The Student Loan Ranger

Recession scalping and the lack of confidence era.

A trader in this market had to be extremely quick with entries and exits, and had to constantly manage their positions to make anything of it. For a relatively new trader this period was very frustrating and led to me taking a long break out of the markets until something turned for the better (or became easier) on a technical level.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/07/week-ahead.html the first post and a vague guide to what i would be trading in the future. This post marks the end of the crystal balling/wrap up era.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/07/intra-day-action_15.html at this point I am nearly all off the UK market. This post also takes note of what i now know is pair trading. At this point i wasn’t aware of the term or it’s implications. This is right around the time of the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac breakdown and the insane oil bubble.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_07.html a landmark 100th post featuring some nice intra-day analysis of an AA trade I made. I continue to sell out early to this day.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/weekly-round-up.html An evolution from manual technical analysis trading to automatic systematic approaches was explored in this post, which I regard as very high quality and maybe one of the best on trading I’ve made

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_11.html Continued to analyse automated systems, and by this point I am regularly scalping the US market with little attention to anything in Europe. This was perhaps the best move I made during this time. The UK markets are s*** just in case you didn’t already know!

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_12.html Early signs here that my trading was struggling in this environment. In hindsight my risk tolerance was too low and the setups I traded were on too short a timeframe.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_13.html the final straw for UK stocks as I make the final decision to cut them out of my trading plans.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/temper-temper.html This post was a huge turning point for me. The market was nuts, and I was still trading and taking hits on bad setups. My exposure was too high and my tolerance too low. After 3 back to back losers I hit the wall in the room and broke my hand. I chilled out a lot more after this and began to take a back seat, making trades here and there on better setups.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_26.html trading errors still in my game as I adjust to being back at college full time.

The following post at http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/intra-day-action_27.html continued to make me low on confidence. I was too scared to lose money that I kept missing out on making money. This is a serious problem for any trader. My current trading rules mean that trading like this is no longer an issue.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/08/crystal-balling-sep-1st-5th.html The UK market and crystal balling make a brief comeback after I contemplate a reversal to swing trading. For a while, charts were a little calmer as they consolidated. However a second major wave of fear hit the market shortly after, and 3 times as worse as it was before.