Response to an e-mail from Squishee, (deleted personal data) thought it might be able to help some others

Man, I thought I told you to take it extremely slow and with that account size you should be looking for perfect setups and be making only a few trades a week. You look like you are doing that in a day. There are not that many PERFECT setups everyday. I haven't been posting much because I don't see anything that interest me, or a good risk/reward for me at these levels. I said last week, I think in a comment to you, that we are so extended to the upside I don't see good risk/reward on longs so I move to the sidelines. I really have only had one good trade this week with COIN. I tried some other dip buys and got stopped out quickly. I hate hitting stops. They eat capital. When more stops are hitting than successful trades I stop trading. NO matter your style you will not be successful trying to fight the market. Stop FORCING things... How long did it take you to make money at poker? Did you really think you would walk right into investments and dominate. Keep the discipline you used while learning there and you will be fine. No offense, but with your account size and the overall market at the peak of a bear-market bounce, you are trading pretty reckless. Learn from it, slow down and you will make it back one painful step at a time. Remember rule number one: capital protection. Been there, it sucks. Now I try to remember rule number one. I forget sometimes and that sick feeling comes back. Take some time and clear your head, maybe don't even trade for a day or two. The market will always be there to trade, the key from here is get your mindset right so that you are not making more mistakes and multiplying the problem. I also think you need to work more on developing a style because you don't seem to have one. You seem to be mixing different styles and trying to force results. Might work during a rally but won't long term.

Exercise: Give me a list of your rules for a trade and your style of trading? What are you looking for, and what characteristics must each trade have before you take it, fundamentals, technicals, time frames, capital allotment, risk/reward calculations, etc? You should also have rules for managing the positions, which will also be impacted by the overall market. You should be adding to and amending the rules as time goes on if you want to really be a good trader. I could tell you all my rules but I am not you, and I can't trade your portfolio for you, and my rules match my style, capital restraints, time frames, etc.
You can get good advice and follow good traders and still not yield good results. Use those resources, but only to help you develop what works for you.

Hope this helps, keep your head up.

JAX

From: deleted
To: Jax Trader
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 6:13:40 PM
Subject: S.O.S. Jax

Hello Mr Jax,

From my memory, you where getting married in the month of May, maybe its why we dont have news from you on your blog ! If then, enjoy the time !

I don't want to scratch your wedding honeymoon and relax time , so there is no real hurry but im starting to get upset. With fee and bad chase, im down from... deleted account details - lets just say not good, in less than 2 weeks, sure I made mistakes like chasing stocks; but the fee that costed me a little bit more than 600$ total (now its less expensive but still too much so im switching atm)

Here the history of the trades I mades lately, we can see some mistakes like chasing AXL, CPSL, not taking gains when I had them, which turned to tiny profit.

I forgot 1 stop loss from my memory, which turned to a bigger than 1% capital loss.

A big problem was; I was following active swing traders from a forum, but I don't have enough capital according to them to make it profitable.

At least I learned much more the direction I want to : I wanted to make more than the 1,5% interest rate from the actual bank (Ok now its catastrophic) but I hope you will be willing to share some of your time to fix this issue.

Have to stay disciplined and keeping target, but I lost confidence, even with good basics imo.

Thanks for your time in advance

Philippe

also deleted attached account transactions