Aside from the regular trade journal I keep, I hope to add a blog post every week on my biggest lessons of the week. These blogs are mainly for me, but maybe a new trader can benefit as well. 

Background - I've been trading on paper for a while now, and decided to go "live" with 10K account with Suretrader. To reduce my emotion on trading my first week, I mentally "wrote off" the 10K as a loss. As in, if I blow it up, it's not loss. That money is dead to me. haha. A trick of the mind I know, but it's working.

I'm using Suretrader's 6:1 leverage to the max. I'm typically in positions of $15-40K, basically 150% to 400% of my account size. Using this leverage is super risky if I didn't know how to take off the trade when in a losing position, but I learned that lesson (hopefully) during my time papertrading on Ninjatrader and TOS. The leverage has allowed me to get a 44% return on my money (10K) the first week. I have a max pain loss of 2K. I've verbally committed to my friends (and mother, haha) to take off a losing position at 2K, basically 20% of my starting account size. 2K max loss, without question, without hesitation. It will hurt, but I'll live to trade another day.

 

WEEK 1 LESSON(S)

Winning trade percentage was good, but could get better. Wait for trend reversal confirmation on my trend reversal plays maybe.

My biggest battle now is the absolutely awkward manual trade entry in the Suretrader platform. I'm used to Ninjatrader and TOS, where I enter my trades via the chart. I possibly might move to IB soon, as Ninjatrader can link up to that account. I'll miss the 6:1 leverage of Suretrader though. 

Big Lesson: Staying in my winning trades. MAN, I love to book a profit!! Once I'm up $100-$200, I typically prematurely ejaculate....uhh, I mean prematurely evacuate. To experiment with no longer doing this, I played a "game" later in the week, where I got into a short trade, it was a winning trade, but instead of booking profit too early, I put a stop on the trade just above the HOD. I left my computer and let the trade work itself out, and BOOM, it was my most profitable trade yet. I need to keep doing this. 

See you next week.