tradersams blog

Well – a break from writing and posting.

I have done a lot of reading, and a bit of trading.  Its been rough.  Looking at others blogs, news articles, conversations and so on – I get the feeling I am not alone in that thought.

I wont bore anyone who may read this with the highlights / lowlights of the last couple of years.

I will say that the last couple of months have treated my account nicely.  I am not alone I suspect – as they say “a rising tide floats all the boats”.  The year before that… well I managed not to sink the boat.  Risk management.  Cut losing trades.  Hunt for moving shares.  Try things and experiment on charts.  That is a reasonable summary of what I did.

Looking at the blogroll on my site, I see that a number of others have moved on – some silently, some with a farewell.  I know I have spoken to some traders over a coffee who have been battered and bruised.  Then there are the ones who survive in all markets.  That’s where I am aiming to get to.  Its good to have a goal they say 😉

Moving forward it’s not my plan to post my open positions, some may say that’s cheating.  I’ll only post the ones I open, until next I have a break.  As previously stated, follow for education.  If I go to sleep I can’t promise I’ll post my closes!

ok – that was a porky above – I will give you some highlights.  I visited other countries for work and pleasure (Vietnam, Hong Kong, parts of Oz).  I worked on a significant project here in Australia with the government that may in the long term affect how we all interact with them.  I have worked on contracts and technical implementation of interesting company infrastructure.  I’ve had good trades and bad trades.  My daughter has moved for a term of school to live in the mountains and go hiking.  My son is learning about capitalism – he has a job in a fast food joint serving chicken.  I have tested some systems (amibroker) and coded some systems (c++ / amibroker / metastock).  I’ve moved into a house with my girlfriend, survived corporate downsizings and worked on a project that touched every state school here in Victoria.  Its been fun.

So – who knows if I will have enough time to write!

So where are we at?

All Ords last friday

To the right is a graph of the ASX All ordinaries from the close of trade last friday.  Last thursday was a rough day on the ASX, and resulted in me getting kicked out of a bunch of positions, as seen in my previous post.

Friday itself was a nice up day, but a day when I sat on the sidelines and watched.  (Well actually  – I worked on my real job and wondered if getting out Thursday was the right thing!).

I now see Friday was a rough day on the US markets, and I liked the way The Fly wrote about it here – making the link with Halloween.  He says he took on losses.  I know last week cost me, but not nearly as much as it could have.

Anyway, back to the chart above.  This whole business interests me because its about patterns… patterns that repeat, and patterns that don’t.  I like these two curvy squiggles I have drawn.  Can I trade them?  Too early to say, but I do see repetition.  Break to the up – go the bulls, break through the bottom, and I might get to see how the other half lives for a while.

Today is not a day for picking a direction.  I see a setup.  I wanna wait to hear which way everyone is going, so I can follow.

Mike at 5000trades, someone I might start to think of as the poet of the Australian markets and an interesting read because I have seen him take the opposing view to myself, is going for the sell this week.

Risk v Reward

This is a graph of my R-multiples this year so far.

R multiples

I am particularly proud of one particular point of this graph.  I have no losses or greater than 2R – then again, gotta love a bull market.  I tend to get a loss of greater than 2R when I miss market days through travel, I have a position that crashes a stop loss or some other unplanned reason.

The -1R and +1R trades almost cancel out, which leaves me in a positive position due almost entirely to the existence of a few trades in the 10R range.  They are the trades that make this all worthwhile.  Without my 32 -R trades, I may not have taken those high perfomring trades.

I take the loss, so I get to keep playing to take the win.

As stated previously, not all trades get to this blog, but once opened here and twittered, I close them out here.

Monday market opens in 3 minutes – and I don’t care, coz I’m not watching today.

Au revoir!

So another fairly quiet week last week.  If you review my portfolio value you can see the positions I track on the blog have subsided a little in value, but not very significantly.  Only change was opening a position in Aquila Resources (AQA) again.  I’ve had one stop loss triggered which I will put into play today (Monday) and a this is a very late post for an end of week wrap-up I can already see the positions filling in the pre-market option… the share I am exiting looks like it will gap down on open – I’m sure this’ll be an ouch!

ATAA

So on the weekend, I joined 260 odd other traders for the Australian Technical Analysts Association 2009 National Conference.  This was my second ever trading event, the other being a 2 hour visit to an expo.  Following my previous visit I was all concerned about how I would react to all the noises I would hear.

So put it simply, and to avoid having to read the following – it was an excellent and exciting event – Great!

And for those still reading…

I must say the following: Thank you very much to the speakers at the conference: Dr. Howard Bandy, Louise Bedford, Jake Bernstein, Daryl Guppy, Dave Landry, Bill McLaren, John Netto, Nick Radge and Frank Watkins (alphabetical order of course).  I got something useful out of each of you – whether it be humour, suggestions on keeping myself in check, and recognition that many people blow up their accounts doing this!

In reading what I have originally written below, accept the fact that I have removed the sentence ‘I found him/her very interesting’ from all of them – coz its true

Dave Landry: Made me laugh, and showed how simple it can be.  He had a view of himself that I thought fit well with my Australian view on the world – exemplified by his slide showing the feedback on Amazon about one of his books.  And I must add – the photo he uses of himself – it needs updating!

Dr Howard Bandy: A professor who presented us with some formulas and concepts around system testing.  Roll forward testing and the difference between in sample  / out of sample tests.  At first I was daunted – but I have seen I can simply add this to my back testing model with some simple tweaks – excellent!  Oh yeah – and he has put me onto AmiBroker – expect to see my charts get a new look n feel when I get my arms around this excellent package!

Jake Bernstein: “I’m old and I know longer care what anyone thinks” – and I do hope I am not misrepresenting him by saying this.  The man showed how easy things can be.  His dry presentation manner and actual demonstrable methods were good to see if for no other reason than their pure simplicity – whether I will use his ideas is a separate question – I’d have to go to my box of tools and program them in to see what I get! Oh yeah – another one who could do with updating his photo

Louise Bedford: A good jump in presentations to see  some interesting psychology – you can see where her interests are and the passion she has.

John Netto:  Now this guy was interesting.  He talked fast – in fact on the first day he was asked to slow down, and I think he concerned a few of the attendees on his first session with his fast talking, big position taking view of the world.  But that all seemed to mellow – he did a second presentation that really drew people in, and by the time the panel discussion finished on the last day – I think he has some fans.  Fully happy to talk about anything, at fast n slow speeds – the guy has something to say.  Of course some of his plays are not things that low cashed traders can pull off, but it did open the eyes to what may be done in the future.  Most interesting comment “I don’t drink coffee” – I spose you had to be there!

Frank Watkins:  Came across from Perth to walk us through a very simple system he uses – and the recurring theme I got from him was that ‘this should be fun’, and if it isn’t – do something else.  I really enjoyed his talk, and had the pleasure of a brief chat with him during the event.  Maybe I just gelled with his view of the world, but his system is one I can see looking into, to see if it fits with my ‘style’.  On paper it looks like a fit, when I do it.. who knows.

Darryl Guppy:  Well, seen him before.  He has something to say, and an engaging way of saying it.  Good as always to see his view of what works and what seems to have stopped working.

Bill McLaren:  Ok – I struggled with this one a bit.  When he started, he has an older fashioned way of presenting.  He used overheads (transparencies) rather than an overhead projector.  I lost 15 minutes coming to grips with the slightly out of focus slides and writing style.  Then I got over it.  His presentation then took me on a journey where he showed price repetition over time I had not seen quite so clearly before.  He talks Gann and other stuff I don’t really get into – but you could see very clearly that not only was he passionate, but he finds great profit in his style.  Someone to see if you are not into Gann etc so you can get a feel for why others are.  Lets face it, if you know a whole lot of people might do something on a particular day, you may profit from that!

Nick Radge: So – Now I have met the man!  I posted on a web bulletin board when I first looked at shares somewhere around 10-12 years ago, and Nick posted back, at which time we had a bit of a ‘bulletin board’ discussion, which I printed at the time and have kept in my filing cabinet somewhere.  Now I can picture the person behind that exchange so many years ago.  And I must say he was a great way to wrap up the conference.  He had the last spot before the panel discussion, and his passion and forcefulness of view (?) showed through.  He challenged people with questions like ‘how much have you spent on expensive courses’, ‘how many books have you read’… getting to the point about, well, how many do you have to read to get it?  Nick let on in the panel discussion why he was so passionate at the moment (thats my interpretation anyway) and it hit me, as a member of the audience, fairly hard.  In fact it supported the view that I came to a while ago.  TRADING IS NOT THAT HARD.  But I don’t want it to be my life, I want it to pay for my holidays.  My day job is partially a social outlet, a way of getting along with the world.

Again – thank you all.  So in the words of Nick,

Its not that hard

Get over it – Get on with it

Here’s something a bit different – got this from wordle.

Its a map of the words on my blog to date – looks like I’ve had a bit to do with weeks, price, trade – I wonder if I can get anything pyschological out of this!

Think anything can be gleaned about me or my trading from this non financial feedback?  Comment below and let me know!