Greed + Fatigue = Bad Trading Decisions: +$182.69

Glancing at the total today, you may feel like my title is not fitting but let me assure you that it certainly is.

I count only my closed trades in the daily recap number and tonight I am holding a position in SKF overnight. I Purchased 150 shares at 106.50 and the stock closed at 102.50 so as you can see I am down $600 at the close. We will have to find out tomorrow if it ends up being booked as a loss or a gain.

Now on to my closed trades recap:

With commissions I did manage to pull a profit of $182.69 on the day.

The profit number doesn’t tell the full story however. I did alright to start the day and should have called it quits when I was up over $400 but decided to get into that BIDU trade you see at the bottom of the graphic. That one trade led to my SKF purchase which I’m holding overnight. I mentioned last week that I trade very poorly when I give back gains and this is a prime example of that.

I was pretty tired all day and did not feel very focused at all. I felt very similar to how I felt last Monday when I took a big loss. I think it may be something I have to work on, trading after a weekend. We’ll see if it is a pattern soon enough.

I want to touch on a few other things but it’s getting late and I have some other stuff I need to do. I’ll leave you with the one chart I did make and that is the one that shows my DIG trade at the start of the day. Back at it tomorrow.

Ending The Week Quickly And Positively: +$350.86

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I had to work my butt off to squeak out over $300 in profit. Today, on the other hand, I achieved that number in 45 minutes of trading.

I made two trades, both of which were positive and decided to call it a day. One thing I’ve learned over the years is to quit when I am content with my gains and my trading. I react badly to giving up gains and that leads me to lose my discipline. Bad habits die hard. When I am able to end a day on a positive note, it builds a good foundation for the next trading day.

Here are today’s results:

After commissions I ended the day with a nice profit of +$350.86.

Now let me show you how both trades looked like on the charts. Financials including GS looked strong off the open so I jumped in at 67.30 with a stop 1 point below. After some bouncing around it finally broke 68.50. I set my mental stop to that # and when it was hit, I exited.

I always keep an eye on SKF as it presents some great trading opportunities. My basis for the trade was that once it broke 143 this morning it would run to test 145. As you can see my thesis did come into fruition. I exited at 144.39.

Glad to end the week on a positive note and I feel very good about my trading today. Later on in the day or tonight, I will do a weekly recap post. Till then.

Round And Round I Went On A Choppy Trading Day: +$338.34

As is the case most of the time when I trade a full day, it usually means that I am having a hard time making a profit. Today was one heck of a hard day to trade, it was chop city!

I did not help matters any by taking a loss on my first two trades before finally getting into a profitable one which was immediately followed up by another loser. I kept at it though and here are the results:

After seven total trades on the day, I was able to squeak out a profit of $338.34.

My day started off getting long GS, only to get out right before it bounced two points. Literally a minute or two later. I followed that up by trying to catch an upside move in GOOG which never did materialize. Not a good start at all.

What I did like today is that I cut my losers off and let my winners run, almost out of necessity. It is something that I’m constantly still struggling with (cutting losers) and a day like today is positive reinforcement. In all honestly I do not feel like I traded well today but because I did cut my losers I ended up in the green.

Although I must admit that on the -$431.25 SKF trade I did lower my stop a few times. Originally, it was set at 131.00 which I lowered to 130, ignored it again, and finally let it go at 129.15. Doh!

Another thing I want to touch and work on is trying to not trade during times when I see that market is chopping around. Let me explain further:

As I write this with about 20 minutes left in the trading day, I must say that the last hour was probably the best time to trade as the trend is clearly to the downside. The rest of the day was very difficult as the market just chopped around. I need to work on placing trades when there is a clear trend and not trade when the market is choppy. By the time the final hour came around, I was mentally exhausted and just happy to end the day with a profit. Thus, I missed opportunities at the end of the day.

However, I do find it difficult to not trade when I start the day with a loss. Something inside me just wants to get that money back. I need to realize that the market isn’t going anywhere and I need to be picky and choose only the best opportunities.

Unemployment numbers out tomorrow should make for some good moves in the market. Time to rest up for what should be an eventful day.