Finding a Model

Though the guy is trading in the gold market since 2010, if his performance is for real, I think he is a good model to follow for all traders aspiring to gain consistent profits.

Analyzing his trades that gave him 89% YTD gain in 2019, here are the two insights worthy to be noted:

1. A trader does not need to enter too manny trades just to be profitable. You need to be selective. In the case of our model, 19 trades in a year are enough for him.

2. There is no fix duration both in holding your position and in waiting for new entry. In the case of our model, his holding period ranges from 0 to 20 days and his waiting period for new position ranges from 0 to 18 days. What determines his decision to exit and to open a new position? I think what influence him are the three components in his trading system (Japanese candlesticks, Elliot Wave Theory, & Fibonacci Retracements). I would like to add the importance of psychology, both personal and the crowd trading your chosen stock. Combined with patience and self-discipline, all these tools will serve as powerful weapons in your trading arsenal. 

After Five Years of Trading in PH Stock Market

Just want to express my appreciation of investagrams. Without this trading platform, it would be very difficult to monitor stocks in my watch list. I still remember the time when investagrams was down for months. It's like trading in the dark. 

But through investagrams, it appears to me that somehow the field of trading was made fair. But still it depends on the psychology of the trader how to utilize all these tools for his own advantage. 

I started trading in January 2015 and joined investagrams a year after. 2015 was a tough year for me. I thought after three months of trading that gaining in the stock market is so easy. I have no knowledge of bull and bear markets that time. I thought, I was a genius, not knowing that I entered the Philippine stock market at the last phase of a bull trend. After a year of trading, I lost 49% of my capital. For many, 200k is not real money. But for me, losing 98k was a big deal. In many trading fora, they said it's the "tuition fee" you have to pay as part of your learning process. 

My Original Goal

When I entered the stock market, my original goal was to become a long-term investor. Still at that time, I have no knowledge about my personal psychology in relation to the stock market. My loss taught me to reconsider technical analysis. Beginning 2016, I started reading books and articles on various technical indicators, Elliott Wave Theory, and just recently Minervini's Volatility Contraction Pattern (VCP).  

Studying Elliott Wave, I realized that I entered the stock market at the peak of Cycle Wave III and that Primary Wave A of Cycle Wave IV was just starting to form. No wonder, starting April 2015, no matter what I do, I could not avoid the "hard punches". 

My Trading Philosophy and My 2019 Resolution

Beginning 2016, the bleeding stopped and I started to harvest minimal gains. My trading philosophy is not aiming for a "one-time big-time" gain or a "home run", but a consistent profit though small. For me, that is enough. Gathering all those small gains will be big. 

Nevertheless, despite those gains, I could not monitor my progress for I failed to keep a record of my monthly activity. And so I resolved in 2019 praying that God would grant me grace to remain consistent in recording the results of my trading activity, whether a gain or a loss. 

At last, after 5 years, I am now able to keep my trading records. The months of January, March, May, and from June to September were profitable for me. On the other hand, except for October, my biggest loss for the year, 6.39% month to date; the months of February, April, November, and December were also losing months, but just 1% and less. I thought that I would end 2019 with more than 50% gain, but the last three months were tough, from October to December, reducing my year to date gain from 43.80% down to 31.93%.