@Mitzter yeah man, I've always wanted to see how the shared accounts work. Keep up the posts and looking forward to profitable months ahead.
To be honest, in my first posts I basically gave away my secrets of finding the best stock picks (largest movers of the day) With a different broker I would only change this into the following screening filters: - stocks between $1 and $15 - volume above 500k - market cap under 100 mln (very important, low floaters are going wild!) With TEFS this is useless, so I widened my filters a little to get more results.
I have traded with the shared account for a week now. It has its limitations, but also has its 'work arounds'. I have now found a great 'work around' which makes it much more effective and attractive to trade via Tradenet. Check my next post for more explanation.
I almost blew up the account on Tuesday, ending the account with a balance of $13,489. If the account reaches a value (unrealized) lower than $13,300 then it gets closed. This was quite close and I dug a hole difficult to get out. I only had a cushion of $189 unrealized losses to trade out of this hole. What happened? I traded MAXR, it just was so volatile and was hitting my stop when I got long and it hit my stop when I got short. There was no clear direction. Because of all the limitations of TEFS I got frustrated and started trading larger size. This was not a good idea with this setup. In the Challenge I could trade whatever I wanted to trade, this was via a demo account. When Tradenet gave me a live account they mentioned I could trade anything above $5 with a 3-months average volume above 500k. When looking at the top gainers, matching this criteria the most interesting stocks where not possible to trade. This frustrated me and caused the above situation of being in 'whatever' mode. If I couldn't trade what I wanted to trade then I didn't care about this account any longer. Coincedence or not, after this trading day I received a message from Tradenet, how everything was going and if I had any questions. I spoke to my account manager and explained my situation. I couldn't trade my strategy like I wanted and not all the stocks that match the criteria are available to trade. My account manager told me to send him these tickers and he would investigate. If all was OK he would open the stock to trade. That's what he has done and I asked him this on Tuesday, but also on Friday. He immediately investigated and couple minutes later I could trade the stock. That works for me! And that also worked when you look at my trades on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday it was a short trading day. I only had 20 minutes to trade on that day, because of my full time job. I was already watching MLNT on my way home and I was waiting for it to crack. I came home, opened up my trading platform and there it started to crack down. I traded myself in the position with 200 share lots and traded myself out of the position with the same sizes on the way down. Catched the entire move with a nice profit. Friday I was the entire day at home, so I was ready and set to hit the markets. I was looking for a continuation to the downside for MLNT, this just didn't move and slowly traded upward and decided to take my losses over a couple trades. KPTI was also a stock I was watching from Wednesday for continuation to the upside. After seeing the weak open I was more biased to the downside. When it broke important support I started with 200 share lot positions and continued to trade the stock down by shorting more 200 share lots and covering with 200 share lots at support levels. I traded this to the max, no mistakes here. The account is now at $14,349, a total profit of $349. I traded my way out of the hole. I'm confident of growing the account at this pace, as long as I can follow my strategy in combination with trading 200 share lots averaging in and out of a position (never averaging down!!).
Nice one. Close call. What is your trading plan btw? Will they let you hold overnight or only day trade?
I’m only daytrading long and short momentum plays (largest gainers of the day or on previous days). But if I want, Tradenet allows me to hold 20% of the account overnight.
Yesterday SOLY was in play and I made a nice chunk on it by going long on the break-out intraday. Then reversed to short and got decently in the money. Unfortunately an end of day ramp up appeared and had to close the short with a loss, reducing my profits. Nevertheless I’m happy with the profit I took out of the markets and ended the day with an account value of $14,615.
Can I ask what is your trading plan and strategy? It appears you are using an intra day breakout strategy? Can you explain?
Hi Stan, I tried to explain my trading plan and strategy as detailed as possible in my first couple posts in this topic. I don't know if you already had a look at this? Further, you can ask me everything that is not clear to you. I'm filtering my screener at the open (and the entire day) on the largest gainers of the day, with some parameters like minimum volume, price range and maximum market cap. The results the screener give me, mostly stocks up more than 10%, are the stocks that are in play for the day. For these stocks I'm looking at certain patterns, like explained in the first posts of this topic. If I'm seeing the right movement following the patterns, confirmed by level 2 / time and sales, then that's my trigger to enter. I'm trying to ride the volatility, which can be up or down, and close the position the same day. Usually I'm trading myself in a position, by taking a small starting size and adding into the stock when it moves in my direction and also trading myself out of the position by taking profits in the volatility wave itself. This way there is not that much risk in the trades. Hope this makes sense, otherwise please ask.
It was a petty though day yesterday. Nothing really worked and I was in the red for the most of the day. I traded the day runner, being AAOI, but this didn’t show enough volume conviction to increase with large size. Further traded SOLY, the previous day runner. I started with a long as the stock started to show strength, recouping the morning loss. This didn’t hold in the end as it wasn’t able to break previous days highs. Seeing this I switched to a short and started to load up. It took awhile for it to decently crack, but in the end it happened and I took the gains. After being mostly in the red the entire day, this was a great ending of the day with a gain of $226. The account is now at $14,842.
I may have missed it in your opening posts, but is there a deadline for this account? Or do you get to keep it as long as you want? When do you take the 70% profit out? Is it once you decide you are done trading for them?
As far as I’m aware for my account there is no deadline. But I have read that another user talked about 1 year and that there was a minimum of profit required to extent the account. You can take the 70% out once a month. I’m planning to stick with the account for a couple of months and then open an account on the side with my profits. But we’ll see how it goes.
Wednesday I only traded the last hour of the trading day, forcing trades a bit because nothing was there that really looked solid. Had a try at KPTI as it looked to possibly break down. It cracked a little but then reversed. It happens. Overall closed the day -$26. The account is at $14,815. I’m watching SOLY very closely for the coming day(s), showing a nice clean support level. It appears it gets some news on Monday, till then it might be flat. We’ll see, volatility is coming on Monday anyways. In the end the collapse down will be a nice one.
SOLY went nuts yesterday. I started the day shorting SOLY with small size, this appeared to be a false crack and reversed. I switched to the long side and rode the wave up. Sold my long on pauses and shorted on tops. First half day I nailed every single move. The second half of the day SOLY became really choppy, stopping me out multiple times. Had to give back some profits there. I ended the day with a gain of +$815. The account balance is now at $15,631. This is the chart of SOLY updated with yesterday’s move.
Yeah, sorry. I jumped to the end of this thread. Thanks for the summary. Appreciate it. Now I get what your doing. Keep up the good work.
Friday SOLY had a pretty big down day. Unfortunately I missed that down move because of my work. I had the last couple hours of the day to trade. I anticipated on a move upwards, from the $19-level. This is what happened the last couple days. Stock was very volatile. But yesterday every time it went up the volume died down. I should have sold when it moved to around $19.40-50, but I didn’t. I still was convinced it at least would touch $20. This didn’t happen and it sold of further. Ended the day with a loss of -$301. The account is now at $15,330. Monday there will be news in SOLY. It could run or it could be a sell on news event. Volatility expected. I hope I can catch a piece of the move, because I only have a couple hours to trade it.
SOLY appeared to have a sell on news event. I can’t say I didn’t expect that to happen. Sharp sell-off untill mid-day and then some sideways trading. I came home around 1:00 PM and opened a starting position on the long side. Once I saw the level was holding and bids were stacking up I increased my position quickly and it started to bounce. Closed the position near the top. Because of the sharp down move on the start of the day I knew the bias was to the down side so I decided to open a short after I sold the long. This then moved nicely in the money as well. Ending the day with a gain of $539 in SOLY. KPTI showed some strength today. I averaged up once the stock started to trade in my direction. Sold the position at the end of the day because of sideways trading. I had an OK profit, but the commissions kind of killed it. Ending the day with a gain of $16 in KPTI. Overall the day ended with a gain of $555. The account is now at $15,886.
