About Me

When I was in a grade school, my mom often asked me to deliver some forms and messages to her stock broker . Of course, I didn't know what was delivered, nor did I care. All I knew was she was buying and selling stocks.

One day she asked me, my brother and sister if we wanted to invest our money, which we got from our relatives and parents. I chose to leave my money in a bank, so that I could buy a candy whenever I wanted. It didn't take long until she doubled my brother's money not once many and many times, but I guess I didn't like the fact that my mom wanted to take my 'hard-earned' money and do something. It was clearly a bad decision.

We were subscribing newspaper similar to wall street journal instead of typical newspaper. I hated it because when my friends talked about TV shows and sports, I couldn't get involved with them as much as I would have liked. Internet? I didn't exist. What did a grade-school kid know about economy. The newspaper was very boring, but I eventually started getting interested in what they were talking about.

On a typical Sunday, Jan 2002, I was flipping channels like a maniac (I have this strange habit of flipping channels continuously until I find something interesting). The thing that caught my eyes was an infomercial. Luckily, it was neither Toby steam iron nor rotisserie. Instead, it was about 'Being a day trader.' They were offering hassle-free videos. I was completely sold for one of those phrases, 'if you call now...' Perhaps my inner body was responding to trading.

I watched all 6 tapes in one day and attended webinars that the company that sold tapes was offering. There were 3 'mentors' in that company; one who claimed to make over a million dollars in stock markets, and two who used technical analysis for trading setups.

Long story short, it was waste of my time and money. I had to start somewhere, but they were more interested in selling under 'We're big into education'. I, probably like many other new traders, thought I could earn money while learning. A big mistake. They called trades but never gave out why they took the trades. I left their hefty $300 chat room/month eventually with a big hole in my portfolio.

Good news is I met one nice guy, JP. We started trading about the same time and we exchanged trading ideas staying in touch through out the day. JP used to pitch in college with Bob Brenly and Jim Tracy as a starting pitcher. Unfortunately, he was injured and had to give up his major-league dream. JP is a retiree and he is trading as a new profession. His approach to trading was totally different. While I was consistently losing money, JP was very patient. He tested his setups again and again before he risked his real money. I remember one setup he was testing... He was doing it for 8+ months. I thought it's impossible for me to make a career out of trading. But he proved it to be true, which is why I haven't given up my dream.

Going back to where I was, I became a member of another chat room or hotcomm. This guru is supposed to be a former CEO / MBA or whatever, was teaching how to trade using volume. It made sense because volume is a proof if a particular move is real or not. But then again, he ended up being the worst trader I've ever experienced. He added onto a losing position under an excuse of 'scaling in' upsiding down more than often. I remember one day I lost 20% of my portfolio when he was calling 'Keep shorting' while ES was rallying 20pts. Heck, Later I found that he was not even trading real money. He showed skills off of simulation dome. I was able to make about 8 million in simulation. At the end, he was a salesman as well. I left the room with another big hole in my portfolio.

It was 2004. All I had left was $5K. I was willing to give one last try before giving up. I bought one black box trading system. My friend, JP bought this system and gave me good feed backs, so I put $3K on my credit card. The system worked out great, but if you can recall 2004-05, markets didn't have as great range as now (as of Dec 2007). Traders god excited to see 10pts ES move. The system was great when markets were trending, but otherwise I got chopped out quite a bit.

However, at this time, things were different. Before, I was eating like a bird and poop like an elephant, but now I found myself taking as high as 100 YM pts profit day-trading. It's easier said than done, 'Let your profit run, and cut your loss short.', but I was really doing it. After 2-3 years of loss, I finally realized how this game works. Heck, I don't have to win every time any more.

I also soon realized that my $5K portfolio is not enough to trade. I was over-leveraging and under-capitalized not to mention over-trading. Therefore, I decide to back up a bit from trading and have a job that I can save money at the same time I can study more about markets. I majored in computer engineering, so I started working as a programmer. I could have gotten a hardware related job, but trading and programming has lots of correlations. I write my own indicators and have actual codes that are offered over $2K somewhere.

Now I'm writing my first blog (as of Dec 19, 2007) and I still work for the same company as a software engineer. What have I done since started to work? This is in fact my first profitable year (even after all trading expense). My view of trading has gotten changed quite a bit. I used to think that the only way to reduce my risk is to day-trade so that if an event like 9/11 happens, I won't lose my shirt. Boy, was I wrong. Or I might say, I found the trading style that I like.

Now I'm more of a swing trader. I used to pay so much commissions day-trading. I remember doing 100+ round turns on futures while I'm barely profitable for the day. 100 round turns were about $500 for commissions. One day, I thought, 'Why don't I use that money as my stop and trade just once in a while?' If you look at any market with exceptions of energy or some volatile markets, you should be able to give enough room for markets to wiggle using $500 stop on a single contract. Surprisingly, my account started growing. I never thought I could make $7K on a single trade per contract.

When I used to day-trade, I felt like I had to make money every day, or I was a loser. Now that I have a full-time job, I don't need to make money from trading, which helped me a lot on executing my trading plan.

Trading, just like any other profession, is not an easy business. You need to have a commitment. It gets frustrating more than anything I have experienced with, but is it worth it? Yes! I have a very small dream. I don't need to make million dollars. Just enough to buy a small 3-bedroom / 2 bath house (although I will take a jetted tub), dine out once every or other week, pay insurance premium for my family etc...

I'm not sure when I can quit my job and start trading full-time, but I know it'll come.

To readers of my blog,

I'm not the smartest person in the world. If I can do it, you can do it too. Just don't give up yet.