Archive for category: Day Trading Lessons

,

Don’t Be Afraid to Take Profits

Personal Growth as a Day Trader

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the emotions of fear and greed and how they impact our behavior and our profitability as traders. We've all probably heard the saying that "Wall Street is driven by two things: fear and greed" and while emotions do play their part in the big picture they can certainly impact individual traders as well.

This has been on my mind lately because I've been working with a couple of traders that are trying to push their profitability to new heights and a part of that is selectively increasing their profit targets on some trades. However, they've yet to find a good balance of greed that gives them the best long-term result.

That's right, I did say balance, so I'm not saying greed is bad. Then again, it's not really that good either. You could say that the dose makes the poison.

Read more

/6 Comments/by

A Week in Review: Friday the 5th +3.75 Points

Friday 0605 Emini Day Trading

Today's trading was short and sweet.  Sometimes I do go a bit longer on Fridays but most of the time they are pretty short days for me.  That also means that this will probably be a pretty quick recap.

The good news was that even with a very short session today it was still a positive result of +3.75 Points bringing the weekly total to +19.25 Points or $4812.50 with 5 contracts traded.  That's a great result by any measure but considering that my average loss is usually just a little under 1 Point it really puts things in perspective.

Some weeks offer more than this and some offer less but the key thing as I've mentioned before is CONSISTENCY.  If you can be consistent week after week then even just making 5 points on a weekly basis allows you to have a very profitable trading business which can continue to grow as position sizes are increased. Read more

/by

A Week in Review: Thursday the 4th +1.75 Points

Day Trading Futures 0604

Today was a much trickier day to trade compared to the rest of the week so far although that didn't come as a huge surprise.  Friday is the Non-Farm Employment report and it's not unusual for the Thursday before that release to be a bit lacklustre.  Sometimes that's because the volumes are low and price only moves in narrow ranges but there can also be days like this where price covers a bit more ground but is very erratic in its movements. Read more

/by

A Week in Review: Wednesday the 3rd +6.5 Points

Day Trading Futures 0603

I'm loving some of these big swings right now!  One of the key elements of moving into a higher level of profitability is learning to be adaptable to market conditions. We've been seeing some pretty good momentum and large swings lately so it makes sense to adapt our targets a bit and take advantage when the opportunity is there.  Yesterday's trading has some similar moves as you can see from the post below: Read more

/1 Comment/by

A Week in Review: Tuesday the 2nd +7.25 Points

Day Trading Futures 0602

This week I thought I would try posting something a little different with the STA blog that will hopefully illustrate a few important things traders should be aware of.  Here's the plan - to make a daily post of my trading results while trading 5 contracts and then to do a summary at the end of the week with the overall results.

My Trading Routine

First off, it's important to set up my typical trading week.  Most of the time I only trade four days in a week, meaning I take Mondays off and work Tuesday through Friday.  I don't do this for any major reason other than enjoying having regular "long weekends" so it's a lifestyle consideration for me.  I also generally trade for only 2 to 3 hours per day starting in the morning at 9:30 EST which is the NYSE open time (shown on my charts by the vertical blue line at 6:30 PST).   Read more

/by

© Copyright - Samurai Trading Academy - RISK DISCLOSURE: Futures trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones financial security or life style. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. CFTC HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE DISCLAIMER: HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE MANY INHERENT LIMITATIONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE DESCRIBED BELOW. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN; IN FACT, THERE ARE FREQUENTLY SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND THE ACTUAL RESULTS SUBSEQUENTLY ACHIEVED BY ANY PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM. ONE OF THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS IS THAT THEY ARE GENERALLY PREPARED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. IN ADDITION, HYPOTHETICAL TRADING DOES NOT INVOLVE FINANCIAL RISK, AND NO HYPOTHETICAL TRADING RECORD CAN COMPLETELY ACCOUNT FOR THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RISK OF ACTUAL TRADING. FOR EXAMPLE, THE ABILITY TO WITHSTAND LOSSES OR TO ADHERE TO A PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM IN SPITE OF TRADING LOSSES ARE MATERIAL POINTS WHICH CAN ALSO ADVERSELY AFFECT ACTUAL TRADING RESULTS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS OTHER FACTORS RELATED TO THE MARKETS IN GENERAL OR TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ANY SPECIFIC TRADING PROGRAM WHICH CANNOT BE FULLY ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE PREPARATION OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND ALL WHICH CAN ADVERSELY AFFECT TRADING RESULTS.