{"id":18415,"date":"2012-04-16T18:46:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T22:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=18415"},"modified":"2012-04-16T18:51:14","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T22:51:14","slug":"should-i-bench-this-trader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/should-i-bench-this-trader","title":{"rendered":"Should I bench this trader?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago a developing trader on our desk sent me his trading review for the day. \u00a0He had traded at least 15 stocks and was negative in nearly all of them. \u00a0I responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There is no reason for you to trade more than 8 stocks.<br \/>\nSet that as a rule.<br \/>\nYou have to see the big picture and starting concentrating on where the real money can come from.<br \/>\nJust trading 15 stocks and hoping something works is not a good process<br \/>\nYou have to learn what is more likely to work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That trader responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Understood<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So today that same trader sent me his daily trading review. \u00a0Again almost 15 stocks. \u00a0Again almost negative in all of them. \u00a0Here was our exchange.<\/p>\n<p>Bella:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What do u want me to say here? I told u last week not more than a certain number of stocks. WTH is this? For the rest of earnings season u can trade four stocks a day at max. This will not be lifted until u are positive for two weeks. Tomorrow u r on the demo for violating your stocks per day rule.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trader:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>bella, i honestly do not think this is too many stocks, JPM and C are the same concept play, SWN, MPC\u00a0and COG are the same natural gas short, BAX, MAT, GCI in play earnings stocks with good relative volume, and the other trades were all just feelers to see if they would work, QCOM, INFY CSC, NCR, these were plays that showed potential and were worth a feeler, i think it is a little harsh to put me on the demo on the first real day of earnings, i will gladly trade 4 stocks until i am positive for two weeks, i understand that, but to put me on the demo on the first real day of earnings seems a unfair, i was doing the right things today and i stand by the majority of my trades, i lost money today because i got chewed up in BAX, C and slipped in MAT on the open, not because i put feelers on in a handful of other stocks<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bella:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>you told me recently you would keep it to 8 stocks<\/p>\n<p>u didnt today<\/p>\n<p>your results last week and to end the month are irresponsible and cause for a time out<\/p>\n<div>you cannot lose money that consistently being an intraday trader without making changes that lead to making some money and stopping the losses<\/div>\n<div>you had no idea on the open today that we had been very week the past few sessions and wasnt even ready to consider that into your trading on the open until i brought it up<\/div>\n<div>this is a lack of preparation both mentally and work wise<\/div>\n<div>why are you trading feelers when you arent making money in stocks you are watching more closely?<\/div>\n<div>the way you go from losing to positive is to watch a smaller number of stocks more closely and find the very best entries for those stocks<\/div>\n<div>like the MAT into the close that you mentioned<\/div>\n<div>i am harming your progress if i dont bench you tomorrow<\/div>\n<div>you have to follow rules to progress<\/div>\n<div>you have to cut bad streaks<\/div>\n<div>you have to make changes when you are going badly so that under no circumstances are you not positive the next few trading sessions.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>Should I bench this trader?<\/div>\n<p>Bella<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/One-Good-Trade-Competitive-Proprietary\/dp\/0470529407\/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top\">One Good Trade<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/smbcapital\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com\/follow_me-c.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>no relevant positions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago a developing trader on our desk sent me his trading review for the day. \u00a0He had traded at least 15 stocks and was negative in nearly all of them. \u00a0I responded: There is no reason for you to trade more than 8 stocks. Set that as a rule. You have to see the big picture and &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/should-i-bench-this-trader\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4676,162,4674,30,50,1193,653,1349],"class_list":["post-18415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-comments-2","tag-day-trading","tag-day-trading-blog","tag-one-good-trade","tag-prop-trading","tag-proprietary-trading","tag-trader-education","tag-trader-training","tag-trading-mentor","no-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should I bench this trader? | SMB Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/should-i-bench-this-trader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should I bench this trader? | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago a developing trader on our desk sent me his trading review for the day. \u00a0He had traded at least 15 stocks and was negative in nearly all of them. \u00a0I responded: There is no reason for you to trade more than 8 stocks. 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