Disclaimer: This will be my least professional blog entry ever.

There are always going to be so called experts who often give their opinion on everything. Former football players will sit in front of the cameras and say who is going to win on Sunday according to their own analysis. There are often times that these analysts will agree completely. There’s going to be the armchair analysts saying there’s NO WAY the Patriots can lose to Peyton’s little brother. I firmly believe that the collective mind is ignorant of the future for many reasons. However, I do find that advice is always useful and I received two pieces of it recently that I should have listened to.

A few weeks ago, Brady had said that he tried day trading and took a big hit because of the lag of the system. I tried to have a go at it myself on Monday and Tuesday. Want to see what happened?

Completely swung and missed on almost every one. -3000. That’s ok, I’m not mad.

I decided to read Mark’s blog and he mentioned how it would be “ungentlemanly” to take advantage of prices with the Sandy taking out the East coast and knocking out many traders from the market. I on the other hand felt that I should pounce on the opportunity if I find one, regardless of the circumstances. Then I look at the charts, and see my head and shoulders that I’ve been predicting FOREVER. Then, it finally hits, goes up about 20+. Great, I close two of my 4 positions. Was in at 1539, out at about 1560. Yet this is what I see on my trading log:

1527? Are you serious? At the point of me closing the trade, prices were not sub 1530 for weeks. Look at the chart!

I look at the price that we’re seeing on the game and saw this at the time:

Um, ok, sure, lets set the price 25 points below the actual. -1200 more instead of plus 1200 so now at ~-4200. So now I’m officially frustrated. Ok trading game, maybe you’ll adjust later so I’ll just add two more contracts. Awesome! Jumps up to 1560. I figure, hey, I’m about to make back my losses. Maybe, I’ll just set a limit trade just in case things go south. And south they went. Ends up I messed up on setting the limit trade properly again. Prices collapsed down to sub 1520s and the limit did not trigger. So here I sit, with my balance at 39992.79. Dropping over 8000 and in the red by about a Big Mac meal.

So in the end. I really should have taken their advice. Do not day trade with this system (I know I should’ve have made gains but the system did not agree with me). Do not mess with karma, be a gentleman and do not profiteer when others are not able to compete adequately with you. In conclusion, individual advice from someone you can trust really can be better than the collective.

P.S: Dear trading game,

I will be back.

Cheers!