I concur with Matty. The most important thing for you to do is to take your losses more quickly. Don’t worry about the day-trades. Your capital is more important than day-trades.

While I had the problem of sometimes taking losses too quickly, you’re better off doing that than letting your losses get large.

I’m not sure how much capital you’re working with, but if you’ve got $7-$8K or more, try splitting into two different accounts so you get more day trades. That way you won’t be so scared to get out of a trade quickly.

Also, study intraday charts. Look at how these stocks move intra-day. Check out the 10/60 crosses that some of us talk about; those can make for good entry and exit signals. Also, try keeping your trades around round dollar marks…those tend to form natural levels of support and resistance.

Also, try getting more picky about the stocks you enter. You have 4 different positions right now which is too many for someone with a small account. I never have more than 1-2 positions open at one time…and it’s usually only 1.

I can’t lie, I’m worried about you and your account to the point of bossing you around! Being a beginner, too, I have no business in telling others what to do, BUT…you have unrealized losses of 24%, 32%, 35%, and one at a 49% loss!!!

1. You need a set price at which you will exit, and you have to know what that price is literally the moment your broker flashes your fill price on your screen. You can not fudge the numbers, you have to get out after whatever it may be. On longs (different on longer term shorts a bit) try 3-5%. If there’s a key support point at, say, 6%, sure, use that, but don’t get tempted to go further down.

2. Take the stop price you found in step 1 and plug it into a stop order. Period. If it’s an illiquid stock or something with a bad spread, maybe look into stop limit orders if you’re not sure you’ll do it yourself when the time comes.

3. Never hold losses with the idea that they will probably come back and make you a profit.

Basically you should’ve been out of those trades a long time ago.

Also note that a lot of people in GOTS are day trading, and unless you have a giant account and are very experienced, there’s not a very big reward probability versus the risk in holding these things for days at a time. The reason Muddy finds high dayrangers is because they move a lot intraday, and the need to hold overnight is thus eliminated. He looks for stocks that move in one day what others do in months, one day is good enough! It may also be a good play the next day, but it depends on the price action.

I see you outlined some things you think you can do better to avoid this stuff in the future…that is great! I know how you feel about the PDT rule, it’s the toughest thing, it’s really getting to me, too.

Please be careful!!