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Strategies & Market Trends : Trading For A Living

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To: jawd who wrote (856)	7/11/1998 1:21:00 PM
From: Char	Read Replies (5) of 1729

To all aspiring day traders. I just thought I would pass on my first week's experiences as a day trader. Before I begin, I would like to state that my experiences have no reflection on MB Trading. I think the software they give you is probably the best that is available for trading over the internet. Anyway I deposited $75K into an account with MB Trading and was set to start trading this week. Monday morning it took me a little while to figure out how to buy and sell using the software but by 9:45 I was ready to do my first trade. I picked NETG as my first trade and bought 500 shares at 23 ¬. It popped up to 23 5/8 so I decided to take my profit. I put in a market sell and the stock started coming back down. I got filled at 23 ¬. HMMM, it's going to be hard making money this way. Anyway I decided to try the same stock again when it looked like it was rebounding. My fill was at 24 1/8 and I got out at 24 « and 24 5/8. Ah, that better. Of coarse you probably notice that my second buy was at a higher price and if I had just held my first shares I would have made more. I should mention that I am trying to hold losses to a minimum so as soon as it looks like a stock is reversing, I put in a sell at market hoping to get out quick. Monday's totals were 8 trades and a profit of $972. I was trying to get the $1000 a day that jawd talks about but didn't quite get there. Tuesday I seemed to be having trouble finding stocks uptrending to jump on. I only made 2 trades and ended up with a profit of $361. I decided that I needed a lot more stocks in my data base so I added around a thousand for the next days trading. Wednesday was a good day. Made 11 trades and $1907 profit. Hey this is all right. Almost like a license to print money. I can't wait for Thursday. YHOO just reported and the internets are going to fly. Thursday's first trade was NSCP and I made 7/16. Not bad so I tried it again. This time I couldn't catch the bounce and got out even. Next I tried YHOO. I got in at 200 ¬. It immediately reversed and I put in a market order to sell. It was about 200 when I put in the order and it fell so fast that I got executed at 198 15/16. So much for limiting losses at ¬ point. Foolishly I tried it twice more and both times took another loss. The first time 1 5/8 and the second time 1 point. On both of these trades I put in a market sell when it fell ¬ and ended up with far greater losses once the order got filled. I tried LCOS next and took a small loss on two different trades. Well I'm not doing too well on the internets, I guess I try something else. DELL was next and I took losses of ¬ and 7/16. For the last trade I chose EGRP and cleared ¬. So for the day I made 11 trades and lost $2961. So much for my $1000/day average. Friday I decided to try to be a little more conservative. I made only 5 trades buy still managed to lose $265. So for the entire week I managed to eke out a profit of $14. I have never spent a more stressful week during my entire working career and all I have to show for it is a lousy $14. People think day trading is all fun and glamour and I think it could be. I had fun the first three days. It was only the last too that spoiled it. Anyway I've heard that most day traders start out by paying a tuition. I guess by not ending my first week with a loss then I should be happy. Well another week is coming up and I'll try to learn from my mistakes, primarily stay away from the fast moving stocks and try to find stocks making gradual uptrends. It may not be as exciting but until I have more experience at this game I think it will be safer and hopefully next week will be more profitable. Dave

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