First Month

I have completed 20 days of trading and it's been so intense. I have been at the computer 7am to 4.30am almost every day with the odd exception of finishing between midnight and 2am. I have felt incredibly tired but I haven't felt any affects of the tiredness on my trading so I kept pushing as much as I could. The other night I had to close one eye between 2am and 4am just to be able to see the numbers on the ladder... I couldn't sleep because I had a large position at the time. The stress has been immense, even after I withdrew for the first time I couldn't relax. Some of it was used to cover the software costs which weren't small because I had paid for 3 months in advance and I had to back pay charts a month. Additionally I was incredibly low on funds outside of trading and had just 1 month of living expenses left. Now I have withdrawn for a second time and I am feeling far less stressed. I am living in Hong Kong and my rent is equivalent of $500 US a month and food here is so cheap, so just making a few thousand $ can really help.

There has been a lot of waiting throughout the day, I felt I never forced a trade or got impatient, I would often do just 4 trades in a 21 hour day. I have put a lot of screen time in and really feel like I am conjoining with the market... it's hard to explain but I feel the price action isn't so random now. I have made a few outright trades and had good results. Trading such long hours is pretty interesting, I get to see the opening of all the markets from Australian markets, US markets and European markets. I trade them all and I trade soybeans just in the night session which is very illiquid and I actually love it. It's really transparent at times, I can see some guy putting in a huge bid and pushing the market up and then a few contracts pushing at the end and the larger positions holding further down. I sell that market and queue the bid on the other and get the fills to exit the spread. It's very satisfyingly as sometimes I have a lot of soybean contracts and I sell the bid and make it offered and the other bids vanish and I dunno if I just moved the market like that or not but it is very illiquid and very few contracts on the ladder (like as little as 10 sometimes). The other day the Australian bonds pushed higher until the close, opened up much lower then it closes for 40 minutes later on, just before the open I can see people putting in orders to buy just below where it was trading yesterday even though the market was much much lower. It instantly pushed the market up which I think is because some guys were short from that point but don't get out earlier because that session would be when they are sleeping, not everyone can trade 21 hours! For things like that I just watch and observe, I have used some technical analysis, like Elliot wave theory in my trading. I watch and see icebergs in the market, I can see people stopping out in the bond markets and what feels like traders trying to get filled on the bid and pushing the offer with size to extend the move. Example, I see a choice market.. and small traders lifting the small offer and traders putting in queues further down to buy back their longs but the offer is vanishing because their is little selling pressure and I then I conclude those traders wanting to buy back could be exiting their trades for a loss soon to push it higher so their is little downside to going long. Often I just watch and observe and right now I try to focus on the times when their is news, when markets are opening, basically when the spread could make larger moves, because sometimes it is not a spread. For example when US news comes out, it may push T notes up and Australian bonds will follow but not to the extent to keep the spread price the same. This can lead to a spread blow out and it's simply because the news is about the US economy not the Australian Economy, it's unlike the spread I traded before which was European interest rates against German bonds. During news a big move could happen and the spread could keep in. I am building a bigger picture of the week in my head and hoping to discover more about each individual market to progress as a trader.

Yesterday I added a new spread, 10 year German bond vs 10 year T note. It looks pretty decent.. although I am yet to trade it. Now I have 3 spreads to trade and I think this should give me some more opportunities. Hopefully I can put in a really decent month in March as I feel finally settled with my set up. I guess it's turned out completely different to what I thought, trading different markets than I planned but it's turned out well and I am happy with the spreads.

First 20 days trading in US dollars, Gross Profit (blue) and Net Profit (green). Actually the two would be tighter together but I trade a lot of soybean spreads which have a fine line between gross and net, but it will add a little each month I believe and push up my RTs in the market to ensure I can keep getting discounted commissions.

To put this in perspective, as the amount you make is really dependant on your capital, this is a gain of 1.69% per day which is just over a 33% gain on my starting capital in 20 days!

I am suffering from dizziness still and my glands are even more swollen today. Throughout the month I often feel like I might collapse from whatever has been affecting me for the last several months. So I am off to the hospital now, probably just stress related..

[Updated graph for the full month, 2 posts above]