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One last gasp

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#1 merciless

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Posted 11 March 2017 - 11:02 AM

Unfortunately have had to lay low with the posts for a long time do to work and family commitments.

Still check the board regularly and playing the spaghetti when set ups arrive. Sorry to see many of the long term posters gone. 400 plus percent returns in the trading acct already this year....lol. Had discussed  the turn we saw this week with semi a few weeks ago. Stick save yesterday for one last gasp higher before this whole markets turns to crap? Going to be on break soon, hopefully can get some charts up..... Trade Safe  



#2 lawdog

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 08:39 AM

i give up. my goal is 15% per year, although i do better some years, worse others. how do you do 400% in 2 months? at that rate you will soon own the world. do you reinvest the profits or pull the profits and maintain the same trading account balance? can you share your next 5 trades just so i can see how a person can get returns like that? if you do 400% every three months, that is 6400%, or 64 times your money per year, compounded. if i could have 9 months like that, i would make 32X my capital. why would you have a job with commitments when you make that much money? i was pretty happy with starting the year with 5-7% until i read about your 400%.



#3 lawdog

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 08:42 AM

actually, 400% every three months compounded would be 4 times after 3 mos, then 16 after 6 months, then 64 after 9 months, and 128 in a year.



#4 NAV

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 09:03 AM

Lawdog,

 

I was in a trader's meet attended by professional traders a few years back. There were about 100 traders present. The presenter asked how many people made more than 100% a year for the last 2 years ? No hands were raised. He than asked how many made 80-100% - No hands were raised. Then he asked 50 - 80% -  2 hands were raised. 40-50% - 5 hands were raised (i was one among them). 20-40% - 10 hands were raised. Rest 83 of the folks attending made less than 20%. Remember most of these were full-time traders.

 

Again talking about returns without talking about the following is pointless:

 

1) Was it a leveraged position like an option ? Then it's possible to make 400% in a month. But then again you could lose 100% of your account also in a month with that kind of leverage

 

2) The real question should be "what is the non-leveraged return ? " ?

 

3) Position sizing - what fraction of the account was used in generating that return ? Was it on the entire account ?

 

4) What constitues a trading account ? Is all your savings on the line or only a fraction of it?

 

5) I know folks playing penny stocks making 1000% in a day. But then it's usually a small gambling account generally.

 

6) What was the max drawdown ?

 

Without all this information, talking about returns on a message board can be misleading. 


Edited by NAV, 12 March 2017 - 09:07 AM.

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#5 AChartist

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 09:18 AM

I probably do 100% every year in a small trading account but it is a real different approach.

 

In the accounts that I dont practice that, basically suck for example since Jan 2013 my 401k exactly

 

matches the DOW but it was much better is temporarliy low right now from large gold fund allocation.

 

I have some favorite stocks I try to keep but if become very profitable or worried in

 

general about cycles I end up selling the profits and usually in advance I sell on anticipated cycle highs and 

 

dont wait for technical turns.

 

What is different that I learned about myself over time of many mistakes,

 

is I keep the trading account small at 10k, sometimes leverage it up to 20k margined.

 

When I have big gains I take it out and use the money for things like buying metals. What it is mentally, that I cant

 

take the big risks with options and leverage if it was a bigger account I could not take risks.

 

For example my trading account is down bad on the gold right now but just before that happened I sold all the stocks, all

 

to get out of margin and I withdrew a chunk of money to pay some bills. The trading account is setup for a gold high

 

in 30 weeks whether it works or not is what I committed so it will be a big year or not doesnt matter that much.

 

If it is a 300% year do I cash out for three years and call it 100% a year? I have done that too.


"marxism-lennonism-communism always fails and never worked, because I know

some of them, and they don't work"  M.Jordan


#6 AChartist

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 10:08 AM

oops meant that relative to the gold, the stock mkt should have one bounce coming up too.

 

not sure how bad stock cycles will work out with scheduled tax day high, maybe delays the cycle low for stocks.


"marxism-lennonism-communism always fails and never worked, because I know

some of them, and they don't work"  M.Jordan


#7 Data

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 10:48 AM

Some people set up different accounts on the trader challenges.   I attended a seminar on trading breakouts.   The speaker won the quarterly trading championship and set himself up as a stockbroker on the notoriety of winning or placing in several rounds.   He said they loaded a hypothetical portfolio with under 5 dollar stocks from the new highs lists at the end or the start of the quarter.  Setting up several of these would have some contestants with 100+ percent gains by the end of the contest.



#8 SemiBizz

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 11:32 AM

Well...some people aren't full time traders...

 

And their work involves life and death at the cutting edge on an every day basis.

 

So while most traders are watching intraday charts...

 

Some of the market participants are busy doing other things, things more important than trading...

 

The guy has come in here over the years and presented case after case and chart after chart with his oscillator/indicator spaghetti feed.

 

So you can check his record for yourself...

 

He's the real deal.

 

If you and I screw up our work, we might lose some money.

 

If he makes a mistake, somebody dies.

 

So once you learn to assume that level of risk...

 

This one is a long step down.


Edited by SemiBizz, 12 March 2017 - 11:36 AM.

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#9 AChartist

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 11:40 AM

Funny I do better not watching a  market daily I like to work with a larger scale,

 

I might have to make a plan, log in and make a  preplanned trade on the open or lunch

 

and never think twice about it. What really works too about a small account is not caring that much

 

the more I care the mores mistakes I would make, keep it casual.

 

hats off to anyone that makes a living at it, thats why I keep my day job.


"marxism-lennonism-communism always fails and never worked, because I know

some of them, and they don't work"  M.Jordan


#10 hedgehawk

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Posted 12 March 2017 - 12:45 PM

I know a guy who made $1M+ Recently trading weekly options on TSLA from December through February. Account size 400k but no more than 15-20% in one stock. Weekly options were enabling 50 to 1 leverage on TSLA. The stock catalyst was increasing model 3 expectations and huge short float doesn't hurt. He also used bull call spreads using the monthly option. Avg hold time on weekly options was 24-36 hours. Monthly hold time was up to a week and once they went in the money he'd roll forward. I was interested to see how he would do once the stock topped. He was nimble around the top once the stock showed "exhaustion" and disciplined in taking his foot off the proverbial gas. I believe the Take aways for this success story was (is) picking the right horse (strong trend), diversification and using leverage.