Many of you might relate to this, and what it suggests your struggles might be pertaining to trading.
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Joined Aug 2, 2009
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If you need to remind yourself you are alive, then I suggest this book/program. I am in week 5 and it is superlative:
http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic/dp/1609618955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405013925&sr=8-1&keywords=mindfulness
Tai-chi helps me being awake, alive, patience. Still I’m struggled when it comes to trading, ha,ha,ha,,, challenging.
My account is up 50% today,
lol
How do you sleep at night?
With no puts and only calls on DUST and JDST. Albeit I had NUGT 48s from yesterday that I sold at 9:40 EST.
#timestamp
Private reply
what?
LMFAO. You’re either fucking insane and will be gone in a month, or you’re playing with $1500 bucks.
Matt- If Bruce does have a $1,500 account, playing this position size in options does make sense, in a perverse way. Need to get enough contracts to get over the commission cost impact. This results in the big bet actually being a rational play for a piker account, in my opinion. If he gets to 5 to 10K account size, he can scale back into sanity. No offense to Bruce, good luck.
Agreed. Check out these swings in my account this year. Rough estimation from what I can recall. I don’t remember the exact dates of all the swings, but it went something kind of like this.
Jan 1 – $10,000
May 14 – $300
May 15 – $2,000
June 1 – $6,000
June 8 – $9,000
June 15- $4,000
June 22 – $12,000
June 30 – $17,000
July 2 – $29,000
July 8 – $9,000
July 9 – $12,000
July 10 – $19,000
I have a few very high conviction plays with outrageous position sizes. If it all works out I should have $25-30K at a minimum by July expiry. If not, I’ll be down to about $10K…right where I started the year. I’m ok if I lose, but if I win I’ll have a decent size bankroll and be able to trade at the proper position size that I desire to trade at. I made $30K in blackjack last year so I’m very comfortable if I lose here…I don’t need this to feel alive.
That logic makes no sense. You could start small and increase position just as easily as you could do the opposite and the results would be virtually the same… Extremely dependent upon a few trades or luck. There is no factual basis for such a strategy being beneficial. Your aggression as a strategy makes much more sense in blackjack where you can easily play 1000 uncorrelated hands in a weekend to “normalize” results and work off dramatic downswings and allow your edge to compound. In trading that is a few years worth and the trades will correlated and instead you have eliminated your edge because you are dependent upon your largest trades working out, and once they do you are still dependent upon your next largest. This idea that you are going to scale back some day is bogus. If that is the correct strategy at 40k, there is no reason you shouldn’t at 20k.
Holy crap. Good call. I did have about $1500. I built it from $400 2 months ago. I now have a lot more than $1500 from my DUST and JDST.
Oh and before anyone calls BS, I had an options account before… actually bought $15k in calls around SPX 680 and then sold a few days later and bought puts. I quit for a while after that.
scale back and learn the easy way so you don’t have to learn the hard way.
Keep positions to 1% of capital at risk to 3%. If you really love the setup and all the stars align, go 3%, if not go 1%…. Stocks are different but still 1%-3% “risk” with an awareness that stocks may be closed below their stops. Many go 2%. Some might suggest that if you have a smaller account to use a more concentrated approach. Only a few positions larger position sizes (like 4 or 5%) and if the extra volatility breaks your way you can work your way down in position size and learn to manage more positions.
When it comes to learning from mistakes, it is always best to try to learn the lessons from others first, small mistakes second and psychological trauma that comes with the big ones 3rd, but not if you can help it.
Or if you feel like a lemon – go all in on CYNK
Great post !!
Like AWAY down here – would love to buy a dip in the morning
of all the YGE options, YGE Sep $4s catching some volume. I’ll take some down for a longterm YOLO.
$YGE is the devil. i am convinced
perhaps a PCLN YOLO for tomorrow. 1220 strike
any company that sponsors the worldcup has to be legit. I still like YGE even if everyone hates it.
Those YGE Sept 4s was me. Like the spot.
Lots of GAMBLING going on… most of you will blow out no doubt
I will never blow out again. I will just lower position sizes if my account shrinks. Am I recklessly gambling part of my account though? Yeah.
“I will never blow out again” ….lol famous last words no doubt you will blow out
’tis a luxury of excess discretionary income. I don’t think any of these people are “gambling” with their life savings or depending on trades as the main source of income. if they were, I’m sure you’d see different results/position sizes. Some professional athletes in kc (and everywhere) throw away money at the casinos like no other…discretionary spending at its finest….total waste, but I’m not complaining when I’m taking a long in a casino.
For the true “gamblers”, hopefully they blow out a small account sooner than later, as it could be the best trading lesson they’ll ever have.
I did some simulation work. Hopefully this will help work some sense into people. I simulated this year’s results which was substantially better than years past and the expectations going forward are probably over optimistic. Looking at theoretical $25,000 account and YES the simulation accounted for fees.
http://ibankcoin.com/hattery/2014/07/11/system-simulation-and-position-sizing/
Reading some of the stories about peoples account swings is pretty rough. I’ve been doing this for a few years and don’t see how anybody who’s entire account is moving up and down that much over the course of a few weeks is ever going to make it as a trader. It’s also hard to take any stock advice seriously from these people as they are making choices focused on different parameters…sometimes simply hope that this is not their last trade. No one trades well under those situations. I’ve been a stock and futures trader for the past 10yrs and came here to get some experience in options. It seems that the lure of the massive wins creates irrationally behavior. I’m not sure what OA’s take is on this but is it better to learn how to trade individual stocks through buying stock and then move into options… or maybe it makes no difference?
This is the best site out there and OA is one of the best traders I;ve seen but in order to get the most out of their skills you have to do more than just blindly follow. Picking the stock is the most important thing but there is so much more that goes into making a trade and you have to get it all right. I really hope everyone gets on track and maximizes the full enjoyment out of trading!
How’s the ulcer, Harry?
Pretty good. How’s the hypertension?
Turn those machines back onnnnnn…..
That is what makes all of this so difficult. I try not to encourage gambling, but its hard to watch people on that path because I know where it leads. It’s especially hard when we’re working with a decent edge in the markets…which means it all comes down to position sizing and proper account management.