Why not leave Kymar vs. KymarFye aside, and simply refer to the second paragraph of my second post? In sum, though I've had periods of sustained success, I have NOT been a profitable trader overall. A closer analysis of my trading records shows that my "winning" percentage has consistently been around 60 - 67%, whether I include "scratches" in the mix or not. My average loss has, however, been greater than my average win, mainly as a result of overly hasty exits from winning trades, and, especially during recent periods, a handful of train wrecks more or less along the lines of "Kymar's Last Stand." One of my reasons for starting this journal (and for doing the name change... stuff) was to confront these problems from a new angle.
never noticed before that, if you change you "signature," your prior "signatures" all get altered retroactively or however you want to put it... Anyway, since some of y'all seemed to be getting depressed, worried, or confused by "Kymar RIP," I've switched to something I hope you'll find more congenial, though I won't promise not to revert at some future point to the "negative dialectical" approach.
I do love a gap fill... like garlic in the press, the feeling, when the early lows are penetrated... did take a trade on the move, had no choice, I felt, but to cover the last part at support, even tho this could still lurch a lot further - the stock and/or the index. You don't have to trade every move, they say. DIAN can zip around so quickly, evaporate open profits so fast... on the other hand, it's been known to produce huge directional moves. I might have to avoid looking at it for the rest of the day, or risk losing what confidence and pleasure the successful trade - from anticipatory entry, through hold despite adverse movement, through profit-taking at targets - has given me - but for all I know, DIAN may be the stock I need to trade ALL DAY today... so I'll keep it up.
My worst trades today were all the goods ones I simply passed up. Sometimes doing well on the first trade of the day, first trade of the week, and first trade of an interstellar trans-dimensional re-birth can make you overly protective of open profits. I turned down some great-looking set-ups that did actually fulfill, and the one other trade I took today was a low-odds breakdown, kind of an imitation of ones I passed up (also like that SMTC trade I used as an example earlier), that turned out to be a very small winner - I'll count it as a scratch. Though I probably could have gotten a bit more out of this one, the eventual fate of the market overall seemed very uncertain to me at the time, and MKSI, being a relatively strong small cap, had the potential to blow right through my notional stop while I was looking away to scratch Annie's ears (instead of the trade) or toss Buddy a biscuit. Rather than fool around, I got out. In short, there were opportunities that I passed up, but I'm glad I didn't give back the early DIAN profits trying to force something: I could make a good living with just one trade like that a day. I could probably survive on one of those a week...
Here's the MKSI trade... I knew it was marginal going in, as I reflect on it: That potential support area ca. 13 (a major round # if ever there was one) from that action months ago...
... that's preserving my good mood is the fact that DIAN didn't go on to lose half its value in some kind of mega-dump that commenced just after I covered... ... hate it when that happens... First time I ever happened to be short when one of those took place, I was so surprised, I reflexively started covering on the first signs of slowing... Denied myself several thousand dollars for no real reason... But I don't want to ruin my mood so I won't go on... ...grumblegrumblegrumble...
Ok, ok... so I'm revealing that I may be too emotional about this all... well... I could say that I'm just kidding around... or I could say that I'm exorcising the emotions, working on making them as boring to me as they appear to be to y'all (don't any of you even have something nice to say about Annie?)... or I could quote Shakespeare, MACBETH, MacDuff speaking, after being told his wife and children have been murdered, and is told he should take it like a man: "If I'm to take it like a man, I must first convey it like a man." Or something... What, you want me to look it up to get the exact words? Too much a mere "excuse..." my inner drill sergeant does not approve... and is even now socking me right in my flabby inner gut...
Kymar (oye, I can't get used to KymarFye), Just shoot some spoos from the hip and get rid of all those lines on those charts... Either way, best of luck to you... nitro
...but some interesting ideas possibly for the future. It's easy to get out of the habit of these gap fades when a couple days pass by without offering any. DIAN yesterday was a different deal entirely - a "flashback" into a gap fill, not the willful hurling of one's account into the way of an ICBM heading the opposite direction... ...made back most of the losses even under clumsy execution of second trade... I do not advocate that anyone try these trades until after studying them closely and in detail. My worst losses have come from mishandling trades of this type (in either direction). Concentration must be total - just glancing away can be extremely expensive. I'd rather, as this morning, cross myself up and stop out overall with a virtual scratch, than have everything scoped out "right" but still get COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY anyway with a blown stop leading to a panicky cover or close...