Tokyo Trader

Short three-day week due to the Golden Week holidays, but I still did pretty well: Heck who I am kidding, I did _great_ - Ended up just short of six digits, at Y99,023 for the three days. For the month, I’m up Y138,579, which, incidentally, is about Y300 off my record month set in March. I’m already way ahead of my planned pace for the month.

When I was playing chess competitively, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received from one of the masters at the Manhattan Chess Club was to work your tail off to gain an advantage, then consolidate your position. According to him, the biggest difference between a high-ranked club player - say someone in the 1900-2000 range - and someone ranked 2100 or higher, wasn’t due to openings or lines memorized or any major difference in positional thinking. According to him, a good club player would get an advantage, then go for the kill, over-exposing himself or otherwise giving up what advantage he had. Once a master gets an advantage, however, he consolidates his position so he has no weakness, and uses his advantage to slowly squeeze you to death. Nothing makes a master happier than to squeeze all life out of the position for the opposing player. A master doesn’t need a flashy move or combo to win - his advantage will do it for him, who cares if it takes him 20 moves instead of six?

That is going to be my mantra next week - I worked hard to gain an advantage this week. Next week, I am going to work on consolidating my position - smaller position sizes, tighter stops, etc.

In a lot of ways, this analogy could be used elsewhere - for example, on a day-to-day basis. How often do we start out making money in the morning, only to get overly cocky and/or greedy and give back the gains in the afternoon? Or how about on a trade-to-trade basis? Once we have the advantage (i.e., the stock moved in our direction) we consolidate our position (move up our stop). Interesting way to think about it. I have an extremely hard time letting my profits run - I tend to take the money and run - but maybe thinking about it like that will help.

For the week:
+Y99,023, on 2,736 shares traded

For the month so far:
+Y138,579, on 6,118 shares traded

Tokyo Trader: +Y39,400, on 1,312 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal: zero (no positions closed)
Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom: zero (no positions closed)

Wow - a crazy day for the market. After a relatively large decline on Thursday, I was expecting a modest bounce today, especially with the small gains in NY overnight. I also expected a bit of a jump early out of the gate since this morning was a mini-SQ day (special quote day for May futures/options). I was right about that at least, but after the first 30 minutes or so the market went completely south - we’re talking a one-way trip, straight down, with nary a pause.

Both TTG and TTGM are sitting on latent losses, so no trades closed today. I can’t quite blame them, selling at the near-term bottom isn’t an appealing option, and although I generally try to cut my losses early, if I was in the same position I’d at least wait to see if we don’t get a bit of a rebound on Monday. At this point the difference between a $700 loss and an $800 loss doesn’t mean that much, but a decent bounce could cut those losses in half at least. Tokyo Trader Girl in particular, however, is very determined to make sure she doesn’t get put in this position again to begin with - too large of a position, and she let a small loss move into a big loss. Plus, having her funds tied up means she’s stuck simply watching her position sit in the red. Not fun!

Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom, meanwhile, is pretty blase about things, she’s pretty confident the stocks she has - all major blue-chips, except (cough) NFK - will come back at some point. Gotta love those optimists!

Anyway - I started out this morning selling my overnight stake in Square Enix (9684) for a modest gain, considering my position size. Good thing, because I wouldn’t have made a dime if I had waited much longer. I tried to pick up Mizuho (8411) but mess up the entry - basically hitting the ’sell’ button when I was trying to add to my position - so the end result of that was a -Y1,000 loss. Grr. A couple of quick scalps of Ubiquitous (3858), Toyota (7203) and Full Speed (2159) put me up at almost Y50,000 for the morning session. I probably should have called it quits there, but since I was definitely feeling it, I kept trading in the afternoon, and boy oh boy did I almost lose a bundle. I put in a couple more scalps of Ubiquitous and KDDI (9433), and things were going good, when I noticed my old standby, Kyoei (5440), getting a mild bounce off the day’s low. I jumped in with a mega-sized position, looking to get one or two ticks. The stock immediately edged south and stalled, started to come back, and stalled again. The stock stayed there for about 20 minutes, stuck in no-man’s land - not in the money, so no real incentive to sell, but not near my hard stop, so no impetus to bail. I puttered around, eying my other stakes in KDDI and Ubiquitous, which also weren’t doing much of anything. All three were down sharply on the day, in line with the market-wide selloff, but I guessed that they weren’t going to go much lower, so I was happy to hold them overnight (Ubiquitous in particular tested Y200,000 twice unsuccessfully after a major fall in the morning).

You can imagine my surprise when I flip back to Kyoei - and I’m down almost Y50,000! Talk about speechless - this is literally in a span of about 30 seconds. Once again, it had blown by my stop, and it was only sheer luck that I managed to spot it and cancel my stop-loss order while it was at a Y60-70,000 loss. This stock has a history of plummeting sharply, then bouncing back - so I felt confident that simply dumping the stock at the market would only ensure I was selling at the bottom. The fall was due to the results announcement - losses for FY3/08, and expected further losses for FY3/09, but this was pretty much as expected; I didn’t expect the sell-off to last since there was no real surprise here. Sure enough, the stock stalled a bit and started to come back. Imagine my frustration when I realized I couldn’t double up because of my other positions in Ubiquitous and KDDI! After being down almost Y70,000, I eventually sold off the stock for a Y9,000 loss - about $90 bucks, and the only reason I sold there was because I didn’t want to take three positions into the weekend (I sold KDDI for a gain, but added Full Speed again). Had I been able to add to my position, even Kyoei would have been a decent gain. Food for thought next time - always try to leave some excess cash for unexpected opportunities that develop.

(Note: Chart posted with apologies to DT for the ‘good volume’ quote)

Sorry for the lack of charts and stuff recently. I’ve been focusing more on the quote board for my positions and exits, so the chart really only shows what I’m looking at after the fact. I did, however, recently download Camtasia, so I’ll try recording some of my trades tonight or next week.

TVO Status (includes latent gains/losses)
Start: Y6,000,000 ($60,000)
Current: Y6,550,195 ($65,550; +9.2%)
TT:Y2,000,000 / Y2,246,707 (+12.3%)
TTG: Y1,000,000 / Y1,095,344 (+9.5%)
TTGM: Y3,000,000 / Y3,208,144 (6.9%)

Open Positions (latent gain/loss)
TTG (-Y54,000): Kenedix (4321) @ Y177,000
TT (-Y7,000): Full Speed (2159) @ Y241,000, Ubiquitious (3858) @ Y202,500
TTGM (-Y136,000): NFK (6494) @ Y80, Hitachi (6501) @ Y709, MUFG (8306) @ Y1,117, Kobe Steel (5406) @ Y315

Tokyo Trader: +Y19,001, on 1,412 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal: +Y4,400, on 1,000 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom: zero (no positions closed)

Another sluggish day for Tokyo stocks - the sell-off in NY overnight meant for a weak start to the day; banks led the sell-off (down over 3% for the day). The Nikkei got relativley solid support at around 13,950 almost the entire day before falling sharply in the last 30 minutes or so, which may be partially due to today being the May SQ day.

I had a good morning session, picking up some good trades in Dwango (3715), Tech Farm (3625), and Billing Systems (3623). I sold off my short position in Kyoei (5440) for a modest gain; the stock didn’t fall near as much as I had expected despite the overall market slide. I was up almost $300 after the morning session. I gave back a chunk of my gains when I got burned on another Kakaku.com (2371) trade. The stock gapped up this morning, slid for the rest of the day, and I picked it up at what I thought was support, but the stock fell - slowly, but steadily, so I scaled out at a bit of a loss. I made back some of that on Square Enix (9684) late in the day, but was unable to sell off my entire position. I thus carried over some shares to tomorrow.

TTG had a _very_ quiet day. Started off with a bit of a difficult play in Japan Wind Development (2766), was able to get 3 ticks out of it. Atrium (8993) was a bit more dangerous, and she got out pretty much flat when the quote board started moving away from her. She spent most of the afternoon with Kenedix (4321); a fairly big position which tied her up all afternoon, and it hovered a bit lower than he’d like, so she has held it over for tomorrow or this evening.

TTGM did not close any trades today, so officially no trades.

TVO Status (includes latent gains/losses)
Start: Y6,000,000 ($60,000)
Current: Y6,546,175 ($65,461; +9.1%)
TT:Y2,000,000 / Y2,211,177 (+10.6%)
TTG: Y1,000,000 / Y1,113,344 (+11.3%)
TTGM: Y3,000,000 / Y3,234,884 (7.8%)

Open Positions (total latent gain/loss)
TTG (-Y36,000): Kenedix (4321) @ Y177,000
TT (-Y6,000): Square Enix (9684) @ Y3,400
TTGM (-Y45,000): NFK (6494) @ Y80, Hitachi (6501) @ Y709, MUFG (8306) @ Y1,117, Kobe Steel (5406) @ Y315

Tokyo Trader: +Y41,122, on 12 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom: +Y12,640, on 1,000 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal: -Y6,500, on 6,000 shares traded

A very quiet day of trading as Japan’s markets opened up after the four-day weekend. The market opened extremely strong, and was up by over 100 points late in to the morning. But trading was mostly futures driven, and once people realized there wasn’t much actual news to trade, the market fell,even falling lower for the day at one point. A modest bounce late in the day put the Nikkei up about 50 points - not even half a percentage point, although volume was up slightly from last Friday. Gainers beat losers by just over 2-1. Not really a whole lot going on, and we don’t really get the next wave of FY07 results announcements until tomorrow - the after-hours session tomorrow, and Friday, should be interesting, because quite a few ompanies are reporting on Thursday.

Anyway, it was a tough market today, so the Tokyo virtual office took it pretty slow; no-one wanted to really force anything. I took the top spot, mainly thanks to some after-hours trading, when two hold-overs from the afternoon session - Billing Systems (3623) and Kakaku.Com (2371) jumped on upwardly revised guidance. I love when that happens. But without those earnings plays, I would have only made about Y6,000. TTGM takes the second spot today with Mitsubishi Heavy, technically a carry-over from last week, and - stop me if you’ve heard this before - yet another MUFG (8306) scalp.

I only traded 12 shares, basically 2-3 share lots in big-ticket companies, like Dwango (3715) and AxelMark (3624). Dwango in particular I traded pretty heavily, but was only able to pull about Y4000 from it in the morning. I still hold some Dwango shares that are all at small losses but not yet at my stop. I’ll see if I can unload any of them in the after-hours market. My particular play today is a short of Kyoei, after it tested Y2,400. It’s well above its 10- and 75-day day averages and is at a recent resistance level. I’m thinking this might retrace to around Y2,300 before the week is out. Unfortunately, I can’t unload it in after-hours trading (Japan’s PTS system doesn’t allow margin trades).

Tokyo Trader Gal only traded in the morning, and just two trades. The one trade that didn’t work out looked like it was going to be a decent scalp, but she had to bail when buyers fizzled out.

All in all, a quiet day, pretty much as I expected. I think we’ll be in a more aggressive mood tomorrow.

TVO Status (Note: TT added Y1,000,000 on 7 May)
Start: Y6,000,000 ($60,000)
Current: Y6,546,175 ($65,262; +9.34%)
TT:Y2,000,000 / Y2,191,026 (+9.5%)
TTG: Y1,000,000 / Y1,134,265 (+13.4%)
TTGM: Y3,000,000 / Y3,234,884 (7.8%)

Open Positions
TTGM: NFK (6494) @ Y80, (NEW) Hitachi (6501) @ Y709
TT: (all new) Dwango (3715) @ Y308,000, Kyoei (5440) Short @ Y2,366

I have now been trading on a regular basis for three months.

In February I lost about $400.

In March I made about $1,400.

In April I made about $140.

I’ve made about $400 so far in May, but only two trading days.

So far, I am thus up about $1500. Not bad, since I have such a small bankroll. But it sure is a good thing I don’t have to depend on my day-trading skillz to eat, or I’d be eating a lot of instant noodles and lima beans <g>. My take over the past three months wouldn’t pay a month’s rent. Yikes.

Anyway - some random facts from the past three months:

 - I’ve made 323 trades in the three months. That’s an average of about 5 trades a day - but that number is definitely skewed, because the first six weeks I was only making one or two trades a day, at most, and some days I didn’t trade at all. I have probably averaged over 10 trades a day the last six weeks or so.

- Win rate: 67%
- Avg win: Y4,000
- Avg loss: -Y7,000
- Avg win taking out top three wins: Y3,600
- Avg loss taking out top three losses: -Y5,300

Obviously need some work here - I am not worried about my average loss size. Even with my biggest losses included, my average loss is well below 1% of my bankroll, and in general, I have gotten to the point where setting and taking a stop-loss hit is almost automatic now. No, my main problem is my average win is way too small. I need to work on being more patient with my positions that are in the black; I definitely am taking my gains too early.

- Top three trades
1) Kyoei (5440), Apr 28: Y52,000
2) Altech (4573), Apr 21: Y38,530
3) Marubeni (8002), Jan 31: Y38,000

-Worst three trades
1) New City Residence (8965), Apr 26: -Y124,000
2) Sen-nen no Mori (1757), Apr 3: -Y42,000
3) Nippon Chemi-con (6997), Feb 1: -Y32,000

Not much to say here - New City was by far and away the worst loss ever, and boy was it a good - if expensive - lesson for me. The other losses, while big, are a bit more understandable - in both cases I simply had my stop too far away for my position size.

- Win streak: 1 streak of six days, 2 streaks of five days
- Losing streaks: One streak of six days in early February, three or four two-day losing streaks

- Favorite stocks: Kyoei (5440), 29 trades, MUFG (8306), 19 trades, KDDI (9433), 14 trades

I did not have a winning day in the first two weeks of February. That’s a bit inaccurate - I only traded the first few days, lost every day, then mostly stopped trading for almost a week while I reworked my trade rules and system. Since then I have never had more than two losing days in a row.

Average RoI: Pathetic. But, there is very little I can do about that - I wrote in this post about some of Japan’s non-friendly market structure rules that make it very difficult for day traders to adjust position sizes. The biggest problem is the minimum investment units, and the price move units (some stocks moves in 1-yen increments, some in 5- or 10-yen, some in Y1,000 increments! If I buy 5 shares of a high-priced stock, each one-tick move is worth $50. Yikes.

So - the upshoot of all this?

1) I am relatively confident I can make money trading on a fairly consistent basis, when I don’t trade like a retard. I am thus going to double my bankroll to $20,000. My goal is to average $100 a day - not a lot, but if I can’t reach even that humble target, aiming higher doesn’t make much sense.

2) I am going to try and narrow down the number of stocks I trade - ideally, I’d like to have a small group of about 8-10 stocks that I monitor on a regular basis for entry/exit points, while keeping an eye out each day for the one or two ’special movers’ that always seem to turn up.

3) I am going to try and focus a bit more on bringing my commissions costs down. Part of this is trying to balance position size - i.e., how expensive the stock is, and the minimum lot size - and the minimum tick size. Kyoei, my favorite stock, trades at about $20 a share; the minimum lot size is 100 shares (so minimum position size is $2,000) and the stock moves in Y5 increments (or about $5 at the minimum lot size). Contrast that with, for example, a stock like Dentsu (4324) or FullSpeed (2159), or even Dwango (3715) - one-share lots, each share is $2,000-3,000, but the minimum tick size is $10. I’d need 200 shares of Kyoei - over $4,000 - to get the same $10/tick action; it’s obviously more efficient to use only half that amount in Densu or similiar stock. Other stocks are even more inefficient - consider a stock like Mixi (2121) which costs over $8,000 a share (one-share lots, minimum move still only $10). Now, I’m not going to completely rule out other stocks; if they offer a good entry setup, I will take it - but I am going to try and focus more on using my capital more efficiently. This is probably also good from a risk management standpoint.

4) I am going to have a smaller, separate bankroll to get my feet wet in futures, options, and forex trading. I will blog about these on occasion.

5) On a slightly different note - I think Japanese stocks are insanely cheap right now, even after the 10% rebound or so from the lows of March. I am thus going to play fund manager for a while - I am setting aside a certain amount each month (separate from my day trading and derivatives accounts) to invest in a pool of stocks for long-term growth.

6) I am beginning to see where my ‘edge’ is: identifying potential resistance/support points, and using the quote board/tape for my entry and exit points. I let myself get into too many other approaches - ‘buying with the trend’, or only focusing on the chart for entry points, etc. I’m sure those are all great, valid methods for the right people, but they haven’t worked out for me. I am thus going to focus more the charts for my candidates and narrowing down possible entry ideas, but use the quote board for determining the actual entry and exit.

The Tokyo markets are closed Monday and Tuesday this week for the ‘golden week’ holidays. TTG and I have had a nice four-day weekend; we’re now at TTGM’s house, which means we’ll be having a little Tokyo Virtual Office study group session this evening <g>

It’s been nice to take a bit of a break from the markets. I’ve had a bit of regular work over the break (TTG calls it ‘my honest job <g>). I went into the break with no open positions, so I didn’t have to think about anything the entire time - a nice emotional break. After four days off tho, I’m looking forward to getting back in. A couple of new things in store for May; I’ll be discussing them shortly.

I also want to go back and do a slightly more thorough review of my three-month trading career. If I’m going to document my mistakes I might as well try and learn from them…

Talk to you all tomorrow when we jump back in the saddle!Â

Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom: +Y29,900, on 2,500 shares traded
Tokyo Trader: +Y17,456, on 2,724 shares traded
Tokyo Trader Gal: +Y4,740, on 900 shares traded

The Nikkei opened strong today, thanks in part to the upturn in the US overnight. Japan is heading into a four-day weekend, so I was expecting a relatively quiet afternoon of trading, but the market continued to rise slowly but surely throughout the day, and finally managed to close over the 14,000 mark for the first time since late February. Winners beat losers 8-1, and volume was surprisingly strong, with total value traded was up 2.2% for the day.

Financials and real estate drove the market today - not surprising since they were the two biggest losing sectors the day before. Both TTG and TTGM were holding on to positions in banks, so they stood to benefit from the bounce. I almost pulled the trigger on SMFG (8316) in after-market trading yesterday, but chickened out when the Dow wasn’t doing much in early US trading.

TVO: We were all in the black today. TTGM takes the top spot. She did very well, jumping MUFG (8306) for a sweet 13-tick move, and also sold off posiions in Mazda and Mitsubishi Steel. Her fetish with all things Mitsubishi continues, as she is holding a position in Mitsubishi Heavy (7011).

I lost the top spot today when I couldn’t really find any set-ups I liked in the afternoon. I started off with a loss on SMFG (8316) - I expected a bounce in financials in the morning, and decided to buy in after the stock gapped up hard - I should have waited a bit longer to confirm support - as it was, I ended up selling for a Y6,000 loss when sellers came in hard (probably profit taking) - the stock would have been a big winner for me. I really struggle with buying into stocks that have gapped up.

Rest of the day was relatively uneventful -  Couple of small scalps of Ricoh (7752) and Dwango (3715), and two nicer plays: a short of Kyoei (5440) and a quick scalp on Asset Managers (2337) in the early afternoon. That was a fun stock to play; the quote board really jumps. I had one more trade on Atrium (8993) which I tried to short when it was near its high for the day. I got out for a small Y400 loss when it broke above the high - saved myself from a big loss, but really, once it broke out I should have turned around and gone long.

TTGM is finally back in the plus column today. She probably could have made more than she did, but she was trying to be patient and let her profits run. She didn’t let it turn into a loss, which is good, and I have to applaud her for her patience - lord knows that letting profits run is my biggest problem, I’m always selling my profits too soon.

TVO Status
Start: Y5,000,000 ($50,000)
Current: 5,484,362 ($54,843; +9.69%)

Open Positions
TTGM: NFK (6494) @ Y80, MUFG (8306) @ Y1,162, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (7003) @ Y341, Mitsubishi Heavy (7011) @ Y475

A bit of a short week due to the holiday on Wednesday (Apr 30). But it was a record week for me, as I pulled in Y159,998 - more than I’ve ever made in any calendar month! Yikes. The gains were mainly due to big gains the last two days of April, when I averaged about Y58,000 for the two days. After losing Y62,000 the previous weak (mainly on the disastrous New City trade) it’s nice to have basically made back the entire New City debacle in less than a week. (The flip side, of course - is to think where I’d be if I hadn’t screwed myself over with NC!).

TT: +Y22,100, on 658 shares traded
TTGM: No trades closed
TTG: -Y170, on 10 shares traded

If it looks like the TVO had a slow day today - well, we sort of did. Actually, it is mostly because I have changed how we report figures for the TVO. Up until now I’ve basically reported the figures after marking all open positions to market. While accurate for that particular day’s results, it has proven to be a pain in the ass trying to go back and update TVO figures from prior days when figures change after people finally close a position. For that reason, I’ve decided to only report figures for trades that were actually closed that day. I will also be reporting any open positions, as well as latent gains/losses if I’m feeling particularly ambitious.

TTGM and TTG are both in rather dire straits, as it were. Neither were very active today because they are sitting on some losses that they have found it tough to part with <g>. As I noted yesterday, TTGM got into MUFG pretty much at the day’s high, and the stock tanked today, so that hurts. She has some other positions in the red, but not that big. TTG cut her losses in J-Oil yesterday, which was good, but decided to jump into MUFG since it had slid so far today, which was bad, because of course the stock fell even further in the afternoon. The one problem with sitting on a big position is that of course it ties up all your funds - since neither TTGM or TTG have opened up margin accounts, they are pretty much on the bench if they have used up their cash accounts.

I had a few trades today that worked, only one that didn’t, but only had one big winner - Altech. I got in early in the morning, only after considerable hesitation. The stock had gone stop-high the day before, and buying stocks that have gone to the moon goes against my natural style. I found what looked to be a good entry point, and pulled the trigger when the quote tape seemed to confirm solid buyer support. I was able to pull two ticks, for +Y20,000 — pretty much my entire day in the first 10 minutes <g>. I debated holding on to it - and it did end up about Y20,000 higher, at another stop-high! - but I don’t want to be holding a $10,000 stock overnight. Particularly one that has risen over 30% in a week. The bubble is going to burst sometime, and when it does, someone is going to be left holding the wrong end of a really, really dirty stick. And it ain’t going to be me. So I am happy just to have pulled two ticks from it. I don’t think I will be touching this one again for a bit.

My other trades were mostly one or two-tick trades - I tried Full Speed and Dwango early in the day, lost on FS when buyers never really gained control. Lost -Y3,000 on that. Ditto Dwango, but I got out at my entry point before the stock really tanked in the afternoon. I picked it up late in the day as a post-market (PTS) or overnight play. Square Enix was one of my longer trades - the stock usually moves quite a bit, and I actually missed out on a good entry point in the morning. So when it came back in the afternoon with a good looking quote board, I jumped in - and the stock simply stopped moving. It was either flat or slightly in the red most of the afternoon, and I debated bailing numerous times. Each time, however, the quote board gave me confidence that buyers were in the picture, and I had ample room to exit with only a minor loss at worst. So I held on. Ended up gaining a couple of ticks on it. Some other small trades, nothing major, in the usual suspects - Mixi, SMFG, Aldrepro etc. I probably would have made more today, but my commissions were pushed up by the big Altech trade - over $20,000 in trade value on that one trade alone.

I also noticed that I was trading very relaxed today - making a nice $200 gain on the first trade of the day really helps. It’s nice knowing that even if I screw up a couple of trades, I’ll still probably be at the worst breaking even on the day.

TVO Status
Start: Y5,000,000
Current: 5,366,253 (7.3%)

Open Positions
TT: Dwango (3715) @Y300,000 (sold @Y302,000)
TTG: MUFG (8306) @ Y1,129 (sold @ Y1,135)
TTGM: NFK (6494) @ Y80, Mitsubishi Steel (5632) @ Y383 (sold @ Y387) , MUFG (8306) @ Y1,162, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (7003) @ Y341, Mazda (7261) @ Y450 (sold @ Y465)

I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking about how we trade here at the Tokyo Virtual Office. The honest answer is ‘not very well’, but that wouldn’t make much of an interesting column.

First, the easy one: Tokyo Trader Gal’s Mom (a.k.a. TTGM) seemingly trades completely at random - and yet she has been very successful the past month. Over the past month her win ratio is 70%, her largest loss is only 1% of her balance, and she’s only had two losing days. Over a week or so might be luck, but over a month, when the market’s been pretty erratic - she’s doing something right. She doesn’t look at charts, focuses only on the quote board and bid/ask numbers, and only trades from a small basket of stocks. MUFG is by far her favorite stock - over one-third of her trades have been MUFG, and over 80% of her winnings have been on those 10 trades. She takes relatively small positions given her starting balance, but tends to wait for stocks to come back if they move against her, so that’s probably just as well. This probably isn’t as risky as it sounds, since she only trades extremely liquid, blue-chip stocks.

Tokyo Trader Gal is only slightly newer to day trading than I am and is still solidifying her style. So far, she’s had the most success of all of us in terms of return on initial balance, with a return of 7.43% for the month. Her early trades were way too-large positions in crazy stocks, and she also suffered fairly big losses on three holdings that she couldn’t bring herself to cut. She has rebounded from that very impressively - she has gotten much better at cutting her losses short (usually only a few thousand yen here and there), but she was finding it hard to make any significant gains, especially because she had cut down on her position sizes. Since last week or so, however, she has been focusing on one style: Large positions in active stocks that have already trading higher for the day. It’s worked out very well for her so far - half her gains this month came in three days of the last week of trading - but of course the large positions means somewhat bigger losses if she gets the entry wrong. She is pretty accurate so far - in fact, her win ratio is over 80%. In her own words, she tries to look for stocks that are ‘less likely to fall, instead of likely to rise’.

I started day trading back in March, and am confident than I can make money - when I don’t shoot myself in the foot. I have had two or three cycles of making good money, then blowing it on one big loss. My focus now is simply on not taking any losses over 1.5-2% of my initial value at work. I’ve been toying with different systems, but feel most comfortable with - and have been most successful with - counter-trend plays. My style right now, at least, is similar to TTG’s, in that I am taking somewhat larger positions, but TTG goes long in stocks that have already moved higher that day; she strictly goes with the trend. I try to find stocks that have risen or fallen to support or resistance levels, and fade that particular trend. I know the old axiom, ‘the trend is your friend’ - but it’s almost a mental block for me. I find it very hard to buy a stock that has already made a 5% move on the day, and the idea of possibly buying at the top - yuck. I do, however, use the quote board much more TTG, and lately I’ve found I am pretty good at reading it, especially for particular stocks. I have had good success using the quote board (and not the chart) to pick my entry and exit points. One of these days I’ll have to make a video of one of my trades, I’m sure you would all get a kick out of it <g>.

I do realize that if I’m going to take big trades and play for one or two ticks, I probably should be going with the trend. It’s something I will have to look into a bit more.