Elephant Poop sized reflection on my Trading Blow Ups

No Trading for my today, so I will leave you with this link to all my posts of all my trading blow ups from this year. When looking back you can see I've lost over $50,000 this year due to blow up trading days.

Reflecting on these acts as a good motivation tool for me, and that is why I have put them in my journal.

I'll also leave you this link to Tradersfeed- Seven (Questionable) Things I Hear From Traders, it's another great post by the Doc.


My passion is not to trade...My passion is to make as much money as I can...
If I could make $1,000-$2,000 a day shoveling elephant Poop I would do it over trading.

You could say I shovel poop for a living, but I'm still rich and the job is easy. Having a bad smell on me when I get home is something I'm willing to accept.
Trading just happens to be a way to make a lot of money, and it has been my focus for the last 2 years. Losing is the hardest thing I have had to face, and failure to except losses has slowed the progression of my account. I've had many blow ups, and many good months of profits, and along the way I have learned a great deal about who I am, and what I'm capable of if I put my full effort into it. The key is setting goals, making a plan, and staying focused on your path. There are some psychological impediments I've faced along the way in my trading career, such as taking a loss, getting past a certain value in my account, and making X amounts of dollars in a day. I plan on continuing my trading career and putting more effort into making money because I believe I have an edge, I believe I have a strategy that is profitable when backtested, and I believe in myself. There have been a number of times I ALMOST GAVE UP TRADING, but yet I'm still here, and I'm producing results, because the passion to make money is still there and won't be going away for awhile.

Now who comes up with better topic headings than ME?

Nov 29 $1,200 on 88c and 1700 AAPL shares

Traded 2 hours in the afternoon.

Waited for Trade signals, stuck to my Plan, used stops, made Money, had a good day.

PL $1,200 on 88c and 1700 shares Trading AAPL.

IB's got a relatively new feature where you can look up individual stock/futures contracts you traded for the day.
Here's an example of my YM Trades-



Checkout the Short Squeeze Momentum Stock FSLR-

Will you make a permanent commitment to the people of Iraq?

Some highlights from the Republican debate.





It was clear that most of the Rep.'s were against Ron Paul's standings, especially McCain.

See More questions asked by going to youtube Republican Debate

Back on the Sattle

Last night I got some motivation to trade, that motivation was, MONEY.
I traded sub-par today and overused my leverage, but came out ahead for the 3 hours I traded.

P/L= $600 on 56c

Winning trades on ER2 and 1 loser on ZG, stopped out right before it rolled over hard.

ZG- Trade Stopped out



ER2 and internals charts-



Time to work on my strategy now.

Republican Debate Today

Citigroup selling large stake and Futures are up

From AP- Abu Dhabi's Sovereign Fund Agrees to Invest $7.5 Billion for a 4.9 Percent Stake in Citigroup.(Monday November 26,11:51 pm ET, Joseph Altman, AP Business Writer)

Trading Blogs of Interest

I've added some new Day Traders to the Day Trader Blog Roll

10kThrownAway-2 Brotheres Day Trading there way to financial freedom giving daily analysis of there trades, dollar P/L, market summary, and charts.(They trade both futures and stocks and began fulltime trading

00NR7- A Fellow IB user that day trades stocks and gives his trades, charts, and gives his profit/loss as a R multiple instead of an actual dollar amount. (checkout TraderMikes article on R-Multiples)

Stock Hunter- A fellow QuoteTracker user that day trades stocks and gives his trades, charts, and gives his profit/loss as a R multiple.

DayTrade-Emini- A new Futures Trader that posts his Day Trade analysis, P/L, and charts.(No one likes his Avatar, especially DINO, who is back to trading today).

AlphaTrends- Trading Recap Videos shared daily by John giving us Technical Analysis of whats happening in the markets.

MadStocks- The blog authored by the infamous Rajin Cajun gives his daily trades, charts, and opinion on stocks and the market.(Rajin Cajun also contributes to the Peanut Gallery over at the FLY's new website- iBankCoin.com)

Stock Trading Charts- A static website where High Probability Trader displays all his charts using Picasa as shown below.




(If you got a cool trading blog leave a comment and I'll check you out)

Are Financials Oversold?

Yahoo Finance has a Poll out-
Are Financial Stocks Oversold?

I voted yes.............


The Dow is putting in another big loss
for the day, and the prospects of a
"Santa Rally" are dimming.


In other News-
Dr. Steenbarger; for Tradersfeed, reflects on his MOST DEPRESSING LOSS, and how he made it a turning point in his life.

To Do List

Interesting how the blog; TO-DO-LIST, is becoming a BOOK.



My To Do List-
Create more blogs
Create more blog templates
Finalize strategy rules
Work on adding ads to blogs
Work on Paintbar audible alerts
Work on chart indicators
Review Sector Trend stock strategy
Get faster computer
Share more videos and pictures
Increase site traffic
Learn how to create a better webpage
Work on Financial goals
Eat less Cereal
Work on Arms and Chest next time at the gym
Floss
Do homework by Sunday night
Setup Camtasia recorder to start recording trading
Search for best computer
Eat more protein
Prepare for class speech
Get Oil change
Read current Book about FOMC
Spend more time learning Visual Studio and C#

Things you wont find on my To Do List
----------------------
Work on my Moving avg Crossover technique
Search for Penny stocks getting ready to explode
Buy Penis Enlarger Pills
Cash in my Winning Lottery ticket from Africa
Read THE FLY's new Blog
Spend time on MySpace.com looking for new friends
Talk on the Cell Phone while driving
Eat Asparagus
Checkout Hillary Clinton's Presidential website
Checkout the latest posts at EliteTrader

New Blog Design

This Thanksgiving Day Holiday I spent 12 hours 16 hours redesigning my blog and I made a new blog template which I titled "the 3 column candlestick stock market theme."
I've been really wanting to have a 3 column design, so I learned how to do it.I put my official Copyright on it as well, so don't be getting any clever ideas.

Edit-
I can tell OBAT isn't feeling my patriotic theme, so I'll substitute the white background for gray.

OIL TO $100

By next week OIL will likely be over $100/barrel.
Reasons?
Do we really need reasons when we got pictures like this?

Timothy Sykes

The guy is a virus that is spreading throughout the trading community.
This video is pretty funny. The guy may look like an idiot, but there is an old saying, that even bad publicity is good. He's getting more attention, and for some reason, I bet he's making more money. He's actually has some good stock picks. Some say he has a gambling approach to trading, but what is trading all about anyway.

Trading Options

Some Trading related websites I've been checking out lately have been-
Optionistics.com.-You can test out how different option strategies would work out (the analyzer gives you option prices from 3 weeks ago, so you can see how the strategy would have worked out today)
1Option,- There have been some insightful posts on option trading at this website, for example I was thinking of a strategy of buying a CALL LEAP on a stock I like such as RIO, and writing front month CALLs at the money for the duration of the period that I own the LEAP, a strategy similar to a COVERED CALL STRATEGY, except less capital is needed because the LEAP acts similar to buying the stock outright because time decay(theta), is less of a factor, making this a DIAGONAL SPREAD.
EFP's,- I've been reading about EFP's, as a way to beat current interest rates that my broker offers
EliteTrader Disscussion on EFP's and the what to do about the 1st 10k that doesn't receive interest.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for the freedom I have and the Country I live in.

Note- this video may be offensive and is not for children.

THIRD TIER BLOG

We all know that my blog is third tier and that I'm a piker. That's already been established and I'm totally fine with it. However I'm not a third tier blogger that links to crappy blogs. That being said, I've taken off a certain blog as Moodys has just rated them "junk".

NEWS FLASH!

YAWN......
That's what's going on in this market right now.
Monthly recap,,,the BEARS won this month, and I expect the Bulls to begin to show signs of life next week, considering OPEX has passed. Thanksgiving week can be quite volatile, so be careful with position size next week. I've been spending time working on my trade strategy, and also looking at stocks to trade.

Jeffersons got a new Mac kid video up-

SICKO- Micheal Moore denied onto NYSE floor

Maria and Michael Moore,,,,, a sweet combination on air.....

Oil Dropppping....

Today's highlights,,,,or possibly this weeks highlights are going to be the action that is happening in commodities like Oil and Gold. Check out USO-



That's all from me for now.

TRADER HALL OF FAME #1

A new feature of this Blog that I will be writing about often will be to highlight "TOP TRADERS" I've discovered and to tell a little about these traders and how they are successful.

The First TOP PROFESSIONAL TRADER going down in the books is-

M.A. Perry; (a.k.a. NihabaAshi) at forums like EliteTrader.com and TradersLaboratory.com

Perry is a Fulltime FUTURES TRADER.

Academic Background: Microbiology, Immunology and a med-school drop-out in the 80's to become a full-time trader...He says he's "never regretted the decision."

Location- Provinde du Quebec, where he speaks English and French.

Trading Experience- Fulltime tader for ~20 years, with 30 years of studying the markets.

Perry's Trade Methodology-

I'm a price action only trader (no indicators) via rule based methodology involving day trading, swing trading and position trading.

Just as important, the foundation of my strategies are via volatility analysis, market seasonal tendencies (cycles), intraday market tendencies, intermarket analysis, support/resistance analysis and the psychological aspects of trading.

http://www.thestrategylab.com/WRBAnalysis.htm

Risk Management-

He uses an emergency fixed hard stop and a variable mental stop that doesn't exceed a particular number that's much less than the hard stop. Average position size is around 3 contracts, but this can change depending on market volatility.

Trading Instruments

He can trade profitably almost any futures trading instrument, exchange traded fund or forex currency, however, he currently mainly trades the Russell 2000 Emini ER2 futures contract while keeping a close eye on other key market trading instruments.

His favorite trading instruments are the Eurex DAX and EuroFX EC but he's unable to trade those due to family restrictions.

I asked Perry how he became so consistent as a Futures trader and this was is reply-

To continue reading please go to Trader Hall of Fame

(Please note, High Probability Trading has no affiliations with M.A. Perry)

(If you think you have what it takes to be in the Trader Hall of Fame email me)

Nov 9 $700 17c

Overall I performed great today.



Today I traded much better, scalping good chunks out of ER2, YM, and ZF on 1-2 contracts.
I waited for my trade signals and I told myself I wouldn't add to losers with more than 2 contracts total (a risk management strategy I use to apply when I was trading smarter).

There was an interesting relationship between the 30yr and 2yr bond futures this morning. Instead of ZF leading to the upside, ZB was leading. I watched for bearish divergences between ZF and ZB to take short trades on ZF back down to VAL/POC value areas.



I watched for bullish climax points in the bond futures(ZB/ZF) and waited for the inverse trade signals on ER2 and YM to take mostly long scalps. (intermarket relationship) I also noticed a BID on NQ around 2055 and resistance on ZB around 8:15am. I also notice a tendency for climax points on Fridays to be around the 8am hour, which may have relevance considering the overseas markets close at 8am and because bond futures have a shortened trading day on Fridays.

Thanks to StockHunter for the comment which included the link to this great article on Risk Management which I read last night.

Ron Paul OWNED Bernanke!

How are American Senior Citizens suppose to live with rising inflation and medical costs.
Spot on.

I feel bad for Bernanke, what do you expect him to say?
Honestly, what's Ron Pauls' plan,,,,get rid of the FOMC, IRS, abolish taxes, and bring the soldiers home......That seems like a fairy tale if you asked me.

CATASTROPHIC BLOWUP!!!!!!!!! (-$12,000..........)

GOT your Attenti0n?

Well that would have been today's headline if my prayers from the 12-0-clock reversal GODS didn't come true. I would like to thank the Traders in Citigroup and Maria Bartiroma for the last hour BUY programs that saved my ass.

Honestly, I shorted ZB twice today, getting a good winner on both.
On ER2 I went long from a BUY STOP getting hit right after the Bernanke speech(it was the high of the day before the huge selloff, my buy stop got hit 3 ticks out of the money and was red 7 ticks in seconds.....). I ended up adding to that long,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,for a long,,,,,,,,,time. I admit, today I SCREWED UP BIG TIME.

I held my long on ER2 through the lows, while watching bond futures hit resistance during the mid-day,,,,which helped me UNDERTAKE IMMENSE AMOUNT OF PAIN as I watched my account take a STAGGERING HIT.

As my pain an suffering were at a threshold of around 8.5,,, I got software issues from IB. Thank you IB, for having another SPOOKY malfuncitoning,,,you guessed it, right around at the LOWS OF THE DAY.....Look at my workstation.............WTF?????????
(think to yourself, don't panic, this market will reverse.........)



If things couldn't get any worse I was getting calls from work, wanting me to come to work today because someone called out sick.....Meanwhile......

I left my account alone while we continued lower. I listened to the family members in my house argue about how the internet connection had stopped working,,,,that really got me stressing, however during the argument, I kept hearing in the conversation "just be patient with it, the internet connection will come back up", ,,,,,,,,,and that is what I did with my position, I was patient with it, and I let it come back up.

Today's total-
$1,300 on 60 contracts



I'm going to do some hard analysis of what would have occurred today if I had followed my trade signals. I'm sure the readers are just as disgusted as I am with reading how I almost screwed up big time today. I said in the past that I wouldn't let this happen. I blame it on my old intuition trades and not following the trading signals. Maybe today will be the last day I let this happen, I don't know, but I sure hope it is.

Now I'm off to the library to study for a test later this afternoon. My stomach feels bad and I'm light headed,,,time for some caffeine......

Bernanke speech

Watching Bernanke on CNBC right now-
The highlights so far-
Question- "what are the odds of a recession on a scale of 1 to 10?"
Ben- "Economists aren't good at forecasting,,,,,,,,I'm not answering that question"

NQ is leading to the downside, ER2 showing more support.
XLE and oil related stocks are strongest, XLF and financials suck as usual.

UPDATE-
RON PAUL just layed the SMACK DOWN ON BERNANKE!!
OWNED!

CNBC Breaking NEWS!

CNBC gets carried away with there BREAKING NEWS that they televise everyday.
Todays breaking news at the bottom of the screen highlighted in RED is that the Dow has switched back and forth from a positive to negative bias the last 8 sessions. If the $100 OIL wasn't hyped enough as a COOL headline, this serves as second best.
Rick Santeli is the only guy worth listening to, and he talks about bonds and what's really going on from a traders point of view. The Dow was down over 240pts today yet, the 10yr and 30yr haven't followed their typical pattern. Now they have CRAMER on CNBC screaming about something random that pisses him off, this is another great BUY SIGNAL.

Bond update-
13week flight to safety with 30year yields going up?
If I were a short term swing trader I would BUY THIS DIP in STOCKS.

13week Bill-


30yr-



GOODLUCK TRADING THIS-

BOND WATCH----------@@------------

Bond watch-------------
I'm watching for a bounce in bond yields tomorrow, and for ZN to go DOWN....
that is unless XLF totally melts down and brings another huge drop to the stock market due to all the US banks like Citigroup SUCKING!!!!





Stocks I'm researching-
TIP, SHY, BIL, GSG, DBC, FXA, EWA, FXI, and PTR.

I'm testing out this cool new Widget from adaptive blue. This is really COOL!

RESEARCH, LEARN, GET SMART!

The Three Essential Keys to Successful Trading

Trading Techniques: A Collection of Articles (TRADERFEED) AWESOME!!!

Nov 5 Spike Daddy 2k

I spent most the day around breakeven to +$500 making money trading futures and losing money trading CROX for being a POS that wouldn't bounce for nobody. I got the aftrnoon spike on YM and made some bank. Unfortunately my internet connection to IB mysteriously got disconnected right as the spike was occurring!??!??
By the time I got a hold of a rep at IB my connection was back up and I closed out my LONG positions myself. I then watched the Dow pop another 50pts, kicking myself not knowing what was going on because my computer had locked up and my charts were frozen.

Keys of the day-
1.Don't try to catch falling knifes, Cramer got CROX right today, I on the other hand should have known better.
2.Watch what the weakest stocks in the market are doing.
3.Watch bond futures.
4.Get a good internet connection
5.Have your Broker on speed dial and know your account #
6.Have catastrophic stops in place for all trades in-case something freaky happens
7.Don't add to losers on strongly trending stocks
8.Beware the afternoon reversal

Highlight stocks of the DAY-
CROX- The shoemaker is taking a beating, FINALLY the shorts are recovering....

The stock (CROX) had soared 246% this year, ignoring safety concerns about the shoes, a wobbly retail market and even a warning from my colleague Christopher Williams, who figured the shares, then 46, were priced for perfection ("Time to Take 'Em Off, for Now").

Although Crocs posted record third-quarter earnings Wednesday, sales missed expectations, as did revenue forecasts. The stock lost 36% of its value Thursday

PTR-PetroChina Becomes World's 1st Company Worth $1 Trillion After Shanghai Stock Debut

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- China's biggest oil and gas company, PetroChina, surged past Exxon Mobil on Monday to become the world's first company worth more than $1 trillion, though most of the company remains in government hands.



The publicly listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. saw its shares nearly triple in value in their first day of trading in Shanghai, following an initial public offering that raised 66.8 billion yuan ($8.94 billion) -- record for a mainland exchange.

Nov 2 Choppy Day and Ron Paul

Interesting video on Ron Paul-
Abolish the Federal reserve, IRS, and taxes. Bring the US troops home immediately.
Got any problems with that? WOW!

CNBC market wrap up DOW -364

I just got done listening to CNBC's closing bell wrap up with Maria and a panel of 6 she interviewed.
The talk that I heard was-
-Derivative credit is bad and might get really bad
-Foreclosure trend is only 1/3 of the way there
-Short Financials and Long Tech is the oldest trade in the books and a lot of money is bet on this trade with a continued bias until next year
-The FED should focus on deflation, and should have cut 50bpts
-Bob Pisani thinks the XLF/SMH trade could reverse big time from the heavy bets in that direction (I've had the same contrarion view, is this bad? Is this the way dumb money thinks?)
-The bank sector is at 5 year lows
-Investors in Nasdaq 100 are taking off profits after an 18% gain for the year
-Volatility is going to increase going into the year end

My thoughts- the forclosure decline looks like it is due for a bounce along with financials but it is tough to say when this trend will reverse. Bond futures look like they have hit resistance. I'm expecting next week to be BULLISH.

Day After FOMC rate cut

Eurodollar



Fed Fund Futures-ZQ



YM-Dow



ZN- 10yr



Good links from Dr. Brett at TraderFeed -

The Value of a Trading Setup

Views From the Trading Penalty Box

DINO has a new TRADER in the Vitrual Office, and Tapeworm is gone
The new trader is Wincity.

TraderBubs took a picture of DINO's new BABY!

I'm working on my system and doing the school thing.