Woke up late today, missing the first two hours of trading, and decided to not trade at all. This is pretty good considering I’m usually quite trigger happy on Mondays.
I have some stuff on my plate during next two weeks so trading may not be too heavy. We shall see. Maybe it’s best that I ride out the rest of this month sitting on my profits.
Most likely though I’ll be back at my desk tomorrow because I just can’t stay away…hehehe.
I came into today with the goal of being patient and waiting for opportunities. I also wanted to take quick profits to circumvent the recent problems I’ve had with that aspect of trading. I’m happy to report that I accomplished both of these goals today.
However, there were some negatives like fighting the trend in AAPL and going long GOOG in a down market. I made most of my trades during the half hour span when the market bounced a little.
If you look at my trades you’ll notice that I traded 400 shares of AAPL and 500 shares of DXD as opposed to me normal 100-300 share lots. This was a conscious decision that I thought would help in a choppy market. Instead of looking for larger point gains, I would just take quick scalps. Now, this is all fine and dandy when the trade goes my way (which these did) but if it reverses and I don’t get out, it can do damage. I think I will stick to my 100/200 share trades next week though. I didn’t feel comfortable holding 400 shares of AAPL in this type of market.
Here is the recap:
Subtracting $42 in commissions from the total above left me with a profit of $353.75 on the day.
Now for the daily self-evaluation:
Pros:
Cons:
Overall, I felt much better about my trading than I had in the previous days. Let’s hope the feeling carries over to next week. I’ll be back later on today with another post.
Today would have been great had I taken the profits that were presented in front of me.
My overnight GOOG holding gapped up and I was up over $400 at one point. I ended up taking a loss.
After I went short GOOG I had a profit of $150 that transformed into a $100 loss.
When I went long SKF, I chased it on the first spike and ended up with a loss.
Every loss today could have been avoided had I followed my rules and did what I know is right. However, I was caught up in nonsense today.
This always seems to happen to me after I have a nice run. I end up holding positions longer, get greedy trying to squeeze profits, and don’t pay attention to my entries. The end result is always the same; frustration and a drawdown.
For the last two weeks I haven’t been happy with my trading at all. While there have been trades that I’m happy with how I executed them, there have been many more bad ones than good. This has to change and it has to change now.
The problem is not that I don’t know what’s right, the problem is that I get caught up in the moment and let go of my rules. I press and try to squeeze out extra profits or hope for reversals. I know what I’m doing wrong, but at times I can’t help myself. This is partly because of the fact that I do get bailed out of my mistakes when the market reverses my way.
I’m thinking of implementing a time limit rule, be it either 10 or 15 minutes. Basically if the position doesn’t go my way in that time I bail. Again, it’ll be easier to put it down on paper than actually execute on it.
Here is today’s recap (the bottom two trades were overnight holds):
$56 in commissions left me with a loss of $370.36 on the day.
Now for the daily self-evaluation:
Pros:
Cons:
After my trading was said and done I replayed everything in my mind and had a good talk with my thoughts. I’ve been getting more undisciplined as the month has progressed whether it be putting on riskier trades (options) or getting greedy trying to turn profits, into bigger profits. This coupled with the fact that the market is choppy and undecided as to where it wants to go makes for a bad recipe. Time to start fresh tomorrow with an renewed emphasis on entries, exits and good trading rather than money.
