How I trade

[simoncar]

Beamstas, I do use fixed fractional position sizing. I just rounded the figures for ease of people reading my post. I also have a few different accounts with different internet brokers therefore my position sizing is based on the capital I have with that broker. I also use a spreadsheet for trade management and I check each morning on available capital for trades and risk parameters. I enter a trade with this knowledge in mind and then I update my spreadsheets. It was just a stupid stupid mathematical error that if I ever repeat again I will force myself to go back to school with my 5 year old son.

 

[beamstas]

BEC
9th May: Nice move up today
8th May: Todays bar is a disgrace. "True weakness is shown in upbars" is a quote that comes to mind. Better keep an eye on this!
7th May: Well would you look at that. Looks like sellers are liking this one above 17cents. This is because the price managed to break out but was forced back by sellers who were happy enough to exit above 17c. Trade initiated at 17c but i'll keep a close eye on this one in the next few days, in case it tries to come back further.
6th May: No changes for this one yet. Continuing Sideways
5th May: No changes for this one yet
4th May: Nice little pattern with excellent volume traits. I really like yesterdays bar so i will approach this one with an agressive entry. A buy will be triggered if the price moves through $0.17 and i will place a stop loss at $0.145. Not a great deal of liquidity on this one so caution will need to be taken.

IDL
9th May: This is a terrible day for IDL which was going strong, it is a common "up thrust bar", which indicates weakness. What makes this even more bearish is that it has come after an effort to rise. Put the stop right up to $0.235 on this one. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt to get on with it tomorrow but things arn't looking good for this one at all
8th May: Going strong, i like this one
7th May: We have reached 1R (20c-18c=2c)..(20c+2c=22c), so ill move the stop to breakeven now. This one doesn't look like coming back.
6th May: This one is continuing nicely
5th May: Breakout confirmed with higher volume. Low close suggests there are still plenty of sellers. Trade entered at $0.20.
4th May: Volume dropping in a nice triangle. Will buy on a breakout from the top at $0.20 and place a stop loss at $0.18

RE: FMG
This really pisses me off. This one is now at 6.8R, after it retraced to my breakeven stop to the cent, before moving on



Cheers
Brad

 

[tech/a]

Brad.
Some nice analysis there.

8th May: Todays bar is a disgrace. "True weakness is shown in upbars" is a quote that comes to mind. Better keep an eye on this!

Was actually a good bar.
The bar before rejected the high on good volume.
This bar made the high on light volume indicating a lack in conviction of sellers.

RE: FMG
This really pisses me off.

It shouldnt!
You stuck to your plan.
What you missed was the bar that took you out was on extremely low volume.
You have now learnt to have a re entry strategy which in this case would have been the break of the triangle.

Good work all the same.

 

[beamstas]

BEC
12th May: Upthrust bar, sign up weakness. Stop to 0.18
11th May: Nice move up today
8th May: Todays bar is a disgrace. "True weakness is shown in upbars" is a quote that comes to mind. Better keep an eye on this!
7th May: Well would you look at that. Looks like sellers are liking this one above 17cents. This is because the price managed to break out but was forced back by sellers who were happy enough to exit above 17c. Trade initiated at 17c but i'll keep a close eye on this one in the next few days, in case it tries to come back further.
6th May: No changes for this one yet. Continuing Sideways
5th May: No changes for this one yet
4th May: Nice little pattern with excellent volume traits. I really like yesterdays bar so i will approach this one with an agressive entry. A buy will be triggered if the price moves through $0.17 and i will place a stop loss at $0.145. Not a great deal of liquidity on this one so caution will need to be taken.

IDL
12th May: Stop Activated ($0.235)
11th May: This is a terrible day for IDL which was going strong, it is a common "up thrust bar", which indicates weakness. What makes this even more bearish is that it has come after an effort to rise. Put the stop right up to $0.235 on this one. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt to get on with it tomorrow but things arn't looking good for this one at all
8th May: Going strong, i like this one
7th May: We have reached 1R (20c-18c=2c)..(20c+2c=22c), so ill move the stop to breakeven now. This one doesn't look like coming back.
6th May: This one is continuing nicely
5th May: Breakout confirmed with higher volume. Low close suggests there are still plenty of sellers. Trade entered at $0.20.
4th May: Volume dropping in a nice triangle. Will buy on a breakout from the top at $0.20 and place a stop loss at $0.18



Account balance...

 

[jonojpsg]

Hey beams, just wanted to say thanks for being so upfront with your trading It certainly is inspiring to see someone willing to bare their trades to us all.

So not a bad return for, what, 9 days trading?

 

[beamstas]

Hey beams, just wanted to say thanks for being so upfront with your trading It certainly is inspiring to see someone willing to bare their trades to us all.

So not a bad return for, what, 9 days trading?

Yeah it's around 9 days i guess
Thanks for the post

I'll upload some more charts in a few more days for some more buys

Cheers
Brad

 

[rja2439]

Hey beams, just wanted to say thanks for being so upfront with your trading It certainly is inspiring to see someone willing to bare their trades to us all.

So not a bad return for, what, 9 days trading?

have to mirror your thoughts here jono... this is great for us newbies to see - much appreciated Brad keep up the good work..

 

[beamstas]

I've stopped updating this but i can keep updating it if people want..

Cheers

 

[rja2439]

not sure about everyone else, but I'd sure like to see it... i think it's a fantastic thread!

 

[rja2439]

Brad,

you've probably already said this somewhere on this forum before, but are you a full time trader, or do you also work?

Cheers,
Rob

 

[beamstas]

Brad,

you've probably already said this somewhere on this forum before, but are you a full time trader, or do you also work?

Cheers,
Rob

I work part time as an accountant, rest of my time is spent at uni, im doing a business degree
Trading is just a side

Cheers
Brad

 

[jonojpsg]

Yeah keep it up beams, as long as you've got the time!

 

[rja2439]

I work part time as an accountant, rest of my time is spent at uni, im doing a business degree
Trading is just a side

Cheers
Brad

I reckon I'll be in the same boat in terms of hours spent trading when I get up and running - currently work 45-50hrs a week as an engineer. Presently I've been researching the ins and outs of trading and I'm slowly learning but definitely want to be confident before I jump in.

One question - if my analysis and trades will be done at night after work, am I wrong guessing that I do not need software that delivers a live feed, or even 5-10min feeds? My time frames for trading will be rounded to days, not minutes or hours...

 

[beamstas]

I reckon I'll be in the same boat in terms of hours spent trading when I get up and running - currently work 45-50hrs a week as an engineer. Presently I've been researching the ins and outs of trading and I'm slowly learning but definitely want to be confident before I jump in.

One question - if my analysis and trades will be done at night after work, am I wrong guessing that I do not need software that delivers a live feed, or even 5-10min feeds? My time frames for trading will be rounded to days, not minutes or hours...

Yep
I don't use any Live Date feeds at all
I just enter my trades into IB at night, with my stop loss and let the market do the rest
Don't even need to look at the market until the next night

 

[liquidmaker]

Brad,

Excellent post mate one of the best i have read on here. Really enjoyed reading it. I have been trading for six months and i have got some really good tips about money management, discipline and volume analysis from your trades and explanations.

I hope you can continue to post if you have some spare time beacuse i would love to read more.


Liquid

 

[beamstas]

SGN
25th May: This one is forming a nice triangle. I'd really like to wait for this one to break the upside before buying, simply because of the most recent bar on friday. The high volume is a bit worrying so i'll be conservative here. I'll leave this in my watch list to see if it is worth a buy. An alternative from an EW point of view is that we have seen a large wave 1. The problem with this is Wave 2 can never be a triangle, so we don't want prices to push any higher. One thing i like is the confluence between wave A and expected wave C (wave C should be around the same length as wave A), with the expected 50% to 61.8% retracement of wave A-B-C from wave 1. If wave C drops into the retracement zone it will be a nice wave 1 with good geometry. Either way i have two analysis on this and im going to wait for price action to confirm one of them, then i'll look at trading it. Do not be fooled by me providing two analysis, over the next few days one of them will be proved wrong.

 

[beamstas]

SGN
26th May: For anyone following this thread with interests in VSA you should be getting quite excited about todays bar . Lets step back a day, yesterdays bar was a wide ranging bar on high volume, with the close finishing up near the high. If that big volume was sellers how could the close be high? Then look at today, we pushed up a 1c, and then fell back to 51cents (open price). Look at the tiny volume, only 40,000 shares were traded. Obviously yesterdays buyers were not keen to sell yet (as the price pushed up but no selling followed through). Remember with VSA one signal doesn't mean a thing by itself, you always have to look at what has happened prior to the bar you are looking at.
25th May: This one is forming a nice triangle. I'd really like to wait for this one to break the upside before buying, simply because of the most recent bar on friday. The high volume is a bit worrying so i'll be conservative here. I'll leave this in my watch list to see if it is worth a buy. An alternative from an EW point of view is that we have seen a large wave 1. The problem with this is Wave 2 can never be a triangle, so we don't want prices to push any higher. One thing i like is the confluence between wave A and expected wave C (wave C should be around the same length as wave A), with the expected 50% to 61.8% retracement of wave A-B-C from wave 1. If wave C drops into the retracement zone it will be a nice wave 1 with good geometry. Either way i have two analysis on this and im going to wait for price action to confirm one of them, then i'll look at trading it. Do not be fooled by me providing two analysis, over the next few days one of them will be proved wrong.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Wow, todays volume is incredibly low, 1.3 million yesterday, down to 40000 today, certainly seems to be favoring the upside. Tomorrow will be interesting

Keep it up Brad

 

[beamstas]

SGN
27th May: Now we are cookin
26th May: For anyone following this thread with interests in VSA you should be getting quite excited about todays bar . Lets step back a day, yesterdays bar was a wide ranging bar on high volume, with the close finishing up near the high. If that big volume was sellers how could the close be high? Then look at today, we pushed up a 1c, and then fell back to 51cents (open price). Look at the tiny volume, only 40,000 shares were traded. Obviously yesterdays buyers were not keen to sell yet (as the price pushed up but no selling followed through). Remember with VSA one signal doesn't mean a thing by itself, you always have to look at what has happened prior to the bar you are looking at.
25th May: This one is forming a nice triangle. I'd really like to wait for this one to break the upside before buying, simply because of the most recent bar on friday. The high volume is a bit worrying so i'll be conservative here. I'll leave this in my watch list to see if it is worth a buy. An alternative from an EW point of view is that we have seen a large wave 1. The problem with this is Wave 2 can never be a triangle, so we don't want prices to push any higher. One thing i like is the confluence between wave A and expected wave C (wave C should be around the same length as wave A), with the expected 50% to 61.8% retracement of wave A-B-C from wave 1. If wave C drops into the retracement zone it will be a nice wave 1 with good geometry. Either way i have two analysis on this and im going to wait for price action to confirm one of them, then i'll look at trading it. Do not be fooled by me providing two analysis, over the next few days one of them will be proved wrong.

 

[rja2439]

SGN's looking good Brad...nice one.

Do you have a stock screening approach at the top of your trading system? i.e. how do you find the stocks that are of interest to you? e.g. some sort of initial fundamental analysis, seeking sectors in the market that may have potential, or just wading through heaps of different stock charts?

Cheers,
Rob