Mark,
Hope all is OK, I've not seen any new posts since 8/23, and I've gotten kind of hooked on checking your updates and progress. Hope you're just busy or vacationing.
Looking forward to more info and to your success. R.J. in Chicago
Thank you for your continued interest RJ (aka Jim*, right?)... Mostly I've been busy. Work (the dreaded j.o.b.) has become pretty intense lately and burning the candle at both ends caught up to me on the weekend. I do try to post regularly and am currently behind by about 3 posts! It's just a matter of prioritizing my time and the blog is lower on the priority than my other activities including trading, journalizing my trades, reading/learning more about trading, teaching music, rehearsing, performing, training for triathlons, etc... Oh, and attempting an occasional date now and then.
Unfortunately I spent a lot of time this weekend trying to find some software to help me ascertain my current gains. It's unfortunate because I ended up spending so much time searching only to create my own Access database. I've kind of known that I was positive over the last few trades, but I didn't know the specific numbers. After plugging in all my paper trades YTD I'm at -12%. Horrible I know, but the news does get better :).
Since learning from my past mistakes and using a trade formula calculator (excel spreadsheet) that gives me # of shares, entry, and initial stop-loss adjustment target, I've done considerably better. Excluding the first trades from about a month ago (see: Paper Trade Update 2 Post-Mortem) that are a blight on my record, I'm up 9% on my trades (the past 7). This calculates to 2% on $5k in 3 weeks which extrapolates to 33% annual. Of course this is a short time sampling and my current open positions could easily affect that percent either beneficially or not.
I also spent some time over the weekend on my trading journal. I will post a good, bad & ugly with charts, my comments at the entry and exit, etc... very soon. It's just a matter of converting them to a bloggable format (I'm not even sure if bloggable is a word, but you know what I mean, right?).
Thanks for the interest and encouragement. I am alive and well, but have been using my time selfishly and privately. Not to worry though, more updates to come!
*I initially changed RJ to Jim on his first email that I posted to my blog (see: Soon-To-Be TMTT Student Email). I never did find out if he liked being called Jim temporarily or not. Care to comment RJ?
4 comments:
mark thanks for the blog. I am interested to hear what you are learning for mucho big bucks more than one could learn on one's own or with a reputable mentor. I was concerned when you mentioned that one of your mentors will be Jordan Stokes. I'm sure he's probably a very nice guy, but if I am not mistaken he is very young, probably not much older than 25 years old, so I don't see how experienced of a trader he is. also isn't he the son of R Scot Stokes who is running the mentoring business from federal prison? http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2006/June/06_tax_360.html
yours truly, traderette@gmail.com
hi mark. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the trade center and trade seeker. I attended the seminar and was left with the impression that i could do all sorts of searches and narrowing downs with the trade center. Now there's the trade seeker software. Nothing was mentioned about that software at the seminar. What does the trade center do? What extra stuff does the seeker software do? What about the extra modules? What do these items cost?
thanks, terry
Mark… it’s been a pleasure finding this blog. Keep up the good work! My question is about Jordan Stokes. I have been scheduled with him as well and was wondering if he is a good mentor or is he a little green as traderette describes him? The way traderette’s comment reads it sounds like she doesn’t really know anything but is posting questions to make you think… I initially went with him because of his location and reputation, but as all who know this system, it’s not cheap and if my money would be better spent with a more experienced mentor in another location I need to know.
-- MississippiTrader4@gmail.com
I was mentored by Jordan Stokes and I can tell you for a fact that (1) he had never traded a day in his life prior to being hired as a mentor by his dad (2) at the time I met with him, he didn't even have his own trading account, rather, he was trading his sisters IRA account until he was able to save up enough money to trade (3) despite the fact that there are a number of other legitimate mentors in the program (some of whom used to actually be floor traders), he is the only mentor that I spoke with that actually gets students every week...Could that be because even though his dad is locked away in prison somewhere his TMTT for some reason has continued to allow his mother to single handedly run the mentoring program. Sounds a little strange to me.
All I can say about young Mr. Stokes is "buyer beware." I assure you this kid is nothing more than that....a kid.
If you don't believe me, ask to see his actual trading account. You'll see, its not even in his name.
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