Hi

[james_gsx 16]

I'm new, obviously. My name is obviously James too..

 

I'm 19 years old, I've been trading with real money for a few months but I've been actively watching the markets for 6 years now.

 

I started trading February 26th 2007 lol I didn't take any trades because, and I'm not kidding about this, "I don't want something stupid to happen over night." Thats word for word what I told my mom, and I got very lucky

 

Very quickly I fell into some of the traps I didn't think I could fall into. I wanted to know everything about technical analysis because I was afraid something could come up and I wouldn't see it. I learned everything I could and quickly fell into a trap where every stock looked terrible. I couldn't figure out what indicators to use and all of that, I simply knew too much and became too emotional. Ironicaly, now I don't use any indicators. I just use market internals and price (obviously other things like my pivot points if those count and fib lines for the ambush play)

 

Right after that I went searching for the holy grail, ignoring what I used to do that I loved so much. I was really good at finding good companies that I could hold onto for a few months and would grow quite a bit. I was too busy looking for the holy grail and I missed a lot of great plays. I wanted to find a system that worked for me, but had no idea where to start. I tried swing trading since I knew charts, but I realized I was looking at too many stocks and couldn't stay focused.

 

Then came the earnings plays, short and sweet the ones I did good research on paid off and the ones I breezed over failed. You guess which one ended up taking over.

 

Then I found the YM and ES. Finally something I could focus on and something that fit my personality. I read John Carters book and Pit Bull, became hooked. Now thats what I do and I love it. I've been writing a trading plan for the last few weeks and outlining all of my strategies. I'm keeping it simple with just a few strategies while I learn how everything works. I'm quickly getting the hang of it, I love it. Since I still enjoy swing trading I now just focus on the 30 dow stocks. This helps me to stay focused on one thing, I felt it would be a good set of stocks to look at since I'll be trading the YM. I still have a few stocks that I will actually invest in, and hold those for a long period of time since I really do enjoy researching companies as well as day trading.

 

The biggest turning point for me was when I realized you don't trade stocks or options, you trade other people. Once I figured that out, it all started to fall into place. I have always been interested in psychology so reading about market psychology is enjoyable.

 

I learned everything through the school of hard knocks, and by getting beat up in the market. I lost $5,000 with earnings plays, but I tell people it was a cheap lesson that could have cost me much more in the future had I not learned now. Anyways, sorry for the lengthy post. I hope to learn a lot here, and happy trading

[TinGull 10]

Welcome aboard James! Nice car, too...love the pics And a GT30....jeeeesh! I sold a few GT30's to the MR2 crowd years back when I had a parts business. Drove an MR2 with a t3/t4 monstrosity...I'll never forget that day.

[james_gsx 16]

Haha, that GT30 was a PITA to take out!

 

[torero 10]

Congratulations, James. And let me sincerely say that you're probably the youngest and the smartest in this forum. At 19, you seem to have matured so much than the rest of us in trading, yet committed the biggest sins that cost on 5K while the rest of us dare not be precise about our tuition.

 

All the best of luck and I admire your path of progress! Hope you stick around and teach old dogs a few new tricks!

[james_gsx 16]

Thank you Torero, but my youth still does take advantage of me. I do have a lot of problems that I need to work out, but I think as I grow older and more discipline I will over come those problems. My biggest problems lie within my emotion and discipline. I need to learn how to focus more and adapt to behavior modification. I have learned a lot on this forum in the short amount of time I have been here.

 

I never talk about how much money I make or lose, except for that 5k because it's something I can never forget. It's not a lot of money for some people but for me it was huge. I was foolish, when I paper traded all those years I always did so well and I figured starting with real money would be no different and I would never lose money. So as you can imagine, I took unwanted risks and lost money faster than I thought possible. Now as an amateur to the YM I expect to lose money, but I now know that the only way I can learn is by making mistakes and watching others make mistakes.

[PYenner 10]

Hi James

 

You will find constructive people here willing to help with a new market or plan if you need it.

 

Gee wish I had know about markets at age 19, it sounds wonderfully promising, especially the fact that you enjoy it and learn lessons from it.

 

Yes, your thinking is your best friend and your worst enemy in this game, you seem to have a lot sorted out already. I hope it keeps on getting better and better for you.

 

Good luck James

[torero 10]

There are advantages and disadvantages of being young and of being old.

 

Disadvantages of being older:

1) has more responsibilities and obligations to make money, less prep time to get up and running

2) know TOO MUCH and think he knows ALOT, taking advice from others are hard

3) has too much money to lose

4) new tricks harder to learn, going back to school ain't easy

5) too many years of learning real-world B.S. (make yourself look good, never admit mistakes, etc)

6) harder to change old habits/mistakes

 

advantages of being older:

1) raging hormones and emotions no longer take precedence (at least less than teen years)

2) more knowledge of life, correlate and use it in trading (good stuff here but some traders add bad stuff and make trading worse).

3) patience is better honed in

4) once found solutions, has resources and knowledge to apply them.

 

 

I think there are good and bad from each side. We both admire each others' given assets but in the end, each trader has his/her demon(s) to deal with.

[james_gsx 16]

I noticed today that I still don't know the YM as well as I would like. For example my first trade of the morning was the opening gap, at first it looked like the gap would fill and came within a few points of filling then fell pretty hard. I let a close friend sit by and watch me trade, he was emotional watching the price fall but I stayed cool and told him it's natural, our stop wasn't hit and neither was the target so we would stay in until something happened.

 

A little while later the price came back up to fill the gap, came withing just a few points again and bounced around. I have in my trading plan that the only time I can exit a trade early is if the tape is disagreeing with my trade. I noticed heavy selling around a particular price, and I decided to exit early. I was still profitable and ranked the trade a 4 (got out early but profitable) Sure enough the market filled the gap and I missed out on those extra points.

 

Looking back at it I have to ask myself: Should I have kept my trade because my stop nor target was hit? Or did I accurately follow my plan because the tape was going against my trade?

 

I know that gaps typically fill, and I told myself that when I was exiting the trade. But I also told myself the tape wasn't agreeing, and I was still profitable so I should just take the profit and look for another trade to set up and move on.

[TinGull 10]

Last weeks gap from Thu/Fri has taken 3 days to fill now...slow and molasseses-like this action is!

[torero 10]

there are 2 ways you can do this: trailing stop with an exit at the top of the gap. But one thing you shouldn't do is regretting those extras. Those will come back and haunt you. Forget it and be happy you got it.

[james_gsx 16]

Well since I hit my goal early in the day I didn't want to get greedy so I left for a while and took pictures of my new car. I know if I stay around the computer too much I might over trade, I just want to be happy with hitting my goal and look forward to tomorrow. Right now I'm just watching and taking notes and not taking any trades.

 

BTW Torero, I really like the site you have listed in your sig. I found some good stuff there!

[torero 10]

I'm glad you find it useful. I put all these thoughts and ideas I've learned and wrote it down. That's why keeping a journal is the probably the best idea given to me by a mentor. Writing reinforces your beliefs (adding new positive ones and ridding of the old negative ones). Probably got a lot more to learn as I'm don't understand everything yet so still a long way from completing the full cycle of trading success.

[PYenner 10]

I think you did the right thing and should continue to do it, without real regrets.

Making money is the easiest part, anyone can do that temporarily, keeping from losing money is by far the more difficult and decisive part in getting ahead.

You got profit and safety when you closed, that is as close to perfection as you can expect in a uncertain world.

 

I am not a fan of sticking absolutely to plans that will always be simplistic compared to the complexity of a market. An experienced and cautious brain is every bit as important as a paper plan. Using your judgement will make your stats harder to follow but you are in it to win, not to play games with stats.

 

Rules are made to be broken, when there is justification for breaking them, you had good justification. When you do intervene it will often look like the results were 50:50 and you wonder if you are achieving anything. I say yes, safety is priceless, it comes ahead of a few extra points of profit.

[Soultrader 12]

Welcome James,

 

Very impressed at how young you are. Trading departments are gonna love you. Good luck on your journey and will catch you around the forums.

 

Soultrader

[Nick1984 10]

Welcome to the forums mate!

 

Man I thought I was young when starting out on my trading journey. You seem very mature at 19 moreso than most and its admirable to see that your thinking of your financial future at such a young age. I reckon that that trade you exited from early wasn't such a bad trade, you're being a bit harsh on yourself there. A profit in the pocket is always better than a profit on paper. You should feel proud that you stuck to your rules cause in the long run thats gonna make you more than the few missed points you could of taken along the way.

[ajhunter 10]

Hey James --

Just got around to reading this post, and it is a tricky issue you present... My immediate thought was to wonder whether having a friend watching might have had more of an impact than you realized. Do you think you would have made the same decision to get out had he not been there? I know for myself I don't trade as well when my wife comes in and watches, because my fear of a trade turning against me increases when someone else is there. I've recently read JC's book, and am working on staying in trades for longer, so I know how hard it can sometimes be! Ultimately though I certainly also agree with torero about being happy you got the profitable trade you did!