A trader\'s money management system

P1:a/b P2:c/d QC:e/f T1:g
c12 JWBK182-McDowell April 25, 2008 16:15 Printer: Yet to come

Using Trade Posting Cards and Ledgers 117

TRADE POSTING CARD EXAMPLES

Your trade posting cards are the front line of combat; this is where you will

work to hold the line on profits with each and every trade. Do your best

to record thoughts on entry and exit strategies and also feelings before

opening the trade and after closing the trade.

It’s impossible to capture accurate readings on your thoughts and feel-

ings in hindsight, so try to get it on paper during the live trade. Following

are a selection of a few actual student posting cards from the year, along

with comments on what can be learned from each of them.

Trade Posting Card for January 4, 2007,

$2009.14 Profit

Comments: This trade was one of the most profitable trades of the year,

and the entry technique was effective. The exit technique consisted of scal-

ing out of one-third of the position two times on reversal bar signals (see

Figure 12.8 and Figure 12.9).

Trade Posting Card for January 23, 2007,

$474.48 Loss

Comments: Here the student notes, “...This was not a very clever trade.

I was influenced by the news...” The trade was a short trade, and the

charts were indicating a long position since the previous day. Here, trad-

ing psychology is tested and the television news influenced the short entry

resulting in a loss (see Figure 12.10 and Figure 12.11).

Trade Posting Card for July 16, 2007,

$243.10 Loss

Comments: The student notes, “...I did not execute this trade very well. I

had 2 opportunities to scale out with one-bar reversal bars surrounding a

double top. I could have posted a win instead of a loss. The question is: Am

I greedy?” These are great notes and will be useful for going forward (see

Figure 12.12 and Figure 12.13).