My "What's Next?"

I'm at a place right now where I'm showing pretty good consistency and it's not rare for me to show up in the company's top performer report. Although, the market has been active and it's been good for us the past month and a half or so. I'm a little concerned regarding how I'm going to hit my numbers when a slow month comes along. I know still have the tendency to churn a little bit and that's what I need to work on. Jane, my coach, and our Managing Director have all said that my P&L will be a lot higher than before even if a slow month does come. Theoretically I am making better decisions and managing my size better as well.

So what's next? I definitely want to become an HP trader and take on students myself but that seems to be further out in the time line. Jason, my MD (managing director), thought I was impatient. It's really just that I don't know what to shoot for now. I'm happy with the check I'm getting but I want to get to the next level. From my conversation with Jason yesterday, here's what I think I can to grow even more:

• Take bigger size when it's appropriate and stretch myself a little bit maybe once or twice a week where I'm a little nervous or uncomfortable with the size I'm in.
• Analyze strengths and weakness--there's no need to be good at everything is what Jason told me, which is completely the opposite of my inherent personality. I'm like Skylar from Heroes. I have this hunger of wanting everybody's powers. X Trader is good trading off of IBD data? I want that. Y trader is the best pre-market traders? Great, I need to get his power, too. There are also plays revolving around high dollar stocks, penny stocks, and pair trades.
• I'm doing great right at the close or post market. Take more shares and for the iShares that I play, know exactly what I need to hedge it with if it looks like I can't get out.
• I have some trouble in the middle of the day (much like the rest of the company); dial back the shares and more selective with trades after 10:30am. I think also a lot of times I should be playing the reversals when a stock is up or down huge but being the momentum trader that I am I go short those bounces or long the retracement. Those happen a little earlier than 10:30 though. The other stuff is probably just churning. (all time in CST)
  
• Wednesday is just terrible for me relative to other days for some reason... It used to be I would get burned sometimes when oil numbers came out but not anymore. Still, I'm not doing as well on Wednesdays compared to the rest of the week. It could be a lack of focus in mid week or that I just have some predisposed belief that I suck on Wednesdays.
• I'm sucking it up on certain oil stocks like PBR and HK... and the banking ETFs and stocks I'm not doing too well either. Adjustment is needed or don't trade it at all.
• I'm doing well with EWZ. EEM and FXI kind of sucked after the split. Jason recommends that I find another ETF that I can hone in and trade well.
• I have pretty high winning percentage, about 60%, but my risk reward could be better, aka stretching out my winners and cutting the losers quicker, and I'd like my duration to be longer as well. I do believe though that if I've establish a trading style that works for me I don't need to do any heavy adjusting. Why try to be someone I am not, right?

The other thing I've been thinking was about the blog. When I first started writing it's really more for my benefits. I wanted to jot down what I was thinking and feeling and use them to improve my trading. I don't know if anybody picked it up but it was supposed to be similar to "Scrubs." You'll notice most of my entry titles start out w/ MY, much like the episode titles for Scrubs. I don't recall the exact reason why I called it Down on the Floor. I remember my first choice was taken; I wanted something like Wall Street Confidential or something like that... like the book Law School Confidential b/c I wanted to debunk the myths and mysteries of the financial world. I think I called the blog what it is b/c we're trading "down on the floor" and I got into ballroom dancing, so you know, getting jiggy with it "down on the floor," plus it's like what you say when you go rob a bank and that's what I'm trying to do in a way... out there getting that money!

As I went along I think people found out about it somehow. I know someone posted the link to my blog in a discussion board out there. The guy that sits next me that started in March moved from San Francisco area read my blog before he took the offer. It makes me wonder how many new traders have read my blog and if that actually had any influence on their decision. If it does than I'm missing out some serious referral checks. Let me just say that this is not a recruiting tool for Kershner. HR and management has no control on what I say on here and whatever ends up here is just my personal opinion, not that of Kershner Trading. I've been thinking about posting more stuff about trading and technical stuff, but I decided against that. There's plenty of other blogs out there that do a good job providing market commentary and technical analysis. I'll update my links sections the ones I read regularly in my Google Reader. I'll just post on the trades that worked out really well or disastrous for me. I'm going to lean more on the personal style. This is blog is for me to read and review in the future like I said and any other friends or family that want to know what I'm up to, mixed in with a few funny posts and what not.