February Results

February Results - DD

I have to admit February hurt a little bit. A few things I need to point out from this months results:

1) The position in NFLX accounted for $1,772 of the total $3,179 or 55.7% of the loss. I did a post trade analysis, Click here to read. With my attempt to repair the position instead of just booking the loss I increased my max loss from $1,250 to $1,772. If I would had just exited the day after the earnings release I could had gotten out for about a $900 loss. This was me not wanting to admit I was wrong. I too much size to begin with, and my risk expectations were way out of line if you read my post analysis post. But I learned a lot from the trade, so it was not for nothing.

2) Another $1,021 was from my position in DRYS. I overplayed this name, and then I got stubborn. When it broke below $6 that should had been my sign to exit. I did not have a stop loss set and I take full responsibility for this trade, but I am not happy with my management of the position.

So as you can see two positions accounted for 88% of my total loss for the month. After evaluating these results I now realize that I need to set a maximum % of my total portfolio that I am willing to risk on any one position, as well as a maximum dollar amount. I am still thinking about what these limits will be but I will create another post when I decide with explanations.

March is a new month.

Good Luck Trading!

Comments

WOW! I think that sums it up

Many of you have been reading this blog may have noticed that my blogging frequency has increased over the past few weeks as I got short the market. As you can imagine I am down money since getting short the market, this is the time when most people pull away from posting. But my goal is to stay active and involved and show you that trading is not always rainbows and butterflies. It is times like these that the things I have been sharing over the past couple of weeks are so important. You need to trade small relative to your account. I have a decent short position in the market and my portfolios are set up to make some awesome returns if we finally turn lower. But something I would like to point out is that my account is 70% Cash. I learned a long time ago how important it is to live by the rules you preach. Because of my discipline I am able to continue to hold my positions, I have time and capital on my side. I can't stress enough how important it is not to get to big....

Stay Small, Stay Out of Trouble

To expand on my post from yesterday about patience. I want to talk about a very important element that allows patience in a position, and that is staying small. If you trade too big RELATIVE to your personal account size, you are likely to be forced to exit the trade before the trade works in your favor. Many trades myself included have all experienced the pains of trading a position way too large given our account size. There is this predisposition out there that the only way you are going to make money in the financial markets is if you are trading 10 lots of options and 1000 shares of stock at the time. This is not the case, and if this is your mentality you will likely ensure yourself trouble. We have all read the stories of traders blowing up their account. I personally think a good rule of thumb is to not risk more than 5% of your account value on any one position. Good Luck Trading! In The Money Trades And 1 favor that we ask: If you like the hard work w...

more good news from FXStreet : Tom Fitzpatrick, senior technical analyst at Citibank in New York. Monday, July 15, 2002 "Parity is a psychological, not a technical level...and whether we pause around parity or not, we are likely to see significant further dollar losses...Our initial target is $1.03 to $1.0450. If that level is taken out, it actually casts a question mark against the whole of the dollar's rally of the last seven years, and could open up a full-blown bear market for the dollar." Julian Jessop, chief European economist at Standard Chartered Bank. Monday, July 15, 2002 "The dollar is under pressure from everything from economic problems to asset reallocation away from the U.S. and corporate accounting problems. It's difficult to see any positive factor for the dollar at the moment. The root of the problem is the U.S. current account deficit. If the U.S. doesn't have to attract an enormous amount of foreign capital, people wouldn't have to wor...

Forex Is Crazy

Search This Blog