+$500 today Was up $1200 at one point, but I made two trades that were not part of my system. I was chasing and acted on impulse I do feel more confident that I was able to follow my system for most of the day.
Argh, tried to pick a bottom (got greedy) before a full signal formed on FAS this morning and lost money (would have made 3% if I just waited). 2nd trade was not the greatest timing wise, however, I sold as soon as the stock dipped down 1/2% for a loss. Had I held on for 2 mins more , I would have been profitable for that trade. Timing and picking bottoms seem to be my achilles heel currently. Once I will myself past this stage, I should have much better gains. -$630 today
you made lots of wish, or if then. no one will get richer if he trades after-fact. if I hold ... then what if I cut loss... then what if I did this, then what... ....
Zanek, Go to a horse or dog track and you will hear a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda. I am dead serious. You can not think like that when you are trading. You are instilling bad habits without realizing it and every winner you experience from now until you stop are reinforcing these bad habits. Every trade is separate from the rest and you need to treat them that way. There is a good book called Trading in the Zone, I suggest reading it.
Zanek, Make decisions based on reality not based on your perception which is skewed by your emotions and your mental processes. Reality is NOW, not yest, not tomrrow... Reality is looking at the tape, remaining objective, and follow a strict set of rules on guidelines according to the "T". Your emotions/thoughts and feelings will kill you in this game. i've been trading for a while and have seen plenty of different traders. The guys that are successful are usually the ones with stone cold emotions. The guys that are well grounded. I recommend working out or doing yoga as a means to stabilizing inner chatter and emotions.. Good Luck!
Thanks guys, I'm still reading Trading in the Zone. I definitely realize the problem I have. I'm slowly trying to get past it. I only traded small positions the last 2 days, as I'm switching brokers to use a different interface. It takes me 2 minutes to fill out an OCO with my current broker, as the form for it is way to long. Adjusting my limits takes about 45 secs which causes me to have to constantly readjust them to chase the market. I'm looking forward to this new interface with this new broker. I know it wont fix all my problems, but it should at least make it easier for me to enter orders.
I have to ask, why slowly? You have recognized the problem and now have to change. What will you gain by doing it slowly? What specifically are you going to do different?
IMO it's foolhardy to trade with real money until you have proven that you can make money on a sim account consistently for at least 1 month. Better 6 months. Not only does your PnL have to be positive at the end of the period, but you have to be able to look back and feel comfortable with the manner in which your results were achieved - so overleveraging and getting lucky, or having a string of lucky breaks that barely scrapes you past the finish line doesn't count. Even if you think you have the best system in the world, etc. there's just no reason to risk real money until you have the pnl data to back it up...
Traded small on my backup brokerage account so I would stick to my system. Was able to properly time it. Still waiting for my main trading account with a new broker to be setup (hopefully by Oct 28, 2009 ). I'm really looking forward to this new trade interface, to see what impact it has on my trading +$175 for Friday