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:

1. Took my losses and kept them in check.

Cons:

1. Gave up gains twice in GOOG. Over $700 was given up on these two trades.
2. Chased SKF on the initial spike. Caught up in the moment.
3. No rhyme or reason for my trading, Really disorganized and just not feeling it. Need to start fresh tomorrow.

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.