Monday, May 12, 2008

Virtual Office, $148. SPY, +1.58, $140.46.

Me, $190 on 2400 shares traded.
OBAT, $10 on 3400 shares traded.
Tokyo, no trades.
Denarii, -$2 on 1400 shares traded.
Ainkurn, -$50 on 500 shares traded.

We just barely inched over the billion share traded mark today on the NYSE. Just for perspective, the last time we traded so little was on December 27th, Christmas week. Also, for fun, I checked the volume on this day last year... we traded 1.4 billion on May 11th last year (May 12 was a weekend).

So, about 40% less than a year ago... not great.

But who gives a fuck? I made money today, breaking my 5 day loss streak. I'll get into that all later, in my daily post as I describe how YOU TOO can make $200 a day in the market.

"How I Make $200 A Day In The Stock Market," by Dinosaur Trader... imagine how that would fly off the shelves of bookstores everywhere? It'd be an instant investment classic... fuck An American Hedge Fund. My book would be the "Catcher in the Rye" of the stock market world... while Mr. Sykes's book would collect dust.

Ah well... my real office clocked in at 50/50 winners to losers which, unfortunately, is also an improvement on last week. Still, perhaps it signals a better tone to trading this week, despite the volume.

Anyway, we know this market is in a weird place right now. How weird, we'll only know in a few months, when today is history.

Or instead, maybe things are just normal, and normal is boring.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

"How I Make $200 A Day In The Stock Market," by Dinosaur Trader

kind of deceptive considering you made $190

Unknown said...

DT,

I've been able to recognize my trading in the last months in your trading. I am reading ur posts everyday to see how ur day went and what kind of things happened to u. And most of the times the shits that happened to u correspond to 99% of the shits that happened to me. When i read ur post is like i am reading about how my day went. Time after time i am missing opportunities because of previous failures in the stock. Thus, i end up making the bad trades and the good trades I either do not enter or cut them quickly.

Thus, my bad days are coming one after another because of the few good trades and many losers. And still when I have a good day i finish making 1/3 of what i could have made...for the same reason. If i dont lose 300-400$ in real...i lose them in opportunity costs.

At least i have solved some problems that are very destructive for this market. 1. I stopped overtrading and chasing stocks 2. I am almost not doing revenge trading or leave my emotions to play role. 3. became more patient for entrance. The only thing that is stoping in getting back in the old shape is CONFIDENCE. I believe u have the same problem. And even that I am trying to force myself to enter trades that match my criterias, i still miss most of the good oportunities.

For example today...all financials were going down and BAC had a buyer. I was waiting for him to finish buying and go short. The stock started going down and at 37.00 there was a huge order...probably the last part. SPY was going down and i was waiting to go short at 37 with a stop at 37.10 (high of the day). as people started taking the order i was just sitting on the enter button. He was taken everything and the stock immediately droped 20 cents - my target. I watched in despair. I never punched in my 500 shares. And I missed 3-4 trades like this and i do this every day. Is like 300-400$. But the bad trades I never miss.

I know that i have improved alot in the qualities that I were missing for this crappy market but still feel like I am missing a very little piece that we bring me back on track.

A question to all the traders here: do u have any advice or recommendation and what is working for u guys? I'd appreciate to hear from people with similar problems in this choppy market.

ST

Dinosaur Trader said...

ST,

Glad you're figuring some stuff out... I think the last couple of months have been tricky. And that's not just me talking, it's my entire office. Minus a couple of superstars, the vast majority of traders there have been struggling...

-DT

Dinosaur Trader said...

Pete,

Apparently, I won't be hiring you to help market my book.

-DT

TJ said...

LOL,

If the book is as good as the blog, I'm sure it'll be a best seller despite the title.

Dinosaur Trader said...

jamie,

I haven't been over to your site to see how you hit the EXM... I'm sure it will make me depressed. Well done in that NOV, by the way...

Actually, I'm just starting with this HCPG stuff. But as I get more comfortable, I hope to branch out a bit into more setups, a la, WSW.

-DT