundle on the second day of October. The rest of that first week I was able to pick myself up and ended the week with a respectable finish.

I took the Monday off during the second week of October, but when I did come back to trade, it was a sloppy affair indeed. I had thought I had found the reason for some of my poor performances during that week: afternoon trading! I continued to explore this idea and my results from that week seemed to support my conclusions (I had lost $1,200 in afternoon trading that week!).

The third week of October was a mixed bag. There were some strong performances, but there were several days in which I was not 100% there and I was not focused enough. For most of that third week, I only traded until lunch, but I was still not completely convinced that afternoon trading was the ultimate culprit.

The fourth week I completely missed as I headed out to Vegas and the Grand Canyon for some R&R. And I think I needed it - things didn't appear to be going very well for me and I needed to get my mind off trading.

Finally, coming up to the end of October (Oct 30 and 31), I came to the realization that my inconsistency as a trader was mainly due to the inconsistency of my trading plan. I was caught in a cycle of constantly changing the way I did things where my trading strategy kept changing depending on my circumstances and I found myself doing the following:

• when a string of good trading days showed itself, I'd start complaining I wasn't making enough money and so I'd start making changes to my trading in an attempt to make more money
• when I attempted to make changes, my profits began suffering for a couple of days
• after a couple of days, I'd start losing focus and frustrations would mount
• after a few more not-so-good days, I'd stop, throw everything out the window, and try to go back to the way I was trading before
• I would then need a couple of days to get myself back in the zone and to get myself back in the proper mindset
• then a string of good trading days would appear again, but then I'd start complaining again about how I wasn't making as much as some of the other traders, so I'd start making changes in my trading, thus starting the cycle all over again

November will be definitely a trying month for me. This will be the last month for me to see what I can do with my trading before the year end (I cannot rely on December trading - too many holidays).

If I cannot establish where I am in my trading in November, I'll have to wait until next year - and that's when the tough questions will have to be asked (I'm not going to say what these questions are - I don't even want to think about them!).

Good things about my trading in October:

• a lot more consistency in my daily numbers compared to September - at least they didn't fluctuate as much as they did last month
• I really thought deep and hard to try to figure what was going wrong and what I could do to improve my trading - this resulted in two major ideas: 1) afternoon trading may not be for me and 2) I've got to stop changing things with my trading, especially when consistency starts showing itself
• Patience slowly inched in the right direction - I was willing to hold positions a little longer as long as the bulk of my profits were secured
• I didn't keep track of my monthly P/L so I had no idea of how well (or how badly) I was doing for the month - this probably has more of a psychological impact than anything else
  

Some things that could have been improved upon in October:

• there were a few days that I was not 100% focused on trading - two days in particular each lost over $400 because of this
• I spent too much time thinking about the money - everytime I started thinking about this, I started changing the way I trade in an attempt to make more of it, which usually results in me losing money
• There were many positions that could have been had for more if only I had the patience - anytime a stock starts stalling, I start heading for the exits...instead I should wait to see if the move will continue

And here are some of my goals for November:

• None! Just keep doing what you are doing and try not to change a whole lot - let me lay down a steady foundation first...once this is firmly in place, I can then start making slight tweaks in the way I trade