DayTrading 14th July

This was last tuesday's daytrades, before things got out of hand.

Singapore Equity

HEre's the story for my shorting Sing Equity. Notice 2400-2500 is a death kneel for ralies. Today STI close at 2,427.

Added another 2 lots to Olam.

-2 OLAM @ 2.33.

Margin Call and Loss Management

OUT! 1 ES @ 936.75.

My IB1 account faced margin call yesterday. I had to wake up at 3.55am to manage my account since there is no way i'm going to cover my shorts at 937.

The bears took 4 weeks to move from 950 to 866, the bull only took 4 days to retrace from 866 to 940. Needless to say, lots of fellow bears were squeezed out of their balls this opex week. To top it off, we had a fake head and shoulders pattern. Great job, GS.

I covered one of my shorts at IB1 at 936.75. I subsequently put back 2 more positions at IB2 at 937.00. So now i have 7 contracts at an average of 922.5. I expect a retacement of fib 33% of 23 points to 917. Addendum:- Btw, is 33% one of those fib ratio? Whatever.

Short Singapore Equity

Adding to my short position. 110 points in 2 days? Come on. They are acting as though the recession is over. Singapore economy is still in contraction. This is a short squeeze.

-2k Olam @ 2.27
-1k SGX @ 7.37

My position is now incurring a slight loss of about SGD500.

Short 2 ES @ 923

Managing my losses here. Buy limit at 917. Also daytrading IB1, currently trapped at 918. 917 will be breakeven.

Short 2 ES @ 909.75

DayTrading 10th July

This was the 2-contract daytrades that changed my trading profile. I was up close to $500 for the day and i thought of using the "buffer" to give daytrading 2-contract a chance. Over traded a little but that was for taking the new profile out for a test drive.

Google Result of Sage08

I don't have a visitor counter in my blog. Neither do i subscribe to traffic monitoring gadget. I used to subsribe to google analytics but have since taken it out. So the only way to find out about the popularity of this blog is to google key words such as "sage08" or the more general "trading diary" and see what position my blog holds. Here's the results:-

Trade 2 Contracts: Physchology

This is a 2 part series as i mull over trading 2 contracts. Part one will deal with physchology of trading 2 contracts. Part two is about money management and trading method.

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At the height of my disastrous trading folly, i was trading 8 contracts. Needless to say, the market decided to teach me a lesson for the disrespect i had for her.

I woke up to my folly and trimmed down my exposure all the way to 1 contract. Looking back, that was possibly the one most important and sensible step i took in my trading career and overtime the market's wrath was averted and now i am actually even close to breakeven. Doing 1 contract allow me time to hone my skills and knowledge about the market. That started when i was down to about US$30k left in my IB account.

I was more than comfortable doing 1 contract with a fund of US$30k. Of course, downsizing from 8 contracts to 1 contract was like switching from driving a ferrari to a hyundai. It did not matter as having a million dollar plan allowed me to see the bigger picture and so, driving a hyundai was not a problem as long as i make a million in 10 years.

Fast forward to present time. My IB is now close to US$66k, more than double the level in late 2007/early 2008. The growth had been a result of my trading with no additional top-up. I've been pondering doing 2 contracts for a couple of months now but have not been comfortable making that jump. Technically, at 66k equity, i should be as comfortable doing 2 contracts as i was with 1 when equity was at 30k.

I have become risk averse after being so comfortable with 1 contract that phychologically, i am reluctant to add. All that changed last Friday when i began daytrading with 2 contracts. I had experimented on 2 contracts with swingtrade ultra for more than a month now. After suffering a 1k loss early last week, i thought it was bearable, both monetary and emotionally. My pain threshold has moved up a level. I felt i was ready to commit to bigger risk/gain.

So, going ahead, the plan is to daytrade 2 contracts. Swingtrade will continue to be on 1 contract while Ultra Swingtrade will be reduced to 1 contract with potential of adding. Will elaborate more on the methods in the second part.

Net Worth Q2 2009

This net worth completes the picture for money management. Equity at risk is the trading equity that is involved in risky derivative futures trade. The value of trading equity is updated regularly at the right of this blog.

Property is valued at cost. Retirement do not include Medisave which can only be withdrawn for medical purposes only.

Insurance cash value is the amount that i will get when i retire the policy. These are life term policy.

OUT! 2 ES @ 876

I'll be scalping now. So no blogging.

Long 2 ES @ 874.25

I'm a bull now. Btw, the problem with IB has been resolved by the ISP. I can trade now! Yipee..

Dell Monitor 2209WA

Bought two of these beauties of a monitor recently at a very good deal of SGD299 per piece. It's a 22 inch LCD monitor built on the high end E-IPS panel.

The best part is i can have one pivot as portrait and the other one on landscape. Perfect for traders who want a bigger screen real estate. Effectively this is like a 3 monitor system.

SwingTrading 6th - 8th July

I need to get used to these losses as i move into 2 contracts.

TWS Connectivity Problem

Apparently someone else have the same problem and it's localised in Singapore.

TWS Connectivity Problem

« on: Today at 08:35:04 AM »

I am having connectivity issues with TWS since yesterday afternoon. The server farm connections keeps dropping frequently and reconnects after a few seconds. My friend experienced the same connectivity issue. We are trading from Singapore.I have tried to reinstall TWS with the correct Java updates without any help. Not sure if this problem has anything to do with the DOS cyber attack report on South Korea and US. I have already sent out a ticket request to IB.Pinging to US and HK farms were good with no errors. Anyone facing the same problem or it is just us.Warm regards.

OUT! ES @ 870.00

IB is out and that costs me 1k in losses. The technical staff said it's a recent problem related to Singtel. Anyone of you have got this problem? Realized loss:- US$1068.

Long 2 ES @ 800.50

Put back the 2 contracts. Observe the divergence in green circle and bullish diagonal. That couple with my explaination here.

OUT! 2 ES @ 880.5

Too early for 2 contracts.

Long 2 ES @ 880.75

There is very little reaction from the Asian and Europe market in spite of a supposedly broken neckline. This lead me to expect a 10 point rally or maybe even the developement of the 2nd shoulder at higher levels.