Tuesday Trade Review 12/30/2008

A stupid day of trading being a complete wimp. A day I wanted to tell everyone to go f-themself. I was tired, drug hungover and yes my balls still hurt.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +8 net -19 shares 5400
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Pain in my Pants 12/29/2008

I am trying to focus but while playing racket ball I got hit at full speed where a guy does not want to get hit. It took me 15 minutes to get to my feet. Now after some Vicodin, I am too stoned too think but my balls are still in serious pain. Add to that, my wife is singing her favorite out loud her favorite "Bread" song over and over. I need to go to bed.
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The numbers (like anyone really gives a rats ass about them):
Stocks: gross -8 net -38 shares 5500
Stock futures: none
Forex: none
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F-it. I am going to tell a joke.
Two old men sitting on a park bench.
One says to the other - "I went to the Doctor yesterday"
The other - "What for?"
"I have fluid on my knee"
"So what did the doctor tell you to do??"
"He said - Aim better"

The pain is my side........

Every year there seems to be a trade or two that stands out in my mind. Those trades I remember for a very long time. My wife complains I beat myself up too much and that very few of these trades of the year are for the positive. At the end of August, the overall market was down about 12% and I was up 8%.

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That is when I went on vacation. I was doing a swing trade in the QLD. I had a good entry of 72 during the middle of July. My target was 93. QLD had been as high as 83 and was trading around 77. While on vacation, I had no stop - no real access to the internet and was not following the market. I assumed the pullback was like the one seen in April. I wanted my 93. By the time I was back from vacation, the market had cracked hard. I tried getting out at 70 but the market never rallied back to that point. After breaking the first major rule - no stop, I decided to break the second major rule - allowing a swing turn into an investment. I still own it today. This position has cost my account 15%.

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The second trade is a failure to trade the plan. The PFF ETF has a habit of breaking hard and bouncing back when bad news hits the market. My plan was to buy 500 shares around 22, 500 shares around 21 and finally buy 1000 shares around 20 using an 18 or 19 as a stop loss. My target would be a bounce of 27 to 28 area. I bought the first 500 but lost the guts to buy the rest. On the day PFF bounced from 22 and change to 24 and change, trading in PFF was really weird that morning so I got out with a small gain. My lack of following though with my trading plan was caused but my screwing up the QLD trade. I was too scared to trade properly being down so much.

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I hope the New Year clears my mind and I can get back on track. I was trading well given the market until my vacation. I normally place stop loss orders when I can't watch the market. I picked a bad year to break that rule. The cost of these two trades above puts my account down about 28% for the year instead of being close to break even in my main IRA account.

Friday Trade Review 12/26/2008

Had only one good trade today and it is on the chart above. Very hard to trade today where my orders I thought would get filled, did not. I should have held a little longer in RIO but I needed to drive my wife to the doctor. She had a very bad cold and could not drive herself. The doctor visit took 4 hours so I missed the rest of the day. I wonder if I would have played RIO to the update or the oils based on the crazy action between 1:30 and 2:30 est.
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This was my second best week of the year and I only traded 3 days and about 8 hours in total - amazing. Maybe more is less.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +204 net +181 shares 4600
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Wednesday Trade Review 12/24/2008

Another one got away. This is a big mouth stock. I was hoping to short it around 33 at 8 am. The bid/ask was 32.30 and 33.00 so I put my short order in at 32.90. I waited 15 minutes and cancelled it. A couple of shares trades at 32.30 then 32.75. I sat there with time slipping away. I had a company Christmas party to get to. Then minutes later I saw more shares go at 32.78 and then 32.80. For a few seconds I saw a bid for 500 shares at 32.80 with an ask at 32.90. I thought to myself I could short the 500 at 32.80 with a stop at 33 and a target of 32.30. The shares were taken with out me and I had to leave. Two hours later, I found my plan would have worked perfectly for a $250 gain. Damn. Merry F-ing Christmas to me. I got to change this in the new year.
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The numbers:
Stocks :none
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Trade Review 12/23/2008

A couple of bucks from shorting the Big Mouth stock LLY and a few from an early short of RIO. Hard to find trades again and I missed the steels sell off late morning before I had to go.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +155 net +142 gross 2600
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Morning Stuff

Finally after wanting to do it for months, I cleaned up my Blog lists. It is amazing how many Blogs come and go.

Monday Trade Review 12/22/2008

Shorted the Big Mouth stock in after hours Friday night. Covered just before the open when I expected a pop at the open. The pop happened and I got filled one of my 3 short orders and the stock declined nicely. I wish I had the guts to use bigger order size and held a little longer. Regardless, it was one of the easiest trades I have made in a long time. I found no more trades for the day.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +272 net +267 shares 1000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Fred Thompson on the Economy

This is the sad sad true of what is happening now. I saw this on Disciplinedinvesting.blogspot.com and just had to post it here.

Another one that got away

No guts - no glory. One of the problems I have trading currencies is that my signals always seem to happen in the middle of the night. The two buy points of the EURO (1.3070 and 1.3400), I was sitting at my desk watching the action. Both times it was late at night and I said to myself, do I really want to start a position just before I go to sleep. I wimped out both times and lost out at some fast money. I suck.

Friday Trade Review 12/19/2008

Stupid day period.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +34 net +16 shares 3600
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Thursday Trade Review 12/18/2008

Only good trade for today on the chart above. Today - I just could not get it together. Had some beautiful short setups on the open and could not get myself filled. I should have been using market orders.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +38 net +16 shares 4400
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Trade Reviw 12/16/2008

Talk about a dead market this morning when I could trade.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -10 net -18 shares 3200
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Monday Trade Review 12/15/2008

I screwed this day up. The trading Gods said - here have some easy money and I said no thanks.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +108 net +93 shares 3000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none - God am I stupid for not being long the EURO right now.

Friday Trade Review 12/12/2008

Chopfest.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +80 net +65 shares 3000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Thursday Trade Review 12/11/2008

Today was a weird day. I fat fingered an update to one of my computers and destroyed my ability to get to the Internet. I did not get the computer back online until just before the open. My head was a mess. I missed so many things in the would of could of should of file it was not funny. I am still kicking myself tonight. I made only 3 trades and thank god one was okay.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +190 net +177 shares 2600
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Wednesday Trade Review

I woke up late so I figured if I was going to be 30 minutes late it made no different being 60 minutes late instead. I traded the open by shorting a big mouth stock and it worked like a charm. The I ran like hell - I was 60 minutes - shit.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +240 net +234 shares 1200
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Trade Review 12/9/2008

I did not trade well at all . Most of my trades are picture above for you home-gamers. I think I need to cut my share size a little and widen my stops a little. It was my worse losing day since May, but again $400 is no big deal. My goal is to make a $100 to $200 a day when I trade and not to have days above loses of $100. Once I do that, I double those numbers and then again until I can make a living at this.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross -333 net -403 shares 14,000

Stock Futures: none

Forex: none

Fleetwood Mac The Chain - Priceless

It is one of those weird things in life that makes it so wonderful. I was able to score tickets to my wife's very favorite band just a couple of weeks from her 50th birthday to do something super special for her. Priceless.

Monday Trade Review 12/8/2008

Trying to buy your wife a special gift and trading stocks at the same time do not mix well. Who cares, I got the tickets anyway.
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The numbers: gross -50 net - 55 shares 800
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Friday Trade Review 12/05/2008

The numbers:
Stocks: gross -11.71 net -51.71 shares 8000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Thursday 12/4/2008

My first day back to trading after a great time in Vegas. Unfortunately, I came bad with a bad cold. I had problems at times following the market but I wanted so badly to get on the horse again. (please no drug jokes - haha).
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +49 net +17 shares 6400
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

November Monthly numbers

My November monthly numbers:
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Wins: 31 Losses: 18
Avg Win: 62.13 Avg Loss: -47.60
Gross Trading: 1,069.35
Commissions: -288.06
Net Trading: 781.29
Biggest Win: 233.60 Biggest Loss: -141.00
Data Fees: -167.95
Interest: 39.23
Account Net: 652.57