Wednesday, November 5, 2008

DAY-TRADING DOESN'T FIT MY PERSONALITY ;o((

yes folks, it is sad for me and for my visions & dreams also ... and yes, i had already some doubts about that earlier (see my older day-trading considerations :o), but now i'm sure:


DAY-TRADING DOESN'T FIT MY PERSONALITY ;o((

well, it is the result from my trading experience this week! let me explain that: i took 1 week off to try out how would i succeed in the markets as a day-trader! all surrounding conditions were perfect:

  • i moved some money to my CFD account a week earlier
  • my wife and my youngest daughter are on holidays in poland @ their relatives, so there is no one who could deflect my concentration or take any negative influence on me or on my trading
  • i 'm not tired in front of my screen (as usually :) as i do not have to work 8-10 hours a day in my office and i also sleep enough, because i can read all the business-related data on the internet during the day
  • i have a great mental balance
  • i can often go to gym + swimming (my wife left me her fitness-center-card :) and i also do not have many routine duties, if any :o)
  • additionaly i even get some help and support from my eldest daughter (i'm not the born cook or housekeeper :-) and i also have some nice conversations with her after she returns from university => so i'm even not alone all the day and therefore i cannot lose reality-relationship, which is, IMHO, important.
  • etc.

looks perfect, isn't it? even the markets played to my day-trading favor and 'produced' huuuuge volatility to give me a chance to profit from the big daily moves :o). and what is the result?

on monday i bought some soooo cheap commodities (silver, orange juice, sugar, natural gas, coffee) + made 3 DJIA trades from the tick-chart-window. i've lost 45 €uros as the DJIA didn't like my direction. there was also no big move on that day, so i got wiped-out by usual market 'noise' after the price hit my stop orders. mental result: i was somehow dissapointed as i didn't like that day cycle, but on the other hand, i didn't make any (big) trading mistakes, so i accepted it.

yesterday night was barack hussein obama elected as new u.s. president, so there were big market movements very likely today. i have expected a market rally as obama provides IMHO more hope for peace and friendly developments in the world as his competitor mccain does. japan liked that election outcome and rallied 4.42%, europe didn't. dax -2%, tecdax -4.66% (my limit order near the daily lows was filled, which i liked a lot, because i didn't buy greedy a day earlier after a huge rally near the daily highs and decided to stay out of the market or get that index for a more reasonable price). RING, RING, RING! the bell rings and the u.s. stock-exchanges open its 'doors' => let's watch, decide and trade if the DJIA should provide some trading opportunities :o)).

i made 5 DJIA trades: 4 long; 1 short; 4 small losers; 1 small winner; 1 bad luck as my broker's software (internet connection?) didn't accept a change-order to protect my short-term profit on that trade (i would win $1 instead of losing $14, that means there would not be any significant difference in my P/L statistics anyway :o); as i've expected the market went in that time actually some 80 points higher, but the volatility was too big and my long positions were stopped-out before the price moved significantly higher + before i could increase my trailing-stop orders. btw, i thought that after a short decision phase would the market move much more dynamically into one direction, but it didn't [... the big move came about 2 hours later and it was down]. well, i've lost about €55 and increased my day-trading balance sheet for this week to about 100 €uros (approx. $130). it is not much (and still cheaper than a holiday abroad :-), but consider that i've moved approx. 8 x 9,500 = $ 76,000 on the markets, which would be a lot of money @ an orthodox trading account, isn't it? what about my position trades with commodities + toronto60 index + tecdax index? as for now, they are running pretty well and could win more than my day-trading experiments lost => let's stay a position trader :o)

[... added on thursday 11/06/2008: i've made 11 DJIA trades and moved about 11 x 9,100 = $100,100 on the markets, but the losses were again slightly higher than the wins. IMHO were my wins and losses more the question of luck than of anything else... ]

conclusion: let's stay a position trader + let's keep my office job + let's analyze the markets on the evenings & on the weekends + let's do some fundamental analysis + let's profit from the long-term developments & price movements (instead of tick-chart losses :-)

btw, does it mean that i will never again try any day-trades? no. if sometimes my account size could afford a loss of maybe €50 risk capital AND i should 'accidentally' see some promissing opportunity AND i will be in proper trading mood AND ... AND ... => THEN i could imagine to make a bet and place one order or two in order to pick-up some profits, BUT i DO NOT PLAN to sit down in front of my PC for the sake of day-trading anymore :o)

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