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Yes, of course I did it again… for the thousandth time… I had winning trade (20 points or more on the YM) after winning trade today, but, on three of the four trades, I didn’t take my profit at 20 or more… instead, I got greedy, I wanted more… and all three times, I ended up stopping out break even, after being up plus 40 twice, and plus 30… then on my final trade, I was up plus 30 and finally settled on plus 20.

I think this is why so many people fail in trading… exiting winning trades is always the hardest thing when you are not a pro… I just try and try to get this under control… but so far, I have not been able to right the ship… and so, days like today get chalked up over and over… where I either make a little, nothing, or even lose money… and then I reflect on the trading day and realize that wow… I could have had a HUGE day or even a great day or even an ok day… instead of an ok day, or a break even day, or a losing day…

ManDrake

If you are going to Trade markets, you have to accept one thing… LOSING TRADES are going to happen to you.

The professional traders do not bat 1000. They do not win on every trade. But, what they do know how to do is manage risk. Managing your losing trades and managing risk is probably the best thing you can ever learn in trading.

It is vital to your trading account that you manage risk, that you accept losses, that you exit trades when they hit your stops… do not use MENTAL STOPS. Use actual hard STOPS. Otherwise, you will find yourself second guessing yourself, and moving your mental stop… and keep moving it over and over and over, until you have blown up your account…

You will LOSE MONEY trading. It doesnt mean that you cannot end up at the end of some time frame profitable… but, in small time frames you will have to take losses, you will have to accept losing money. A lot of small losses is ok… what you want to do is have lots of small losses, and then have BIG GAINS when you do make money. If you have only small gains, but big losses… you will blow up your account.

MANDRAKE

So, imagine a day where you make really good calls all day long, but, every single call you make, you hesitate just long enough to miss the play… and every one of those plays turns out to be a winner… but, guess what ? You missed every single one.

Well, that was my day today… I made great call after call, but I was hesitant all day and I would wait for the trade to start running away from me before I would put in my order… thus, after 3 hours of trading, where I would have made my daily limit, instead, I had nothing to show for it…

and I am sure you can guess what came next yep, I started chasing… and so I went from a potential great day to almost a maxed out loss day… turning my great week into a loser week, and just drepressing the crap out of me.

Moral of the story is: Have a trading plan and trade your plan. Don’t hesitate. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. You are going to be wrong. But, if you hesitate and stop trading your plan, you are bound to have days like this, where you just misfire over and over, and then, once you are finally ready to not hesitate, it can all go to crap.

So, don’t do that

ManDrake

So today, I was in several winning trades (4 to be exact) where I had to set my stops to break even.

But, I found myself having problems moving my stop fast enough, since I move stops to break even at +17. The problem exists since I have to also look to see when to put in my profit order, since at +17, I am only 3 ticks from taking profit. So, after thinking about it for some time, I realized that I need to approach it a little differently…

instead of actually changing my stop to break even at +17 and spying a profit at +20, I need to cancel my stop and place my profit order at +17, and then spy a break even stop loss order… and only putting that back if it gets within 5 points of my entry…

I welcome comments.

MANDRAKE

So, I am bidding on CFC (COUNTRYWIDE).

I am bidding $9.00 for 100 shares. Do not follow my trades… ever. Unless you want to lose all your money

Anyway, here are my thoughts about investing in the stock ticker CFC.

Since peaking earlier this year at an all time high of around $45, it has lost nearly 80% of its value and pulled all the way as low as the mid $8’s… I am now bidding $9

I DO THINK this stock could go lower… a LOT LOWER. I am totally buying this as a speculative play. Looking at a potential ten year timeline. I am looking for it to go to $100. I am not going to get rich on this.

But, I think that this company will not go out of business. I see it as a GM, where its just too big, too important for our economy, too many large institutions invested in it…

yes, its getting absolutely slammed by the subprime blow up… but, that is a temporary problem and it appears that the banks are taking their medicine quickly and writing off huge amounts so as to absorb the blow now, and look to the future to start growing earnings again.

As I write this, the next years p/e on the stock is at a respectable 5 times 2008 projected earnings. Not bad… but not great if the earnings continue to slow.

Anyway, this is my investment thought for this black friday where, NO I DID not make any trades today.

Mandrake

Today, I went long on what I consider to be a 8 trade (10 being the best). The 1,3, and 5 minute stochastic were all over sold.
I stopped out -20 within minutes. By the way, the TRIN was at 1.10

So, I checked for some key levels of support from a number of sources…. and decided on another LONG at a lower level.
Of course, it started to go south on me quickly… about 5 points… then it popped back up to about my entry point…

now, of course I was praying that the thing would keep going up… but, I had that feeling… that feeling you get when you KNOW you made the wrong choice, and you just know its just a matter of time before you get stopped out…

well, I went ahead and moved my stop up to right below the previous low, so that if it broke down any further, I would sell my position and short an equal amount… so, the end result was what I like to call FLIPPING OUT OF A BAD POSITION…

today, this worked perfect… it did break down further, flipped me out of the position and switched me into a short position… then it kept going down, and I ended up taking 30 points on it.

So the end result was break even for the day.

Now, the problem with flipping out of positions is that you are always going to get the worst fill. Bad fills is a sure way to go broke. I hate bad fills. So, I should hate flipping out of positions… so, what should I have done today ?

The answer is: I should flipped out of the position on the high side, and not at a break down… I would have stolen an extra 5-7 points on BOTH SIDES… as you can see, this is always better than flipping a break out or break down.

So, even though I made money, and it worked out for me today… I should not have done it… had I flipped the position for 5 points higher, I would have made a total of 10 MORE POINTS on the same trade. When you consider that your daily goal is only 10 points… you can quickly see why this is so important.

Anyway, after I flipped out, and realized that the bears were in charge, I was able to short another decent pullback, and ended up making another 30 points on its way back to the established low of the day… in, out, and I was done for the day.

ManDrake.

Hello World!

Welcome to my blog about stocks and investing and trading.

My name is Robert Mandrake.

I am passionate about investing, trading, and blogging.

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ManDrake