PaddythePlumber: Day/Swing Trading the US Markets

PaddythePlumber

Hi All. Got my Etrade account funded today. Starting tomorrow i will be posting my daily Profit/Loss figures here. You can follow my trades in realtime (as fast as i can type) on twitter. All comments and suggestions welcome.

Good Luck.
PP

Da Ross

Best of luck Paddy

pocketdooz

Best of luck with this. Three quick questions that might help people (me anyway) decide whether this is something they might like to track.

1) What is your starting balance?

2) What return / risk , expectation / tolerance do you have?

3) How will you be deciding what to invest in, what markets will you be investing in and will you be keeping positions open overnight?

Thanks . . .

ixus

Suggestions:
When you make a trade, detail the reason why you did so.
When you exit, do similar.
Analyse the trade you made, the good/bad decisions you made.

You can learn a lot about your trading self by doing this.

Oh, and if you're going to post your trades be open to other users being critical. They may or may not help you develop.

Ixus

Idu

Best of luck. Would like a little info along the same lines as pocketdooz so that I could quantify your trading a little better.

Will you be offering analysis on the trades you made? Why you chose that position etc etc?

moneybags2009

PaddythePlumber wrote: »

Hi All. Got my Etrade account funded today. Starting tomorrow i will be posting my daily Profit/Loss figures here. You can follow my trades in realtime (as fast as i can type) on twitter. All comments and suggestions welcome.

Good Luck.
PP

Hi Paddy

I day trade (or hold for <24 hours) on the US market so am very keen to track your progress. On another thread I've pointed out that i buy on margin giving me twice the funds in my account to use (as it takes 3 days to settle in the US). Also be careful about trading more than 3 times in five day period if you have <$25k in your account as you can be banned for 90 days by the SEC http://www.sec.gov/answers/daytrading.htm. I'm sure you've looked into it anyway.

Cheers
MB

rugbyman

Hello Paddy, I look forward to reading your stuff. Actual real stories are always interesting.
Good luck
regards
Rugbyman

PaddythePlumber

1) What is your starting balance?

$100K (margin a/c with 4 to 1 leverage)

2) What return / risk , expectation / tolerance do you have?

Allocate max 5% of total buying power per trade. Set stop losses (max 5%). Looking to make $1K per week trading.

3) How will you be deciding what to invest in, what markets will you be investing in and will you be keeping positions open overnight?

I track around 100 stocks (all sectors). My favourite trades are in the biotech sector and i probably spend at least 50% of my time doing extensive DD there. Normally i have already decided which stocks i will be trading before the market has opened. This will be based primarily on newsflow, technicals and/or momentum. I plan to hold some positions overnight.

PaddythePlumber

ixus wrote: »

Suggestions:
When you make a trade, detail the reason why you did so.
When you exit, do similar.
Analyse the trade you made, the good/bad decisions you made.

You can learn a lot about your trading self by doing this.

Oh, and if you're going to post your trades be open to other users being critical. They may or may not help you develop.

Ixus

Excellent advice. Thank you.

PaddythePlumber

Will you be offering analysis on the trades you made? Why you chose that position etc etc?

I will post my actual trades in realtime (as fast as i can type) on twitter. Then as soon as i get a chance i will post a summary of why i chose that trade. If someone would like a detailed analysis they can contact me here.

PaddythePlumber

Appreciate all the well wishes.

Good Luck
PP

PaddythePlumber

moneybags2009 wrote: »

I day trade (or hold for <24 hours) on the US market so am very keen to track your progress.MB

Hi MB.
Do you log your trades online? Would really like to follow other traders.

Good Luck
PP

pocketdooz

PtP

This all looks very interesting. I'm looking forward to keeping up with this. Best of luck.

Zorba

Hi Paddy

Firstly good luck with your trading, it's a brave thing your doing posting live trades for everyone to see.

How long have u been trading and have u traded anything else apart from stocks ? Also am i right in thinking your trading using fundamentals or are u using technicals or both ?

pirelli

PaddythePlumber wrote: »

$100K (margin a/c with 4 to 1 leverage)

Allocate max 5% of total buying power per trade. Set stop losses (max 5%). Looking to make $1K per week trading.

I track around 100 stocks (all sectors). My favourite trades are in the biotech sector and i probably spend at least 50% of my time doing extensive DD there. Normally i have already decided which stocks i will be trading before the market has opened. This will be based primarily on newsflow, technicals and/or momentum. I plan to hold some positions overnight.

Do you look for companies with good dividends Also.
What industries are you interested in other than bio tech.
With biotech I assume you day trade, What factors do you look at, i.e FDA approvals, H5NI,
Have you looked at the Real estate industry in USA,
What about india and china?
Would you consider putting a few grand aside and flipping CIT for the next month.

Idu

Have you a link to your twitter page?

PaddythePlumber

1 trade - Profit $700

Good Luck
PP

Note: all P&L figures excl. commission fees ($9.99 per trade).

Check my trades out at: http://twitter.com/PaddythePlumber

Idu

brain freeze - ignore this

moneybags2009

PaddythePlumber wrote: »

Hi MB.
Do you log your trades online? Would really like to follow other traders.

Good Luck
PP

Paddy

I dont, but would be happy to. Will look at a way to do so (perhaps twitter or could swap emails). Well done on the early profit. I note in a post you mention using max of 5% of your buying power on a share (I am assuming you have $25k in cash at 4:1 giving you a BP of $100k?) but your trade was 1000 shares at $12.x making it $12k or 12%. did i pick this up wrong. I am interested in your approach. I tend to buy in $10k chunks.

I have $10k which is actually at 3:1 leverage giving me BP of $30k (thought it was 2:1 when I set up). I tend to buy about an hour after the market opens and analyse trends but for only 10 stocks. no more.

Also I use interactivebrokers.com and on a $10k trade my buy and sell commissions tend to be about $3.00! might be worth a look further on.

Best of luck.I firmly believe $1k a week in very achievable. I plan to get my cash fund to $75k by year end (by putting more in, not all growth!) to give me €225k to play with. 0.5% return a day would yield a nice income.

MB

ixus

PaddythePlumber wrote: »

1 trade - Profit $700

Good Luck
PP

Note: all P&L figures excl. commission fees ($9.99 per trade).

Check my trades out at: http://twitter.com/PaddythePlumber

I note it opened at 12.40 and went to 13.19 in the space of about 30 mins.
It then pulled back to about 12.15 in another 15 mins.
After that, the price rose steadily enough to 14.89 in the opening 2 hours.

I assume you bought after this dip?

What had you get in at 12.30?
Why was 13 your target?
Did you have a stop loss order in? Was this triggered?

Just wondering from the point of view of letting your winners run and cutting your losses. Obviously it's nigh on impossible to pick highs and lows.

moneybags2009

ixus wrote: »

I note it opened at 12.40 and went to 13.19 in the space of about 30 mins.
It then pulled back to about 12.15 in another 15 mins.
After that, the price rose steadily enough to 14.89 in the opening 2 hours.

I assume you bought after this dip?

What had you get out at 12.30?
Why was 13 your target?
Did you have a stop loss order in? Was this triggered?

Just wondering from the point of view of letting your winners run and cutting your losses. Obviously it's nigh on impossible to pick highs and lows.

Excellent questions.
At the moment i am selling once I get a $106 profit (as I'm buying $10k each go and looking for a net 1% return after comm - just working now to prove my approach in advance of putting much more money in). I have lost out in several cases where shares have soared but have saved losses where the shares have dipped. Looking for 1% also means i generally get in and out quite quickly (average of less than 1 hour)

Whats your approach paddy?

PaddythePlumber

ixus wrote: »

I assume you bought after this dip?

I bought during pre-market trading (8.24ET). I rarely do this due to lack of liquidity (not the case here) but was very surprised to see the stock trading down in the AM (strong close previous day plus 3 upgrades with $17 target by one).

What had you get in at 12.30?

Nothing. I was delighted to get in at any price below previous days close.

Why was 13 your target?

I expected the momentum players to at least run it to $13 and i was happy to take my profits there.

Did you have a stop loss order in? Was this triggered?

I had a mental stop loss set at 5% below entry.

Just wondering from the point of view of letting your winners run and cutting your losses. Obviously it's nigh on impossible to pick highs and lows.

My whole strategy behind the HGSI trade was to take a quick profit (scalp). I apply this to nearly all of my trades in the Biotech sector.

Let me just sum up this trade by saying this was purely a momentum play for me. The TA players could argue that the stock broke all resistance for the last few years and that the next area to test was in the high $13's and they would have been right but after a 227% move previous day for me it was based on the following factors that drive the momentum:

Volume (The entire float nearly traded and was surging into previous days close)
Sentiment (Analysts 99% Bullish)
Hot Sector (Momo players have been running Biotech plays for the last few months)
Newsflow ( This to me was the key. Some shorts had been entering positions hoping that the company would release news of a dilutive financing. Many companies will do this the next day after such a massive run. When it was apparent this was not occur immediately the shorts squeeze ensued.)

Good Luck
PP

P.S. I am happy to do a detailed analysis of my trades but sometimes i will not have the time so i apologize in advance.

PaddythePlumber

moneybags2009 wrote: »

Will look at a way to do so (perhaps twitter or could swap emails).

Hi MB. The twitter idea sounds great but please don't feel pressurized. My whole reason behind logging my trades is to help me become more disciplined. I tend to overtrade and sometimes my money management is not as strict as i would like. Now that i am under the microscope so to speak it will hopefully help me with this and make this more enjoyable (i live in a room in my house for 12 hours a day).

I am assuming you have $25k in cash at 4:1 giving you a BP of $100k?

You know that they say about assumptions? Actually my balance is 100K (excl. leverage).

I tend to buy about an hour after the market opens and analyse trends but for only 10 stocks. no more.

Good strategy. Please post your stocks as we might be following the same ones.

Also I use interactivebrokers.com and on a $10k trade my buy and sell commissions tend to be about $3.00! might be worth a look further on.

I trade stocks under $5 so the commission is too high.

Best of luck.I firmly believe $1k a week in very achievable. I plan to get my cash fund to $75k by year end (by putting more in, not all growth!) to give me €225k to play with. 0.5% return a day would yield a nice income.

Good Luck
PP

PaddythePlumber

pirelli wrote: »

Do you look for companies with good dividends

Many of the companies i track pay dividends but this is not one of the reasons why i chose them. As a short term trader i look for companies with high betas.

What industries are you interested in other than bio tech.

I try to track at least one company in every industry to give me an idea of what the market likes.

With biotech I assume you day trade, What factors do you look at, i.e FDA approvals, H5NI,

I look at all parameters from cash position to approval.

Have you looked at the Real estate industry in USA. What about india and china?

No on USA. At the moment i track 5 Chinese stocks and 2 Indian ones.

Would you consider putting a few grand aside and flipping CIT for the next month.

I wouldn't hold it longer then 5 minutes.

pocketdooz

Idu wrote: »

Have you a link to your twitter page?

BUMP

PaddythePlumber

1 trade - Profit $625

Good Luck
PP

Check my trades out at: http://twitter.com/PaddythePlumber

mcirl2

Hi Paddy,

"Note: all P&L figures excl. commission fees ($9.99 per trade). "

Who is your broker? That seems very expensive commissions if your day trading. Have you considered Interactive Brokers - I think they are best - for your account size, it'd be well worth it.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/fees/commission.php?ib_entity=llc

Also, in terms of taxes - as you are trading US stocks - are you liable for US CGT or Irish CGT or income tax?


Mike

jlo4599

Hi just came across. how is the trading going? do u use software to track stocks and if so which one at what cost

listermint

I think paddy gave up

TiGeR KiNgS

Pretty sure old paddy is busto.