September 2017 Trading Report

September 1st: $17.19 Profit

September 5th: $34.04 Profit

September 18th: $11.01 Loss

September 22nd: $51.78 Loss

September 25th: $11.71 Profit

September 26th: $50.71 Profit

September 30th: $21.63 Profit


Started September: $8,321.89

Ended September: $8,394.38


Total Profit for September 2017: $72.49


      After September 5th, I returned from my 10-day trip to BM Shangri-La. From that day on it was nothing but work, getting three apartments both rental ready and rented out. I was barely able to trade and, when I finally had some time, I took a couple of losses before I found my groove and ended with profits.

Market Orders

     Quick lesson. A market order is when you buy or sell at whatever the price is at that point. A limit order is when you buy or sell at a pre-set price. Let's say I'm waiting for a stock to go up to $100 before I buy 50 shares. If I do a market buy and place an order for 50 shares once it hits $100, I'll probably get it at $100.10 or $100.15 since it's buying at that exact moment. If I did a limit buy, the order won't go through unless it's exactly at $100. So limit orders give a trader better control of prices. Got it? Okay.

     That first trade I made on September 1st was frustrating as fuck. I put in a limit order to buy 2000 shares of a stock, Stock X, that has a daily average volume of at least 3 million. With an average volume so high, limit orders usually execute quickly with no issue. That time, however, it took over an hour just to BUY the damned shares... and even then it only bought 1915 of the 2000. When I went to sell with a limit order, I had the same problem. It would sell in small portions of 10 and 50 and other weird packages, taking over an hour to finally sell. There was no way I could make money like this! Why the fuck was this happening, and why only with Stock X?? I called TD Ameritrade and they gave me some bullshit textbook answer that made me hang up the phone. Stock X had good OMEGA pattern and I didn't want to drop it from my watchlist, so I decided to try market orders with Stock X on the 18th. The result?

     What should have been a $37.09 profit turned into an $11.01 loss, and all because I did market instead of limit. So, lesson learned. If a stock under $40/share is having trouble with limit orders, save the stress and get it off the watchlist. Once I start trading $50-$100 stocks, I can do either limit or market orders without an issue.

   
    $72 isn't a lot, but it's understandable as so much of my time was taken up with real estate that I barely traded in September. October will be the complete opposite, as I'm gonna do the max 12 day trades (3 per week). Without much to do, I should be very focused with each trade. While I won't be forcing it, I'd really like to make over $400. That would put me at that magic return number of 10%, which would be a huge victory for me. I would finally be able to plan out how and when I can add funds and start making some real money already.