For the next interview in the StockTickr Interview Series (RSS feed), I interviewed Michelle, a daytrader that is now posting on TraderMike’s site.

Michelle started popping up on various sites posting some of the most insightful comments on trading. It was clear from her comments that she was no beginner in the markets. She’s now posting some great articles like this gem. Here’s another great article that picks apart one of her trades.

Read on for more about how Michelle got started trading, her early trials and tribulations, and why she thinks there are so few female traders. Michelle has offered to answer questions in the comments of this post, so ask away!

(Also check out today’s episode of WallStrip on HOG.)

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For the next interview in the StockTickr Interview Series (RSS feed), I’m posting the responses from Elliot Dole. I received his responses out of the blue last week with this comment:

I put myself through this interview and it was fun. It is useful to think about a lot of these questions. I recommend it to any trader!

If you answer the interview questions and send them my way (dave at stocktickr dot com), I’ll be happy to post them if I feel they’ll be beneficial to readers.

Read on for more about how Elliot trades.

(Also check out today’s episode of WallStrip on GOOG – another great one!)

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I was in wait and see mode with yesterday being options expiration. I noticed TRMB gapping down at the open and then made a weak effort to gain ground after the opening range. The 5MA was closing fast and there wasn’t a options strike price nearby so I thought I’d take a stab since it seemed like a great setup.

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I ran across this disturbing post concerning the IBD subscription list and how it’s apparently been breached. Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky used a common technique for creating disposable email addresses for each company that requires his email address so he can keep track if it starts showing up as the recipient of spam.

I’d expect there are those out there in the same situation. Does anyone else have evidence of this by using a similar technique? Maybe this is the reason we get all that stock spam. I’m an IBD subscriber, although I recently scaled back to the weekly subscription.

StockTickr Pro users have access to a new report that can be a real eye opener. It’s the Week Day Performance report that looks at the expectancy of your trading system by day of the week. You might expect your trading to be fairly consistent throughout the week, but every trader I know that has commented on their report has found some surprises. Here’s my report since I’ve been Dummy Trading.

Granted, this only covers about 2 1/2 months of trading, but it’s interesting to note that Mondays are significantly worse for me than any other day, Tuesdays and Thursdays are quite good, and Wednesdays and Fridays are basically a wash.

If you tag your trades you can filter this report using those tags. For example, I include the tags “long” or “short” depending on the direction of the trade. You can filter the Week Day Performance report by adding “?tag=long” onto the end of the url. We’ll be adding convenient links and filters to all reports soon.

Comments from Other StockTickr Pro Users

Ugly found his week day report particularly interesting (Wednesdays are by far his best day). Richard posted a comment about his best day of the week a couple weeks back. TradeR:R intimates that Fridays are his worst days (and he’s really digging StockTickr Pro).

There are more reports for StockTickr Pro coming soon that will be equally, if not more enlightening.

UPDATE: Tyro finds this report entertaining and gives a wise warning about sample size with a funny analogy.

For the next interview in the StockTickr Interview Series (RSS feed), I spoke with Jon Tait who some of you probably recognize as the Fickle Trader. Jon’s site stood out to me because of his weekend watch list that he used to post. A lot of the stocks that he posted were also on the system that I traded at the time.

Jon and I would exchange emails occasionally and at some point Jon told me about his financial software project that he was apparently putting a lot of time into. Jon is big into computerized systems trading. In fact, he may be to blame for the current state of the markets.

Read on for what I thought was a fascinating interview with Jon. He describes his approach to risk management, his take on discretionary versus systems trading, and more about his very interesting softare project. Feel free to ask Jon questions in the comments and I’ll see if he can answer them.

(Also check out today’s episode of WallStrip – I think it’s the best one yet.)

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For the next interview in the StockTickr Interview Series (RSS feed), I spoke with Adam Warner, a professional options trader who writes for Minyanville and GlobalTechStocks as well as his own site, the Daily Options Report.

Adam spent time as a member of the American Stock Exchange until 2001 when he moved off the floor. Read on for more on Adam’s take on the options business, the two best books on options, and his approach to trading options.

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Some StockTickr Pro users have noticed that the comments they enter in their journal aren’t easily accessible after they close the trade. In fact, they weren’t displayed at all!

I just added a comment icon in the journal for trades that contain comments. Just click on it to display the comments you entered for that trade. Click it again to hide the comments.

Here’s a screenshot of the comments for a losing trade I made yesterday in APA.

When I decided to change to Cybertrader, I dreaded it. Changing brokers is such a pain, I thought. You’ve got to fill out a ridiculously long form and probably mail it in. Once your accounts gets set up you have to get a check cut from your old broker. You’re probably going to be out of the market for what, 3-4 days at the least, right? And that’s if there’s no snags – no T’s that you forgot to cross – there’s always something it seems like.

This was my mindset before switching to Cybertrader. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already posted some images of the calendar feature I’ve added to the StockTickr Trading Journal and I finally released it today. It’s a calendar view of your trading journal and it gives a unique view of your trading. It’s available now for all StockTickr Pro subscribers.

The green days show days where you made money and the red days show days where you lost money. The darker the color, the more extreme the gains or losses were compared with your largest gains or losses for the month. Just click on the day of the month to show the journal details of those particular trades.

I’ve been using this calendar view for about a month now and it has definitely helped me keep things in perspective. For example, I remember there were a couple days where I had three losing trades in a row. At that moment, it seemed like my trading world was falling apart. During those times, looking at this calendar view allowed me to visualize the fact that my biggest winning trades are always bigger than my largest losing trades.

It has helped me keep the big picture in focus even when I’m suffering through a losing trade.

You can share your StockTickr Trading Calendar with the world or keep it private. Here’s a link to mine if you’re interested.

We’ll be adding some more features to the calendar view soon.