1. Transfer them immediately to Cy Group in order to start trading witht this prop firm WITHOUT daytrades limitations? this would be a bit messy and my bank may start asking questions on why suddenly I have so much action..From abroad to bank account to Cy Group then from TOS to Bank account to Cy Group..

OR

2. Avoid all the transactions between banks and going back and forth and just transfer it to ThinkOrSwim, have about $20,000 there and work it up to $25,000 under PDT?

Trading-wise I did a crappy daytrade yesterday that took $90 away in 10 minutes. It’s not worth mentioning as I didn’t even have a reason to enter it. Thanks to Christmas (no pun intended) I will only have daytrades on Monday, not Friday.

Anyway, I told my friend about this, of course he didn’t beilieve until I showed him my statement, including timestamps. Later we went with three other friends to a nice restaurant, of course I paid, and my friend suggested I keep $500 in the account, to play low limits..I told him that $500 here and $500 there wouldn’t make any difference, and I don’t want to blow any of it away.

Later I thought about it, and thought “hey, why not? if I lose those $500, fine - I’m out by tomorrow”..here’s how THIS ended:

Settled	Ref Id	Placed	Description		Avg. Odds	Stake	Status	DR ($)	CR ($)	Balance ($)
	2008-12-21 19:55	6851194431	2008-12-21 18:09	Fixtures 21 December Arsenal v Liverpool / Match Odds Comm Charged 4.9% On Net winnings of USD250		-	-	-	(12.25)		9,036.21
	2008-12-21 19:55	6851194431	2008-12-21 18:09	Fixtures 21 December Arsenal v Liverpool / Match Odds / Liverpool Lay		3.65	250.00	Won		250.00	9,048.46
	2008-12-21 06:09	131894912	2008-12-21 06:09	Poker Room Cash-In : Carbon 81		-	-	-		1,174.50	8,798.46
	2008-12-21 05:53	131894251	2008-12-21 05:53	Poker Room Cash-In : Carbon 86		-	-	-		878.00	7,623.96
	2008-12-21 05:52	131894231	2008-12-21 05:52	Poker Room Buy-In : Carbon 81		-	-	-	(500.00)		6,745.96
	2008-12-21 05:39	131893740	2008-12-21 05:39	Poker Room Buy-In : Carbon 86		-	-	-	(500.00)		7,245.96
	2008-12-21 02:06	131873409	2008-12-21 02:06	Poker Room Cash-In : Carbon 77		-	-	-		1,192.00	7,745.96
	2008-12-21 02:01	131872743	2008-12-21 02:01	Poker Room Buy-In : Carbon 77		-	-	-	(500.00)		6,553.96
	2008-12-21 02:00	131872690	2008-12-21 02:00	Poker Room Cash-In : Carbon 87		-	-	-		893.00	7,053.96
	2008-12-21 01:31	131868082	2008-12-21 01:31	Poker Room Buy-In : Carbon 87		-	-	-	(500.00)		6,160.96
	2008-12-21 01:31	131868071	2008-12-21 01:31	Poker Room Cash-In : Nitrogen 148		-	-	-		510.00	6,660.96
	2008-12-21 01:28	131867685	2008-12-21 01:28	Poker Room Buy-In : Nitrogen 148		-	-	-	(500.00)		6,150.96

Yes, that last bet was on football, something I don’t usually do, but hey - I was at work and wanted to pass time a bit faster. I’m out by tomorrow, or maybe keep $500?

As I finished watching Tim’s last Pennystocking II, I felt that the devilish part of me has been calling me again - my poker “addiction” (I’m up overall) was lingering inside me. This time I didn’t dream of building a professional bankroll from scratch or anything, I just wanted to drive my anger and PDT-disgust feelings away.

I deposited $50 at Betfair, and decided that if I turn it into anything significant, I won’t run anymore. I will withdraw, and deposit my poker winnings into my trading account. I know this is hard to beilieve, and I don’t care if you beilieve me because I still can’t beilieve it myself, but here’s how it went, 2 hours, when I logged off my Betfair account: (Intial deposit at bottom, final balance at the top)

	Settled	Ref Id	Placed	Description		Avg. Odds	Stake	Status	DR ($)	CR ($)	Balance ($)
	2008-12-20 04:53	131753346	2008-12-20 04:53	Poker Room Cash-In : Beryllium		-	-	-		6,650.96	6,650.96
	2008-12-20 04:35	131752192	2008-12-20 04:35	Poker Room Buy-In : Beryllium		-	-	-	(963.74)		0.00
	2008-12-20 04:35	131752117	2008-12-20 04:35	Poker Room Buy-In : Beryllium		-	-	-	(2,000.00)		963.74
	2008-12-20 04:34	131752110	2008-12-20 04:34	Poker Room Cash-In : Boron 27		-	-	-		2,963.74	2,963.74
	2008-12-20 04:23	131751001	2008-12-20 04:23	Poker Room Buy-In : Boron 27		-	-	-	(1,494.87)		0.00
	2008-12-20 04:23	131750989	2008-12-20 04:23	Poker Room Cash-In : Carbon 72		-	-	-		1,494.87	1,494.87
	2008-12-20 03:43	131747427	2008-12-20 03:43	Poker Room Buy-In : Carbon 72		-	-	-	(340.56)		0.00
	2008-12-20 03:43	131747410	2008-12-20 03:43	Poker Room Cash-In : Nitrogen 77		-	-	-		340.56	340.56
	2008-12-20 03:32	131746128	2008-12-20 03:32	Poker Room Buy-In : Nitrogen 77		-	-	-	(157.18)		0.00
	2008-12-20 03:32	131746120	2008-12-20 03:32	Poker Room Cash-In : Nitrogen 123		-	-	-		157.18	157.18
	2008-12-20 03:11	131743895	2008-12-20 03:11	Poker Room Buy-In : Nitrogen 123		-	-	-	(139.08)		0.00
	2008-12-20 03:11	131743879	2008-12-20 03:11	Poker Room Cash-In : Oxygen 120		-	-	-		139.08	139.08
	2008-12-20 02:39	131739349	2008-12-20 02:39	Poker Room Buy-In : Oxygen 120		-	-	-	(50.40)		0.00
	2008-12-20 02:38	6838498872	2008-12-20 02:38	Credit Card Fee		-	-	-	(0.77)		50.40
	2008-12-20 02:38	6838498872	2008-12-20 02:38	Card Payment - EntroPay		-	-	-		51.17	51.17

Yes, I have turned $50 to 6,650 - a $6,000 profit in a bit more than two hours. Don’t ask me how this happened because I don’t know. I deleted the poker software of Betfair right after I logged out, I know this is mostly luck, especially when you turn $50 to $6,00. And I won’t count on the luck-fairy to keep smiling..

After I transfer these to my ThinkOrSwim account, I will have around $11,000 to trade with. Meaning I can apply to IB, but I won’t - I will moving to Cy Group, as James (Welcome To The Gutter) is doing so I’m no longer under the stupid PDT rule. Yes, none of this makes me a better trader - but it’s surely a nice push. I know this happens once in a lifetime, so I won’t chip them away dollar by dollar.

Though it averaged up it up, and could have covered when it hit it’s lows for a tiny gain, I’m not upset with MAXY’s trade as I am with that stupid DDR. MAXY is still gonna go down, and I’m gonna catch it right when it does. But DDR was just based off an alert on the chat. I covered for comission loss when i saw the HUGE buying block at 4.44

Yep, not a great day for me. But what makes it even worse is that I’ve used 2 DAYTRADES, one with averaging up MAXY, and one with DDR.

From now on I will try to be a bit more passive with trading, I figured I’d rather not lose much over the $410 (11%) I’m already down, and start being more aggresive with adding money to my “$5,000 for Cy Group” fund. I must accomplish this within a month, or two months at most. If I can get back to my original $4,000 start point and add $1,000-$1,500 off the fund, I’d be able to move to Cy Group. Less comissions, much easier to short, and NO PDT!

Note: MAXY was shorted 12/18/2008, no 12/15.

Yep, 0.82c/32.50% return on CPE. I covered yesterday for 3.38, it did go lower, which means I’ve left about $120 on the table by not waiting to EoD, but that doesn’t bother me too much, this my biggest gainer by far. I cannot tap myself on the shoulder too much, since this was almost purely an a-la Muddy play, but a gain is a gain and I’m happy to recover most of my losses.

Some positive notes on my trading in the last 3 days:

1. AMLN was an overnight as well, I covered my losses quick with this one, and saved myself a lot of trouble.

2. I said I’d try it the-Muddy-way, holding for 2 nights - and therefore maximizing my gain with CPE without worrying about meaningless noise like spikes in price. I’ll try this with MAXY as well, which had it’s first red day yesterday.

3. I was calm, even when things went wrong with AMLN and CPE spiked for a while.

4. And this golden:

Arrr, nevermind, couldn’t find the InvestorsLive chat transcript where Laura scolds me for being way too anxious with overnight holdings, she said something like: “if you’re worried about these things (morning spikes and intraday noise) then you’re in the wrong chat”

Now I only gotta find a balance between being meticulous and trusting the charts.

Hint 2: shorted two days ago

Hint 3: still short

Hint 4: euphoria.

I averaged up on GM 3 times, adding 200 shares tomorrow, and that’s only to cover at 4.20 near day-end.

I know it will go up on bailout news, but I simply can’t take anymore…

I don’t wanna write another word before I throw up, here are some screens:

I’m not going to take a break tomorrow, but something I will definitely do today is compile a list of rules I’ll trade by from now on. Yes, I’ve heard about being flexible and open minded, but the 3-5% stoploss rules seems to work for most, why should I take losses like 7% and 9%? fuck mental stops..

I remember how determined I was when I first started, how strictly I planned to trade, mainly TIMAlerts (btw: big winner today, couldn’t trade because of PDT) and only some of my own - I’m going back to that. I’m yet to understand all the “jiggy-momo” expert jargon on InvestorsLive’s chat, and newbs there aren’t given too much smiles..so for the time being, I just wanna live to trade another day..

From my post written 40 minutes ago:

Experts and analysts are saying more hurdles are in the way. If more bad news come out tomorrow, I may have to take a larger loss than my carried $25 for the night.

Open position for 12/10/2008 - LONG 550 GM @ 4.625

Exit price? I’m thinking 6 would be nice.

Open positions:

LONG 425 FRPT @ 5.24 - TimAlert trade: 10 month highs, but not a DAY TRADE.

LONG 300 GM (whatever happened to sticking to pennystocks) @ 4.76 - bailout plan is beilieved to be presented tommorrow.

After PRFT started shooting up early on I put a STOPLIMIT, as I did with YCRW (my biggest winner so far). When the market gave some of it’s gains up my stop got triggered and I got out at 3.34 for a $25.70 gain after commission, which again happened to be over $12 dollars for some reason.

GM would go as high as 4.90, but with bailout announcement just a few hours to go, I said I’d put on a stoplimit when it hits 5.00. The news didn’t come out, and even worse - Republicans intensively opposed it and the stock started to dive. I still think there’s no escape other than bailing Big-3 out, so I averaged up, added 200 shares.

Experts and analysts are saying more hurdles are in the way. If more bad news come out tomorrow, I may have to take a larger loss than my carried $25 for the night.

Open position for 12/10/2008 - LONG 550 GM @ 4.625

UPDATE: BAILOUT PASSED!

Look up URE, an ETF that follows REI x2. I was confident, by all means - indicators, moving averages and recent news that profit taking will take place today. I’ve traded again, with no day trades - breaking my rule - but wait, I’ve even done worse.

I shorted 300 @ 6.00 early yesterday, when the stock rocketed up to 6.50, I added 300 more and I averaged up to 6.24. The stock continued to take on highs, HoD was at 6.70, but unlike my RIMM play - I was sure this one is tanking.

And so it did..

So why did I end up losing? and how much?

Stocks tumbled after investors and traders were taking profits from the 2-day rally we had, and the stock went down from it’s open at 6.50 to a low of 6.08. I put a stop-limit and started dragging it down on the chart as the stock fell down early in the market. Then, at 10:00AM, new data on home pre-sales came in - down “only” 0.07%, much less than the expected 3%, I knew this was coming out but my excitement from the stock’s free-fall had occupied me.

And then it started going higher, and higher - now, instead of actually taking the profits I’ve locked with my stoplimit, I dragged it up again. Up to 6.70, I just knew it would fall further, yes - even after going to 6.70. But I said I wouldn’t take anymore pain if it hit a HoD again, so that’s where I got up.

The same minute the stock continued to 6.74, and from there it never saw green - the stock closed at 5.66 at EOD.

Not only did I trade with no day trades, not only didn’t I take profits when possible, not only did I raise my stoplimit and not lock them while the stock surged, but also - I got out 0.04 too early.

Over the next few days, I doubt I’m going to be opening any positions, I may spend some time thinking a bit better about what I’m doing, and trying to enforce some discipline rules.

Trade stats:

Entry: 6.24

Exit: 6.70

Loss: -$291.91

Loss % : -7.26

Overall account change: -2.70%, where were we two days ago?

Open positions:

LONG 425 FRPT @ 5.24 - TimAlert trade: 10 month highs, but not a DAY TRADE.

LONG 300 GM (whatever happened to sticking to pennystocks) @ 4.76 - bailout plan is beilieved to be presented tommorrow.

I want you to spank and insult me as much as you can now..I think I deserve it.

The title of this post and the image above probably say what’s to be said, rather than talking about this more than I have in the past day and disgust myself furthermore, I will just break 12/5/2008 into points and lessons:

1. In the stock market, you don’t need to be right 100% of the time, but you can’t be wrong 100% of the time. That’s what I did yesterday - not even a single correct decision.

2. I only slept 3 hours Thursday night, having 2 shifts on Friday (11-17 (market open 16:30 in Israel) and then 00-05)  I told myself I really don’t want or need to trade that day, instead - I stayed up, anxiously watching dozens of stocks while I should have been resting. I ended up using my 2 daytrades. Next daytrade on Thursday.

3. Somehow I ended up paying $50.87 in commissions, 100% of the time ThinkOrSwim could not allocate any shares for me. What really bothers me is the commission though, $50.87?!

All of my Friday trades came from InvestorsLive.com’s chat, a goldmine I still can’t seem to harvest well enough, while the amount of alerts was huge, it also worked against me since I jumped over from chart to chart, and joined the party either too early or too late, again - not even a single correct decision on my part:

But wait, here comes a HUGE mistake that could have hit my entire account by 10-25 percent!:

Lessons from SRZ Trade:

• Look at multiple charts.
• Stocks breaking round price numbers tend to explode, but if they’re already up 48% from their lows, how much further can they go on the same day?
• NEVER, EVER enter such a big position again, a 1000-share position  would reasonable here. I can take $10 change/cent. This could have slammed my account in a way that I don’t believe I could ever trade again. (Read Muddy’s post: what you need)

Next:

Lessons From DXCM Trade:

• While I entered when DXCM made an HoD, which is generally a good thing - I didn’t pay any attention to volume. This moved like a fucking turtle. Pay attention to volume
• Even after I realized the above, I just wont’ cover for a tiny loss (commissions) while it “traded” sideways.
• Look at that big red candle, one huge sell-off before it runs to a new HoD of $3.32.
• Even though my STOP was at $3.01 I only got filled at $2.99, this too, could have ended very differently for me.

Lessons for Friday: Calculate every single risk/reward factor, every indicator, and take into account every possible scenario. Be patient, there are dozens of opportunities, every day.

I’m never happy being down on the day, but I’m relived and thankful for not being sentenced to death by the stock gods, especially with that huge position I took on SRZ. Yes, it ended as quite a profitable trade, but it’s nothing because of my “great” trading abilities.

Account statement:

Balance at the end of 12/5/2008: $4,163.95

Balance at the end of 12/4/2008: $4,171.84

Change: $7.89 (-0.18%)

Starting balance: $3,973

Overall change: $190.95 (4.80%)

Before I go into details, I want to thank Killa from InvestorsLive.com’s chat, he suggested using a STOPLIMIT to lock in more gains as YCRW tanked, without him I would’ve made maybe 2/3 of the $218, maybe even less,  and with a losing trade already under my belt, every dollar mattered.

Yesterday I panickly witnessed how RIMM went up from my short-entry point @ 37.19 and closed at 38.86, putting me down -3.30% (-$134) for the day, and -2.44% overall.

I went into today’s kick-off with one primary target: close my RIMM position. It started well, and when it started to hover under $38, I was down only by $54, I was literally fighting my finger as it pushed higher, preventing itself from pressing the mouse’s button and close. It went up 3 minutes later, and I promised myself I’ll cover next time it comes down to these ranges. It did, 20 minutes later, but I didn’t cover.

I slowly started convincing myself to cover when I’m down $60, then $70, then anything under $80. And then came YRCW.

Somebody mentioned YRCW spiking up to a new of $6.26, when I got the chart up I saw it already fading, of course it was hard to borrow so I quickly opened a session with ThinkOrSwim’s trade desk, it seemed like forever, I ended up shorting exactly at $6.00, I only requested 350 shares as my RIMM position still intimidated me. Short YRCW @ 6.00 (Limit $3.35, Stop $6.25)

Somewhere along the way my YRCW gain became bigger than RIMM’s loss, so I decided to cover RIMM’s position, hoping YRCW would go further down and leave me with some green, despite the horrible mistake I’ve done yesterday. Covered RIMM @ 38.31, for a $100 loss.

At some point I figured 0.65/share was a bit too greedy, so I changed it to LIMIT $3.55. Looked promising when it hit 3.65, then 3.60, then 3.55..yes! no! only 100 filled! ok ok, it would surely at least hover at my limit order again before going up, if that’s what’s gonna happen…nope, for nearly 2 hours it would trade between 3.65-3.77. And then came killa, who insisted that I change my order to STOPLIMIT: 3.84, 3.87, he repeated.

Now YRCW was down 3.60 after being in the 3.75 range for nearly 45 minutes, I had to decide whether to bite on some more or just get out with a little over $100 in profits. now killa nearly shouted at me to adjust according to his suggestion, and so I did.

The rest is history, the market took a slump in the last 60 minutes, and I covered the remaining 200.

BUY average $5.33: $0.67/share, 11.70% for the trade, and $218 profit.

Few minutes after that, I took a look at  RIMM - now at 3.69, giving me a potential gain of 0.50/share had I held. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all..