My First Day Trading
My first day trading was actually Wednesday, 5 April. I had set up my account with a major online discount broker—felt that was the best way to go until I had a clue how this was going to work out. My account balance was $30,006 due to a bit of interest I got from set up to the day I began trading.
My first trade was a good one for GNBT. It's a small stock that was trending upward on the Most Active list. I bought 1000 shares on a limit buy for $2.62 each. I had a bunch of problems getting the sell orders in right as I could not get the stop order to work right. Need to call the broker about that. In the grand scheme of things, I should have a better idea how this system works before I buy stuff... and I know I'm being reckless, but I did it anyway. About 6 minutes later though, I had made my $0.05 per share and gotten out of the stock. It was a small scalp that grossed $50 (minus commissions of course).
My next trade was also a good one. I found that NVAX was also very active and trending upwards. So I bought 1000 shares at $6.62. Two minutes later, I scalped out of the stock at $6.67 with $50 less commissions in my pocket. Altogether, the net was about $77.
This was, I admit, really exciting. I was having early success. I kept telling myself to keep calm, keep calm. I decided to try one more trade. I had to leave to go to a meeting in an hour and a half. I figured that was enough time. After all, my first two trades had barely taken a few minutes each.
BAD MOVE.
DCEL was active. It was trending up on the 1 minute, the 5 minute AND the daily chart. It looked good. I bought 1000 shares at $8.80. And... watched it drop like a stone to $8.65. I waited. It passed into the lunch time doldrums. I waited. Selling down in the doldrums is always a bad idea. So I didn't. I held. But, time passed and I HAD to leave for my appointment. I couldn't just leave the position, particularly considering that I didn't know how to place a stop-loss order! Finally, the stock crept up to $8.75 and I bailed as fast as I could.
With that one fell trade, I went from $77 up to $96 down.
I quit for the day, not happy, but not overly unhappy. There will be losing days and gaining days in this. I accept that. Like Toni Turner says, I'm aiming to trade well. I made 2 good trades. The third trade looked good. It really did. But I knew very well that it was too close to lunch hour and I never should have placed it to begin with. It was the thrill. I'm a roller-coaster sort of chick and I need to be careful about giving in to thrill-seeking behavior.
It loses me money.
Harsh Lesson #1: Quit when you're ahead.
Harsh Lesson #2: Don't trade close to lunch time.
Harsh Lesson #3: Don't trade under time constraints.
My first trade was a good one for GNBT. It's a small stock that was trending upward on the Most Active list. I bought 1000 shares on a limit buy for $2.62 each. I had a bunch of problems getting the sell orders in right as I could not get the stop order to work right. Need to call the broker about that. In the grand scheme of things, I should have a better idea how this system works before I buy stuff... and I know I'm being reckless, but I did it anyway. About 6 minutes later though, I had made my $0.05 per share and gotten out of the stock. It was a small scalp that grossed $50 (minus commissions of course).
My next trade was also a good one. I found that NVAX was also very active and trending upwards. So I bought 1000 shares at $6.62. Two minutes later, I scalped out of the stock at $6.67 with $50 less commissions in my pocket. Altogether, the net was about $77.
This was, I admit, really exciting. I was having early success. I kept telling myself to keep calm, keep calm. I decided to try one more trade. I had to leave to go to a meeting in an hour and a half. I figured that was enough time. After all, my first two trades had barely taken a few minutes each.
BAD MOVE.
DCEL was active. It was trending up on the 1 minute, the 5 minute AND the daily chart. It looked good. I bought 1000 shares at $8.80. And... watched it drop like a stone to $8.65. I waited. It passed into the lunch time doldrums. I waited. Selling down in the doldrums is always a bad idea. So I didn't. I held. But, time passed and I HAD to leave for my appointment. I couldn't just leave the position, particularly considering that I didn't know how to place a stop-loss order! Finally, the stock crept up to $8.75 and I bailed as fast as I could.
With that one fell trade, I went from $77 up to $96 down.
I quit for the day, not happy, but not overly unhappy. There will be losing days and gaining days in this. I accept that. Like Toni Turner says, I'm aiming to trade well. I made 2 good trades. The third trade looked good. It really did. But I knew very well that it was too close to lunch hour and I never should have placed it to begin with. It was the thrill. I'm a roller-coaster sort of chick and I need to be careful about giving in to thrill-seeking behavior.
It loses me money.
Harsh Lesson #1: Quit when you're ahead.
Harsh Lesson #2: Don't trade close to lunch time.
Harsh Lesson #3: Don't trade under time constraints.
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