Trading Career Review

2018 - 2019 Trading Career Review

I started out trading journey on May 2018. I start to watch Adam's youtube online to learn basic of trading and investing. I decided to quit my job on July. I then took Adam Khoo's course end of August. I started to Swing trade stocks full time.

Here is what happen after the course:

September 2018 to December 2018

I had steep learning curves on Fundamental analysis for Value Momentum Investing 8 steps:
- Increasing Sales, Earning and Cash Flow operation
- Positive Growth Rate
- Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- High and Consistent ROE
- Conservative Debt
- Intrinsic Value

I also learnt basic Technical Analysis from Adam Khoo:
- Candlestick pattern
- Moving Average
- MACD
- Force Index
- Stochastic
- etc

During that 3 months, I focus mainly on swing trading stocks. On that period, market was very volatile and I had many stoploss hit. On that time, I was holding about 10 open positions and I have no deep understanding on risk management. I email to William and he advised to not holding too much open positions at one time. I started to close out most positions. On Octocber, market has a deep correction for 20%. I found that Adam Khoo's method does not work well at all. It only works when market is trending well.

End of November, I joined Tropicana Group. I met Derek in the group, and he introduced to me XSPY. XSPY is mainly pure price action manipulation strategy. I also learnt advanced of candlestick pattern from him.

What I learnt from XSPY:
- DR1/ DR2 - Downtrend reversal pattern
- UR1/ UR2 - Uptrend reversal pattern
- UC1/ UC2 - Uptrend Continuous pattern
- DC1/ DC2 - Downtrend Continuous pattern

I start to practice it on live stocks. November 2018 has very good reversal from the correction, I catch some swing trade stocks, but I also missed a lot of opportunity.

Jan 2019 to March 2019

I started to trade purely XSPY on stocks. At the same time, I also start some "Investing" mostly on China stock (BIDU, TCEHY, MOMO, WB, etc). Investing required no stoploss as I believe it will goes up in future. I start to capital sizing my portfolio for swing trade and investing. I also use Dollar Cost Averaging method to average down entry price of my investing. I also make an Investing spreadsheet which I use to track Fundamental analysis of reputable company. This is one thing that I am proud of myself.

This quarter I put most focus on XSPY strategy. The result was not positive. I make a lot of mistakes, which market was so bullish, and I trade against it. The biggest lesson I learnt is always follow market trend. Don't make prediction as no one know the future.

At this quarter, I also start approach macro economics which I never learnt before in my previous course. Adam Khoo always mention to ignore macro news. But I feel it is good to learn extra knowledge.

Macro economics
- Seasonal chart
- Economic Data

April 2019 to June 2019

I started to demo trade Forex in April and live trade in May using Pepperstone broker. This was my first Day trading experience and it totally different with Swing trading. This quarter I focus more on day trading using XSPY. I still make a lot of mistakes catching not distinct structure. The result is still negative.

On Swing trading stocks, I reduced trading tremendously to catch only good structure stocks. It turns positive result but not much.

The outcome for this quarter is mostly day trading experience gain from Forex.


July 2019 to September 2019

My investing outcome doesn't went well when China market is volatile due to trade war with US. My investing start to loss money. The biggest loss is from BIDU, ATHM and WB. I sold all the stocks as I could no longer bear with the loss and afraid it might loss even more. From here, I knew that I am investing but my mentality is "Trading", which I conclude that I am not ready for investing yet, due to my small capital.

Forex result start to loss getting more, even I risk so small. The small losses start to accumulate and become continuous losses. I loss from $500 and continuous to $800 in Forex. I start to doubt is XSPY really works on Forex.

In September, I step further to take Conrad's course to further my macro economic learning. The most benefits from Conrad's course:

- Seasonal Model
- Options 0.25 Delta
- Yield Curve
- Macro economic and etc

In this quarter, I also learnt extra things from Derek which I currently still applying and improving:
- Volume Profile
- Pivot Points

These both make a big turn on my Day trading in next quarter.

October 2019 to December 2019

I quit Forex and I started to demo trade Futures on October to mid of December. I use volume profile and Pivot Points that taught by Derek. I make a lot of mistakes during the demo period. I trade UK and US hour during my visit to Germany.

In the last half of December, I started to trade live for Future. It was nervous at beginning as the exposure to capital is much bigger than Forex. I have good beginning and happy to see my capital grow green for first time in my Day trading.

In this quarter, my full focus on day trading Futures using new combination strategy of Volume Profile and Pivot Points. For stocks, I did a few swing trade and all turns positive.

Last thought: I still making tons of mistakes, I continue to learn and learn, the progress of growing is never stop.

2019 Conclusion

2019 has been very tough journey for me, with entire year with no income stream, negative trading result. My emotion has been affected a lot with stress of daily financial. I save every cent that I could but I don't want to let my parent to tighten their spending. With their current age they should be enjoy retirement. I even afraid to look at my current saving account and credit card bill at some point, try to avoid thinking any financial related. I mentally stress out  a lot in 2019.

2019 mindset and experience has tremendously upgraded, with more clear direction which strategy that works and not works for me. I getting understand my trading style through entire year trading journey.

2020 will getting tougher, as financial getting tighten. The only objective of the year is to Trade Better and Earn Consistent.