Just finished reading the book "Jesse Livermore" by Richard Smitten. He portrayed Livermore as an obsessively methodical guy, and a great believer in his trading rules. When he followed them, he was a rock-solid trader. His curse was that his instincts were also quite good. If he traded from his gut, more often than not he was right. But when he wasn't right, he'd take an oversized hit. His son claimed that in his latter years, perhaps because of his increasing struggle with depression, Livermore abandoned his trading rules more and more...and that led to his ultimate financial decline. saxon
is watching a stock move higher and telling myself not to run after it just to find myself waiting for the worst possible moment to buy it, right before big retracement. This has been a very costly lesson I never seem to fully learn. I have a big sign next to my screens that says: DONT CHASE THE MOTHER F_CKING STOCK
I think you are familiar with the state of your psyche and the conditions the market is exhibiting when that occurs (how you feel, what you see, think etc). As an experiment, when you "feel" that episode coming on, have you deliberately tried going the other way? Just once, force yourself to screw it identify your risk and fade? There's probably a setup somewhere in there. Or is it something uncontrollable, where you feel compelled to buy the exact top.
Saxon, I think this is my sentiments exactly. I feel like I have what looks like great trading rules and it works great when I actually FOLLOW them. But sometimes, my "intuition" works in UNCANNY fashion. So, there's a conflict here? I'm trying to force myself to follow my strict disciplined rules, because they will keep me out of trouble. Yet, sometimes the intution is very accurate too... how to resolve that?