About

I can't remember how many attempts I've made in creating a blog. I used to even have pautrades.com but that quickly was forgotten because somehow life had gotten in the way and I was too busy.

I really wanted to blog as a way to improve my trading. I started trading the Philippine (where I currently reside) stock market in 2008, during the financial crisis. It wasn't a very good experience. But just a few years later, the stock market came roaring back and I thought that I was a genius. I made some money and I became confident.

In 2014, I saved some money and signed up for a ThinkOrSwim brokerage account. I opened it with what I think was around $3,000. I quickly find out that that wasn't enough because the commission per trade was so high! (I think they're still relatively high). I switched to another broker called because it was "low cost" and the user interface was quite cool. I didn't last very long with that broker because the commision cost was still too high for my brokerage account.

Today there are alternatives like Robinhood which have zero commissions. Until now though, Robinhood isn't available where I'm at. Luckily someone referred me to Interactive Brokers, and by August of 2014 I finally transferred. I had to put up with the $10,000 minimum account though, I saved up some and borrowed money, but I was able to set it up. I had been trading the US stock market ever since.

So now I trade both. I have a day job and trade the Philippine markets during the work day. I get at home at around 8pm and after fixing a few things at home, I start scanning for charts in the evening so I can trade the US market. I am a swing trader for both as that works for my schedule.

I would say that there have been some successes. I feel like I'm now at that point where I am just breaking even after commissions, and I think that is some form of progress. My next focus is getting consistently profitable.

One of my short-term goals for my trading is to make around $5,000 in profits so I can spend it on SMB Capital's DNA trader program, which might be the next step in education for me. But for now, I have to figure to prove to myself that I am worth that program.

I'm going to be writing about my trades, some of my thoughts and may be ramblings about the market or bits and pieces of my life from time to time. I am very much into playing guitar, I have a Nuno Bettencourt Washburn guitar and a Fender Squier strat which I use to study and practice. I am also very much into playing video games, primarily in PC so maybe you'll see some of that here on this blog as well.

Looking back, I really enjoyed reading the blogs of GreenOnTheScreen, and there have been many others that I don't remember. My hope is that this blog can be enjoyed by new and veteran traders as well and maybe I can exchange some ideas with them to improve my trading. I used to think that trading was all fun and easy but I quickly find out that it is otherwise: frustrating at times even.

Hope you guys stick around!