After last Friday's meltdown, I wasn't sure I would post any further updates, let alone even trade again. But I'm still going. I went into last week having started reading How To Day Trade For A Living by Andrew Aziz and having subscribed to Tim Sykes' alerts. To be honest, it was all information overload. I'm not cut out to be part of Tim's community. I don't warm to language about "becoming a millionaire" nor do I think penny stocks are my comfort level. I'm taking some parts of Aziz's advice and filtering out some of his rules that I'm not comfortable with.

I fully acknowledge I've been going full-speed into this without all the knowledge I should have. People with the time and patience to spend weeks or months on a simulator should. What I'm doing is probably akin to uninformed gambling. Anyway, I do put a lot of time into this. I'm learning. I don't know why I feel like I need to defend myself.

I'm just putting out there my experience. (Not fixing every grammatical and formatting error)

Don't be like me...

Monday, August 24

Lessons learned: Do calculations accurately every time. I do them correctly 90% of the time, but the other 10% of the time can cost me hundreds of dollars. Extremely active trading in 37 different stocks, basically broke even on all except one, SONN, which I chased.

SONN: ($459)
Everything else: ($38)

Overall: ($497)

Tuesday, August 25

Very heavy trading. More losing trades than winning trades. Need to learn to take profits and not just wait for trailing stop orders to execute.

3 worst stocks: ($780)
Dozens of others: $80

Overall: ($700)

Wednesday, August 26

I don't feel well. I worked so hard over the past trading day and in prep before. I was up as much as $350 and so I feel letdown to only be up $142.

Sure, it breaks a streak of losing 8 trading days in a row. But when those losing days are typically -$500 or -$100, I expect winning days to be far stronger

I like them I'm a fast trader and trade 70-80-90 trades a day. I'm not going to change that. (2020-08-31--I am actually changing that now) I'm becoming more disciplined. Less chasing. But still some

19 losing stocks

But no disasters! Not one stock where, if substracted would be a great day

Some wins were from Salesforce which I held overnight but I had sell orders for pre-opening instead of waiting! Missed out out $700!

I guess that was an outlier of an opportunity. Personal interest in SF. So apart from that win, small wins at 14 stocks

More losses than wins

Most of my profits were from stocks in my stable portfolio that I know well--CRM, GOOG, FIZZ--very little from anonymous daytrading stocks--that's why I feel deflated

I go against the piece of advice in book---I embrace institutional stocks--I don't understand why one would avoid them...the patterns are much cleared and it sees a much higher probability of profit

3 worst stocks: ($780)
Dozens of others: $929

Overall: $149

Thursday, August 27

EXHAUSTING. I did my usual thing in the morning, traded dozens of times, worked my butt off, lost over and over and over again. I as so tired of my scanner lists and checking out the recommendations on the boards. Death by a thousand cuts. Much smaller losses per trade than in the past, but so many losing trades.

And then I started traded TSLA, and that was my afternoon for a few hours. And I finished up, and finally, at 3:27, not 4:00, I hit the FLATTEN button to give myself some rest.

I don't think it's a problem to zero in on one hot stock for an entire afternoon. It worked for me today.

31 stocks I was in the red on

31!

12 stocks I made profits

1 of those 12 was TSLA, up $1000

reverse of all those days where I say I was did ok or well except of one or two or three that ruined the day

today one stock made the day

Overall: $279

 

Friday, August 28

(Vertabim what I noted in the midst of nosedive. I actually wound up with a $3000 loss. Mental health-wise, I'm doing a little better now)

I've been incredibly depressed. I gave up on my career and started daytrading. Today I saw my losses reach extraordinary levels (for me) and started drinking and drinking and chasing and chasing

A $5000 loss is not acceptable for me. It is disastrous. But I figure today should be my last day of trading no matter what. So I just keep chasing and drinking.

I don't want to trade penny stocks. I am over 35, and I have lost the ability to learn, and so I go on intuition, and clearly, that has failed me

I practice meticulous trading practices, until, abruptly, gambling impulses kick in. And then it's all downhill, and I can't stop.

Pandemic has been horrible for me. Unemployed. Really have given up. Losses of $3000, $5000....what's the difference...I am so close to giving up

Extremely drunk and just watching TSLA. Hoping for a miracle of making all the losses back

In any case, I should quit until I really have a strategy.

Overall: ($3272)

Monday, August 31

Counter to all conventional wisdom, I didn't quit, but I also didn't take a play from any day trading strategy. I stuck to the popular stocks of the day, TSLA, AAPL, and (less popular) MSFT.

Goal for the day was $1000, so I took profits. I was upset that I had allowed my account to get in the position of not being able to execute further day trades after I closed positions, but this was a blessing.

Instead of trading 30+ different stocks in a day, I'm only trading 3, and I'm a lot more relaxed and able to pay attention to their movements and take profits instead of setting a single trailing stop

This is what Aziz  book advocates. I violate the principle of trading institutional stocks, but I'm ok with that

The idea of actually working a job again has come slightly back into focus, since I heard from a potential employer after months of silence. Some form of what I did today is compatible with a job. Do the work before market open, set exit points

For the last month, I've felt like I've needed to be working non-stop, and that's been exhausting, of course

Done by 1135 et, feel relieved.

Overall: +$1082