The Market and Us

I entered 216 trades in 2019 and some of them are already running. In 2018 there were 367 trades and I expect there will be fewer this year.

I tried different percentages for risk since I started my trading. For a long time I am using 0.5% of my capital. Most traders recommend 1-3%.
On the one hand I do want to be sure to have consistent returns of my trading before rising the risk but on the other hand I know I am profitable from my first trading day on (it was a trade on Siemens, a German company) and maybe my low risk per trade is the reason for the lack of success. I think about using 1% soon.

Most of the time I am 80% to 100% invested. Too often I used margin and other currencies by paying high interests.
Clearly I am changing that at the moment.
I checked my yearly account statement and I was surprised that my trading account grew by 10% but I paid almost 4% for interests, market data and commissions …

I always check the chart before entering but I do not have a strict set of conditions when to enter a long term position. Many individual elements convince me to buy.

I pay attention on many conditions. I couldn’t say that I always check this or that time frame but I often watch the monthly and weekly chart before I enter a trade.
But when I trade in the daily the most important signal has to be in the daily chart. The other time frames should support my idea. For long term I like many positive pieces in all time frames.

Most traders of the world trade US stocks. Therefore you can find lots of services for US stocks. For other countries you have to go back to the roots. There are websites with data for other countries but I know for German stocks that almost every database is different from another.
So, I just watch the balance sheet and the income statement of the companies I want to analyze.
Now you’ll say that it takes up too much time. But I can ensure you that you will learn so much about companies during the process that it’s more than worth it.