Introduction

Background

My professional background is in the Information Technology industry. I've been working as a software developer for the past 10 years, and still work full-time in the tech industry. I first got involved with trading back in 2003 when a friend introduced me to day trading stocks. I was intrigued by the concept of no over-night risk, and the fast moving markets. I started with stocks and options and after a few months switched to trading index futures. In the beginning, I tried them all. I traded the ES (S&P500), NQ (Nasdaq-100), YM (Mini-Dow), ESTX50 (DJ Eurostoxx 50), and even the monster DAX contract. It was a great learning experience but success eluded me (and still does, although I feel I'm making progress). After a few more months of index futures craziness, I decided I should just focus on the S&P500 index since it provided the most liquidity. At the time, I wasn't disciplined enough to even stick to that decision, and I continued putting on trades in the ES, NQ and YM which resulted in mixed performance. This continued through spring of 2004 at which point, I was simply too frustraded to trade and felt I needed a break from the markets so I closed my trading account. For the next 4 years, I didn't follow the markets at all.

Four years later...

In summer of 2008, I finally got around to rolling over my 401k to Interactive Brokers. This small 401K had been sitting in money market funds for the past 4 years, so I missed the entire move up (and down). I've switched two companies since then, and had actually forgotten about the 401k. But now, just having a trading account available sparked my interest in the markets again and I started following the market on a daily basis. Soon afterwards, I ordered TradeStation for charting and started putting on trades in the S&P futures (yes, you can trade futures in IRA accounts). I had up days and down days, but trading with real$ was expensive tuition. I played with the SIM trading feature in TradeStation and figured, why put real money on the line during my learning phase if I could get similar pattern recognition experience on the Sim.

So in the beginning, I will be placing trades on the TradeStation simulator. I understand that this may not help develop the psychological framework needed for trading since it's not real money on the line, but I do try my best to think of it as real money, and don't put on insane size or stupid trades that I normally would not consider. I trade 1-10 contracts and treat the sim account as if it were real.

Current situation...

I work full-time as a Data Architect in the banking industry. I'm also finishing up my undergrad in Computer Information Systems at DePaul University and am currently enrolled in five classes (I graduate in March, 2010). Time is the biggest challenge for me since I don't have dedicated time to trade. When I get time during the day, I check out the ES chart and put on a trade if one presents itself. This is a tough way to trade, but some education/market-exposure is better than none. I'm very passionate about trading and this will do for now. I'll be joining a prop firm and going full-time into trading towards the end of March.

This blog...

This blog is my trading diary. I will document my trading performance here on a daily basis, and appreciate any feedback I may get. I don't know if anyone will even read this blog, but the primary purpose is to document the trades and maintain an online journal/diary for myself. Although I would like other traders to read the posts, and provide comments and feedback, that's not the primary goal but is definitely an added bonus. I will also post links to other posts and web pages I find interesting, and perhaps a book review here or there. I'm not really into writing, so will end this post here. Over the last year, thanks to the Blog, I've actually come to like writing about the markets.