On the 10th of September, I resumed my third attempt (in a little over 1 year's time) at growing a small live account. My first 2 tries were with SureTrader; however this time around I went with TradeNet. This decision was primarily due to financial reasons as it costs much less to purchase the TradeNet intro package (I paid $399...got it at a discounted rate on a summer promotion) than to fund a SureTrader account with a minimum amount that makes sense (I'd say around $1,500-$2,000 to get sufficient wiggle room and intra-day buying power).
That being said; I started the week with $14,000 in buying power as do all purchasers of the Tradenet intro package who choose to go live. After the close on Friday; my balance stood at $14,116.40. So essentially, I made $116.40 in profits after commissions and fees. I'm really glad that I ended the week green but I should have done way better!
Here's the breakdown of my trades from my first week. I took a total of 17 day trades and ended with an accuracy of 58.8%. There is definitely room for improvement here but it's not so bad as I shoot for an accuracy or around 60-70%. In terms of win:loss ratio however, this is where I really fell down! My average loser was -$40.79 which is excellent considering that my risk is set at $50 per trade. My average winner on the other hand was only a disappointing $47.23 giving me a win:loss ratio of only 1.16; well below the 1.5-2.0 range I'd it like to be.
Looking back at my journal; I noticed two major glaring issues and a minor one that were the causes of my below par win:loss ratio:
1) adjusting my initial stop loss too early and too aggressively thereby stopping my self out of perfectly good trades! To fix this issue; I will continue placing a hard stop after putting on the trade but I will not touch this initial hard stop until I get to take my first partial off at or near 2:1 if my stop does not get hit first.
2) hesitating to take my first partial off at or near 2:1 as per my trading plan due to greed and nit picking the exit price. To address this I've added hot buttons to my montage to either "Sell Half" position or "Buy Half" position at market. So price gets at or near my 2:1 zone; I hit the relevant hot button and take half off as per my plan instead of nit picking over a couple extra cents with limit orders.
A third but not as serious issue was jumping the gun on a couple entries before getting confirmation and also taking a few trades that didn't have realistic 2:1 risk/reward potential. To address this issue; I will change the default order type to "STOP LIMIT" which will force me to assess and plan out all of my trades properly before entering.
So I will continue focusing on my process, and my strategies as outlined in "My PlayBook" while also implementing the above adjustments which should improve my accuracy but more importantly significantly improve my risk to reward ratio!
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