I've decided to take a brief hiatus from blogging. Whether "brief" means a week or a year, only time will tell.
I've been blogging about my trading day every day for over a year now and it's almost as if no trading day would be complete without blogging about it.
But lately I feel as though I need to re-group. I guess you can call this hiatus an "experiment" - to see if I feel any different without having everyone out there reading about my day.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to try to help me in my trading. You can see from the numbers on the sidebar that since I've started blogging, I feel as though there hasn't really been any great improvement in my trading.
I have a feeling that I may have to change things up a bit so that I can get back on track.
I'm sure you folks have noticed that lately my heart really hasn't been into blogging. I haven't been responding to comments and my posts just feels like it lacks substance. I also feel that lately I've been wasting both the reader's time and my time by publishing these kinds of posts, so a step back from blogging may be in order.
Not only that, but the weather's getting warmer and I'd like to use that extra time to spend with my wife. This past year or so of blogging as really taken me away from her and I feel as though I owe it to her to spend more quality time with her during the weeknights.
So until I get my game back together, I'll bid you adieu and I'm hoping I'll be back sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, I'd suggest you check out DinosaurTrader and his Virtual Office.....there you'll find a daily posting of several bloggers' P&L's. Check out the blogs of those who participate in the Virtual Office - you can learn a great deal from those traders and I highly recommend you check out the blogs of everyone who is involved.
I'd like to thank all the loyal readers and all of the supportive comments you have provided in the past (I guess the nasty ones just comes with the territory!)....without you folks, this blog wouldn't have gone on as long as it has.
Don't worry - I'll be back (this isn't one of those "Goodbye Forever" posts). Maybe next week or next month, but I'll keep you folks posted (unless, of course, I really do enjoy life without a blog! :) just kidding of course!)
Last night after the trading day we went to a concert (yet again) and didn't get back until very late and today I did trade, but felt very tired the whole day.
Not that much happened the last two days...up $41 yesterday, down $190 today. These past two days could have probably been better spent with my mind off the markets.
I don't really feel much like getting into my trading day today as I feel extremely tired from an exhausting month. I also feel as though I'm not in a very good state of mind right now and thus probably won't have anything very intelligent to say.
I haven't tallied everything up yet, but I have a feeling I'm probably down on the month by a couple hundred bucks.
March has certainly taken a toll on me and I know that my attitude has been rotten for most of the month. I have a few things to post on the weekend, but I would rather spend it resting up and preparing for a brand new month ahead.
BUT, the coming of a new month usually means a coming of a new attitude, a new outlook, and a fresh new start. So with that, I bid March adieu and I very much welcome the coming of April.
I really hope you folks out there had a more successful March than I had and I want to wish all of you some great trading in April!
Recently it occurred to me that this blog has made it through it's first full year of existence.
I really can't believe that I've been blogging for that long. It seemed just like yesterday I decided to start this thing.
So how did this idea of blogging about my trading day begin in the first place?
We were at a shopping mall and I remember my wife trying on some jackets. I could tell by the look on her face that she really liked that jacket a lot...but when she looked at the price tag, she reluctantly put it back on the rack.
She mentioned something about it being too expensive, but it was that look of disappointment on her face as she was putting that jacket back on that rack that really made me think.
I thought to myself that I never want to see that look of disappointment on my wife's face ever again and that I would work as hard as I could to get this trading thing off it's feet.
At the time, I had been trading full-time for a about 4 months (but at the prop firm for 10 months), but I was not happy about where it was going. There were times I had bad days and I never bothered to review why the day turned out so bad and that I found myself repeating the same mistakes over and over gain.
I thought that the best way for me to improve is to review what I do every day and try to analyze what went right and what went wrong.
If I just did this on my own and wrote it down in a notebook, I knew that I'd start getting lazy and that it wouldn't last.
And so, I decided to do it online where it was visible to all and by doing so, I would keep myself honest in reviewing my trading daily. On February 16, 2006, the very first entry to this blog was made.
I tried to think of what I would have liked to have seen when I started to trade for a living....by outlining the stocks traded, the number of trades, a review of what went right and what went wrong, along with the good and bad trades.
That first month, I think I had a grand total of 21 visits to the blog. This would continue for several months and it got to a point where I thought that this blog was hopeless...that no one really wanted to read about my trading day and the lessons I was learning. And since the number of visits were so low, I found myself skipping my daily review on the bad days and no one seemed to notice (since no one was visiting!).
I had serious thoughts about shutting this blog down. But I'm glad I didn't. Here are the latest traffic stats (click on image to view):
As you can see, there was a sudden surge of traffic in August 2006.
What happened to cause this sudden surge?
At the time, I had no idea what the blogging etiquette was and I wanted to put links on my page. I sent an email to none other than Trader Mike and I simply told him that I was placing a link on my page to his site and I was asking his permission to do so.
He emailed me back, telling me it was OK and that I didn't need to ask for permission to put links on my site. When I read that email, I felt myself go red in the face with embarrassment (talk about a newbie blogger!).
Well, the next day after I emailed Trader Mike, I saw that my blog was listed under his daily "Recent Links" section, and the rest, as they say, was history.
During this past year, this blog has undergone quite a few changes. The daily posts had it's format slightly revamped and for several months I stopped composing my "On Tap" because I felt that no one was really reading it (and I still think that not many people are reading these posts).
At some point, I also started my "Top 3 List", where I would list the top three most expensive item of the week. There were things such as cars, watches, houses, and wines. I did some research and put some facts together. But these posts required a tremendous amount of time and I have yet to revive these posts.
I had also wanted to post things Toronto-related. I'm usually quite active in the city during the weekends and I had wanted others to see what kind of a city Toronto was. I only managed to provide one post....most of the time I just kept forgetting to bring the digital camera where ever I go. Perhaps when summer kicks up, I'll continue with those posts.
Currently there are only 5 types of posts: my daily post, on tap posts, Weekend Reading posts, my monthly review, and my Trader Monthly Review Roundup.
But let me tell you folks....blogging isn't easy. It takes a lot of time and effort to keep it alive and I can tell you that I've wanted to kill this blog multiple times.
Even though I only post once or twice daily, it takes up more time that I ever thought possible. Just my daily report of my trading day takes me about an hour or more to think of a main point, compose, post up charts, and to review my trades.
Then it takes me another 30 minutes or more to compose my On Tap posts. Altogether, that's at least an additional hour and a half of EXTRA work I do (on top of my usual review and research routine). I could very well have used that time to spend with my wife or to just flat out de-stress.
I really have to hand it to those other trading bloggers who can produce 2 or more daily posts with detailed charts...those are the folks with real dedication not only to themselves, but to you, the readers.
And every time I get one of those nasty Anonymous comments about how my trading style sucks or why I'm such an idiot for trading the way I do (I've had quite a bit of those), it just takes me one step closer to shutting this blog down. Why should I have to constantly defend myself and subject myself to such negativity....if this blog didn't exist, I could always use the extra time wisely.
BUT, I'm going to keep chugging along until I get to where I want to be. Once I'm there...I don't know....maybe that will be the time to close this blog down....but until then, I'll be here to give you regular postings in the hopes that each and every one of you can come away with something positive from this blog.
Just remember that this blog was mainly setup for me to help myself in my trading...to closely examine what I do every day...and that this serves as my own personal trading diary where I can put my thoughts, feelings, and emotions about what I do.
So has this blog helped me in my trading after one year?
I don't know. I can't answer that question. I may have had the same trading difficulties with or without this blog. Maybe success could have been greater without this blog. Who knows?
What I do know is that I feel much better about what I do by blogging about it. I feel as though I am actively trying to identify things I need to improve upon and that I am actively trying to do something about it.
Will I crash and burn? Will I ever get to where I want to be with this? Will I get the chance to continue doing what many people dream of doing for a living? Only time will tell. Thus, I hope that you, the good readers, will follow me in my journey and to see where this thing takes me!
And don't worry honey....I'm really working as hard as I can on this and I hope that very soon I can make that jacket yours....
Ohhh man! It sucks not trading this crazy market. Things seem to be moving fast...one moment the Dow is down 500, 2 minutes later it's down only 350.
Sheesh! A good trading day is when the S&P Futures move about 10 handles....today it moved over 50 handles! 50 handles! I've never seen anything like it!
But this sucks! I'm shutdown and I can't trade. This is the kind day I've been waiting for and I'm out on the sidelines.
I hope all you folks out there are making a killing!
I've Been Tagged! Here Are 5 Things You May Not Know About Me
Recently, Jan over at StockMarketBlog.com tagged me, which means I must share with my readers 5 things they may not know about me.
And so, before I head off for the Bahamas, I thought I'd leave you with these 5 things you may not know about me:
My name is Jeff. I'm 28 and married for a little over a year. I'm 5 feet 11 inches tall, about 185 pounds and I'm what you consider a CBC (Canadian Born Chinese). My parents are originally from Malaysia and English was my first language. I can speak a little Cantonese, a little Hakka (a Chinese dialect), and I'm currently trying to learn Mandarin.
I used to do a lot of acting and modelling when I was in grade school and in high school. I've been in several TV ads including for Ivory Dishwashing Detergent and for TVOntario. I've also appeared in some classic Canadian TV including appearances in "Kids In The Hall" and I had a principal role in an autobiographical piece. I got to practice lines with Jeremy Irons, who was in Toronto several years ago to film M. Butterfly. I quit the business to focus on school (even though the money was damn good!).
I studied and practiced karate and got up to the level of Shodan-ho (the level before black belt). I also studied and practiced kung-fu for several years and learned to use the broadsword and the staff. The kung-fu school was also a lion-dance school so we put on many lion-dance performances throughout the years and we usually performed them on poles (similar to the pic on the left...sheesh..I had the courage to jump from pole to pole as in the pic, but when it comes to holding onto winners...). We also got to perform with the Shaolin monks from China whenever they came to Toronto to put on a show. I would eventually quit both to focus on school.
While at school, I was good at track-and-field and I went to regional and provincial finals many times. My specialties were running long jump, standing long jump, 100-meter and 200-meter races. Unfortunately I was never able to bring home any medals once I got up to the provincial finals (the highest I would get was 4th place). As I got older, I found myself unable to compete at the same level as others around me and so I never pursued track-and-field beyond high school.
I have an Honors degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. In fact, I didn't get a chance to finish my degree before the Toronto Transit Commission (T.T.C.) hired me as a programmer analyst. I would eventually work during the day at the T.T.C. and complete my degree in the evenings (believe me, there were many, many long nights!).
Well, that was a lot I've shared with you...maybe it was too much! Oh well, I guess it's only fair that you, the readers, know a bit more about me since you've all been so loyal.
Now according to the rules, I can now tag 5 bloggers and they have to do the same thing (tell us 5 things we may not know about you and tag 5 others). Let's see...many have already been tagged and I don't know if these guys have been tagged yet...I'm tagging the following (of course, you guys can play along only if you want to...):
Alright! I'm glad we have today off because I NEED this extra day just to catch-up with everything and to get back down to business.
Last Friday I didn't have any fun at all...I ended the day down $581, mainly due to frustration. Looking back, I know now that it was stupid to be frustrated with the markets for not doing much - it was the end of the year and I shouldn't have expected much.
We then went to the Air Canada Centre to watch the Toronto Raptors lose to the Chicago Bulls and I got back late on Friday.
Then, early the next morning we headed out of town for New Year's and we got back yesterday, but I was too exhausted to do anything market related.
But I'm back and I've got some catching up to do. I'm hoping I have enough time today to get several posts up just to close off 2006 and to prepare for 2007.
A daily review of my day as a proprietary trader and some of the lessons I have learned along the way.
I scalp NYSE stocks (hold stocks anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes) and do not hold positions overnight.
I've been trading full-time since November 2005 and I am mainly doing this blog to force myself to review my trading - good days and bad. If others can learn from my mistakes, then I will know the time and effort I put into this blog was worth it.
Before becoming a prop trader I was working at a public transportation company as a programmer analyst/systems analyst for three years. Pay was good and job security even better. But I was still young and so I decided to make the switch and to get into trading before I had too many major responsibilities (that way, on my death bed, I won't be thinking "I should've, could've", etc). I try to be a perfectionist and when things don't go my way, I try very hard to look for the reasons why. This blog helps me digest what went on during my trading day and also forces me to see what went wrong on the bad days - afterall, if I didn't do this, how can I improve?
