A behind the scenes, sneak peak into what happens in our 30 day boot camp...
It's about learning to get paid, and improving every day.
@Lyn 7:52 PM
Pete: Thanks for a great day of trading. I really feel I am learning a lot. Have been profitable every day I have traded in the boot camp. However, I still have lots of room to improve. Right now, what jumps out at me from reading my journal is entry, exit and stops.
In the past I think I have let trades move against me too long before getting out. I have done this both with stops and without. Now I am always using stops, and probably setting them too tight and/or moving them up too quickly. Let me use my #NKE trade today as a perfect example of what keeps happening.
Hey @Lyn... I LOVE this analysis. The subject of "booking profits" and managing trades has been a hot topic in the community for a couple of months, so I have new training come out soon.
The challenge for me as an educator is that we all have different objectives. For trader #1 booking a $500 profit might be the best thing that happened to them, and they don't care what happens after they exit.
For trader #2 they will be angry they left money on the table. One of the key elements we need to address is that day trading is not swing trading. The activity level is higher for the same idea. Sure we get a few "set it and forget it" trades, but the reality is it's more likely we will get stopped out of profitable day trades.
Optimizing winning day trading exits in this new world of an algorithmic driven market (where specialists and market makers are no longer physically managing the order flow) will take you down a never ending loop.
That's why yesterday we had a LONG group discussion about managing winning trades and the debate of profit targets versus a tailing stop loss. BUT there are two things to focus on here...#1 is that most of our conversations are about managing winning trades!
Most GROUPS of traders can't make that claim. So that means we have a solid edge that puts us in a position to win. 🙂
Number two is the desire to improve, the desire to ask questions, get feedback and adapt that feedback to achieve your personal objectives.
I think that's what makes our community special, we are in this together.
Pete
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Jeff: A little food for thought.... From today's watchlist, if I had gone long on all 12 of them when they first crossed the open after my usual 15m intro, and stayed until just before the close, I would have stopped out on 3, lost on 2, and had proportionally large gains on the rest.
It would have been a very profitable day.
Day reviews like this help me gain confidence in the edge and my ability to see and react to the signals.
@ Jeff, this is great insight, nice job reviewing the trades from a "feedback/learning" mindset. It also validates our concept of 10 perfect trades and why I advocate more trades with less shares, then add to the winners.
We have zero idea which trades will follow through, but we need to take all of them.
Pete