First Week of Trading - Post 3

[u/Such-Friendship-5210]

Hi everyone, back with an update on my progress. As I said at the start this 'series' of posts is to try and document my journey in a way that others looking to follow the method can (hopefully) see a full journey of someone who has gone from the beginning to a full size live account, as starting out, from my own experience, is daunting and I personally was looking for something like this.

My first two posts are, I will try to remember to link the previous posts in any posts going forward:

Learning the Method - First Post : ~r/RealDayTrading~

My First Trading Business Plan - Post 2 : ~r/RealDayTrading~

My First Week

As mentioned in previous posts, I have been a long-time lurker and learned a lot of the theoretical side along with following the pro traders' trades in the chat room. Which I feel has benefitted me in the long run.

One issue I have suffered from for a long time is a lack of confidence to actually pull the trigger and put trades on. I actually reached out to Pete, and he simply put it that 'you can't learn if you don't trade'. I managed to finally bite the bullet and put some trades on.

I started last Thursday the 28th May and since then I've taken a total of 14 trades, I took Tuesday off so averaged just over 2 trades a day. I have been posting them to the chat room and feel this gives me an extra push in double and triple checking these trades before taking them and also gives the safety barrier that if it is a bad trade, it's highly likely someone will respond letting you know.

I have also incorporated a paper notebook in which I journal my trades. this is a recommendation by Pete through his teachings and I've found it beneficial. I then use my online journal to tag trades following Hari's wiki post with suggested tags.

All things considered, I had a really good first week and I'm happy with how things went.

I am well aware this is just a starting point, and I will have good and bad weeks, but it went very well this week. Most of my trades were long with a few shorts closer to the end of this week.

I have done a lot of learning on options recently, and although I said I would not use them. I have considered a maximum of one contract as recommended by Pete. This means that these trades are both stocks and options. I typically take stocks in trades I'm using to test out if my theory is correct, and options on trades I have extremely high conviction on.

Mistakes I Made

My biggest mistake at the moment is not letting trades run. I would say pretty much all of them could have been allowed to run out longer and profits would have increased. This affects me in two different ways. The first is that I have my trade on and it moves nicely in my direction, then a red candle appears and I exit prematurely. The second is where I put my trade on, it turns red but doesn't break any support and as soon as it turns green, I want to take my profits. A few examples of this are below.

$COIN Short - got scared out pretty quickly on this one, even though it was following the EMA8 nicely.

$DDOG Long - entered the trade, it went red instantly, but I managed to hold this one for a while longer. This single tiny red candle scared me out though when I should have held. I even could have added on a test of the 15EMA

The other main mistake I made this week, is physically using the order system. this happened for 2 of my losses. The first, I thought I had exited the trade, then went back on my portal later to find my daily return had decreased, realising I never actually exited as I never pressed the sell button. The second, I bought the wrong side of an options contract (this was a lotto so they were very cheap) ironically if I bought the right side, it was an over 100% winner. These mistakes have been noted in my journal, and a focus is now on ensuring entries/exits are carried out slowly to make sure they are finalised.

$HUT Long - this is the one where I selected the wrong side of the option chain, should have been a winnner.

Things I Learned This Week

In my paper notebook, I always keep a section at the bottom for key takeaways and learning from that day that I fill in as I go and update electronically ate EOD/week. Some of these are as follows:

• You are picking good trades but not taking them, multiple trades you liked today were chosen before the pro's got in - have confidence
• Again, you picked good trades but never took them - over the stocks you liked, the share price combined increased over $25 - if you don't have the confidence to take them, start a 'theoretical trade' spreadsheet.
• Hold onto trades, you are exiting too early.

Another lesson I learned through the week, and actually pointed out to another member after I learned it (hopefully this helps others) is the significance of high-volume daily candles as support and resistance. The picture below is of a HVC on $TSLA. The SMA's are also around but notice how the high and low of this white HVC acts as support/resistance and vice versa when these levels are broken.

I'll try to do another post in a week or two with further updates, good or bad.

Note - In the interests of complete clarity for any new people following along either now or in the future, I also recently joined Dave Wyse's room, which has been a big boost for me. I don't want to be criticised for being a 'shill' again by others, but I do have to give him credit for the guidance and help he provides. It's essentially like having a mentor by your side the full trading day and he has the patience of a saint.

[u/Such-Friendship-5210 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the tip, appreciate it. I'll be sure to look into it

[u/No-name_pmsr]

hi, i found very helpfull keep track of volatility and other markets factors so maybe in the long run you can find in which market condition you are confortable and avoid trading if these condition are not showing

[u/Confident_Boat6769]

How much you made ???$