my trading history

#1
Hi friends...

It was in the month of december that I entered the world of stock markets. Needless to say I had little idea of how things work. Even the basic thing like buying n selling of shares was unknown. As a rank outsider I had entered this world. Today approximately three months are coming to an end and I thought I ll do a recap of these thre months journey.

The first few days were spent on experimenting with the trading acount. trying to figure out how stuff works and all. This also included lots of random search in the internet and frantic lookout for books on stock markets. With zero knowledge of even the functioning of stock exchanges I really did nt give me any chance of making any headways soon enough. Time passed and some suggestions from a couple of people familiar with the markets had me studying hard the concepts of technical analysis from a couple of books teachin the basics of Technical analysis. Mean while I had already stumbled upon traderji dot com and was immersing myself in the ocean of knowledge here.

I even joined a tip providing firm in anticipation of them being able to naiyya paar lagaaofying me. But then on interospection later, I realized later that if I needed a realistic chance to crack this then I should be able to sustain myself. Tips absolutely wont work, I had to figure out my own way. Thats when I came across some wonderful threads on the forum. But some damage had been done. I had already plonked close to one lakh on the tips which were already in the red. Naturally as any new comer I held on to them expecting them to bounce back when the market regained its upward journey (After all they were suggested by experts and were for longish term) Even today some of those calls are close to 30 percent in red since i had entered. Glad that good sense prevailed and i had pulled off from most positions before too much damage was done.
I had already in this brief space of one month burnt my hands on intraday stock trading. But I used to trade with just 10 K so the damage was limited to around 2 K. As time passed and I picked up more on money management and other important aspects of successful stock trading I started gaining in confidence. Importantly I had nt tried my hand at the derivative sections. Some say it was a good move. Its always better to find your feet in cash segment gain enough experience and then move on to more lucrative and naturally more riskier instruments. I dont know if my decision was right or wrong but I stand by it.

As the market was plunging deeper and deeper, I decided to try out intraday trading once more albeit this time with little bit of reasoning and research into the methods i would try out. I realised this had potential for profits and equally big potential to lose everything too, so money management was of utmost importance.

Yes I stepped out of the normally adviced method of paper trading and I have my own reasons for that which I will share as we move ahead with this journey. Gradually I increased my capital for day trading from 10 k to four K by feb 14. That was the time when i was reasonably confident about making some headways with this and so the decision to increase my capital. In close to two weeks of trading my stats stand as follows


Total initial capital (42500)
Total profit/loss ( - 597 ) ie (aprox - 1.5 %)
No of days with profit 6
No of days with loss 4
Maximum profit day 2117 (ie approx 4.5 %)
Maximum Loss day 7837 (ie approx 20.33%)



P.S Friends I am sharing this with you all in the hope that somebody may see this and learn from my mistakes. It is said that smart people learn from their own mistakes and great people learn form other s mistakes.
The saga has not ended.But Im hard pressed for time now so will continue with the posts when I m back.

Hope it helps....
 
#2
Now comming to the topic why I did nt do paper trading. I felt that one of the most important things to have for a trader is balance of emotion. When you trade you need to have a totally blank mind with respect to emotions. Your mind should not race up on seeing the MTM P/L at a huge negetive nor should itget overtly greedy on seeing a big profit. The clarity of thoughts need to be maintained at all times. Plus there are many small things that are important and I personally felt this has to be inculcated in you and it ll take time. More important was the fact that I really did nt mind losing the whole amount i had put up for intraday trades. i was ready to look at the whole amount as operational expense. And I have a job which gives me 6 to 8 months of free time to pursue whatever I need. So yeah I had some sort of financial buffer.

Other thing which i felt and experienced too is that one may trade well on paper but in actual there are many points to be factored in.
Now the Break up that I had shown has a very big day of loss where in I lost close to 20 % of my capital. Ideally my money management should have prevented that from happening. But that was a silly mistake from my side which started it all off. I normally wait for certain levels to be breached to go long or short and normally have two SL orders each on the either side of the range. When one is trigerred the other automatically becomes SAR. I just tehn have to increase the quantity of the other order to double the initial quantity. Now I had planned to trade 300 shares and Placed one order. While placing other I mistakenly placed double and added a one also. ie instead of 300 on the other I placed double with a 1 ie 1600. Yeah it was a silly mistake and I realised it only when the order was executed.
The moment it happend I lost all senses and panicked. To my dismay it went against me and I could already see a huge negetive in the MTM column. Now it was all frantic order placing to reduce the damage, but it already had been done.

Silly mistake but can happen.

Specially when u are new to the whole process of trading.
That was my biggest loss and the single biggest reason why my acount profit is in minus.
I have learnt a few things about the need to be disciplined and about the importance of MM and all. But then there are many fat guys around who know if they dont diet and excercise they d be in trouble, but they still dont do it. So its important not just to have the knowledge but to have the ability to implement. I think the whole crux of this profession is ability to learn and then implement it with maximum strictness. This thread is an effort to help me go in that direction.

I will be updating my monthly performance here in this thread plus would be jotting down what ever my faults have been my learnings so that in a way i will be pressurised into ironing the flaws out since its all in the open. In addition if it helps somebody else too ... well good enough
 
#3
Hi Vibhu,

If at all it would give you any kind of solace, you're not alone. There are worse including the one who is writing this message to you right now. I appreciate your initiative and would definitely try and contribute as much as I can to this thread.

Regards,
 
#4
Thanx Nihilistic. My aim is to bring people in the same stage together so that we can learn from each others experiences. If the seniors can pitch in and add their bit, wud defenitely be great. However I ll be sharing my experiences here. Hope to see you too...
 
#5
BAd day..
Too many wild swings.... SL got hit every time only to resume its journey back...
Many things to ponder on.. Once the SL got triggered but the price fell so fast that order did nt get executed. I then had to manually execute it. The moment it got executed it reversed again and went up. :( got to find a way to stay out of market on such days....:annoyed::eek:
 

S-1585

Active Member
#6
Have you identified which timeframe are you comfortable with?
(e.g. some people because of low initial capital do not think of swing or positional trading evenif that could have been their edge.)
 
#7
BAd day..
Too many wild swings.... SL got hit every time only to resume its journey back...
Many things to ponder on.. Once the SL got triggered but the price fell so fast that order did nt get executed. I then had to manually execute it. The moment it got executed it reversed again and went up. :( got to find a way to stay out of market on such days....:annoyed::eek:
Unless you are very swift in shifting your positions from long to short to long again and very tight on stops,getting out of the trade even if there is no profit and market suddenly reversed, dont trade on such volatile days....market is going to be there so avoid such days.

If you can capitalise on these wild swings, one can trade but always trade small on such wild days.

Smart_trade
 
#8
Unless you are very swift in shifting your positions from long to short to long again and very tight on stops,getting out of the trade even if there is no profit and market suddenly reversed, dont trade on such volatile days....market is going to be there so avoid such days.

If you can capitalise on these wild swings, one can trade but always trade small on such wild days.

Smart_trade
Thanx Smart Trade. Yes I could realise that today. Actually its the mental aspect thats creating problems. First you need to identify such days early enough. When your first trade reverses and you get negative MTM, Novices like me get impatient and try to get back the money lost which leads to even more loss of perspective as panic sets in and we stay in market when we should ve quitely stayed out. Exactly what happened today. This is the very thing which I ve been trying to remove Par kambakht hamesha waapas aa jata hain. Seems I need much more losing days to learn the act of maintaining my composure. But all this is easy in the hindsight. How to see it when the drama is unfolding is the trick I guess.
Its the spider s story that comes to ones mind. Just hope I too have the same perseverence as the spider though
 

tnsn2345

Well-Known Member
#9
Originally Posted by AW10
I made a post related to budget trade in 2009. Here are related posts.

http://www.traderji.com/general-trading-investing-chat/options/2621...tml#post330742
http://www.traderji.com/general-trading-investing-chat/options/2621...tml#post331879

One of the best thread on budget trading is by Sunil (missing him in TJ now-a-day).

http://www.traderji.com/general-trading-investing-chat/trading-diar...on-budget.html

happy trading
Dear AW,

I realised that taking trades for such important days involves some external thinking too (other than reading charts) which IMO is wrong as I trade only the charts. But due to sentiments and news floating around - newspapers, friends, TV, colleagues etc you are bound to be distracted to the developments outside other than the charts. And this thinking influences decisions arrived from the charts. So I realised that the best thing to do is not to do anything and sit on cash on such day.

So like we have 'dry day' on a few occasions in a year, such important days are dry day for trading. So chill out with some beer and enjoy the 'dry day', next day onward is business as usual, treading and trading a known domain by reading charts.

Regards,
Dear Vibhu,

You may visit the below to get the context of the above discussion:

http://www.traderji.com/options/305...g-strategy-option-spreads-138.html#post521884

Regards,
 
#10
Have you identified which timeframe are you comfortable with?
(e.g. some people because of low initial capital do not think of swing or positional trading evenif that could have been their edge.)
Till a couple of weeks back I was comfortable trading the 15 minutes timeframe intraday. I had even backtested for close to an year s data in various stocks and picked out the stocks i was comfortable with. But then as I said its easy in the hindsight. Trying to find sense in the madness as it unfolds is the trick.
hmm miles to go before I stop.......................
 

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