Thursday: Started the day horribly. Did my first trade at 10:31, a minute after the oil reports. I hestitated longing gold when I saw crude oil spike, and got in at the top of the spike instead of at the middle. Got out with a -320 loss. Scalped my way back through good movements in gold and ended with a really good day. The account is looking much healthier now. I really have to stop trading the news.
trading with confidence after a winning day is a bonus, remember not to give it back,the big picture is your acct ,not the trading screen,good job,keep it up
Thanks for the comments guys. Ammo: i tried my best not to give back my gains today. Friday: Gold was very unstable today. Crude oil and the euro seemed to move fairly independently today, which made it hard for me to trade gold, since I've been using those two as indicators. I got in two trades which brought me down 400 off the bat, but through scalping the chop I was able to bring the loss down a little. Very undisciplined trading today, it was a cathartic experience which I'll detail more below. Week 16 wrap up: +1792 this week. Best week ever, I hope I have have weeks like this in the future, although I will (hopefully) never trade like I did this week ever again. I always had in the back of my mind that my trading style was alot like the cycles of lines I stared at all day long. My cycle is this: I start the week off following my rules, implementing stops, having a sound entry and exit strategy, and trading with little emotion. By the end of the week I'm getting lazy, impulse trading, trading without stops and waiting for trades to come back, cursing out loud at the monitor and, alot of the time, losing alot of money. Then the cycle repeats. My big wins are also followed by big losses too. Today I was lucky in two ways: firstly, I identified this about myself, secondly, my trades with no stops actually came back with profits or small losses after being DEEP losses. I am going to try hard to stop being so careless.
Maybe you get a little battle fatigue towards the end of the week...going to sugeest trying a 4 day week....ooops, this was a 4 day week:eek: Write down what you did at the beginning of the week related to your solid method and then read it aloud at least 5 times to yourself every day before you start trading, especially towards the end of the week...it should keep you "in check".
I try to, but my rules are so vague I don't even know them. I'm trading with alot of feeling and instinct now, as opposed to hard and fast rules. I'm constantly redefining rules, and breaking them. It's tough to follow your own rules, I'm trying my best.
Monday: Started off the day with a loss.. again. -285 from the start, worked my way back once again. Today gold was stable, for the most part. My method seems to be working in this horizontal environment. August Gold touched 900 again today, and kept bouncing off of it, making it somewhat predictable. I embraced my scalping tactic I was doing all last week with no regard for commissions and churned the account a little. I tried to do 1 longer-term trade when it went my way +200 and I set my stop, but unfortunately it came back and I only made 50 on that trade.
Tuesday: Woke up a bit too early today (7:30am) and got in a couple of trades. It started off moving sideways again, with a very narrow range, so I went back to bed. Big mistake, I couldn't get up until like 11 lol. I missed a huge $18 dip in gold, and afterward it basically moved horizontal some more. For some reason, gold was reluctant to move any further down even while the euro and crude oil continued downward. I continue my lucky streak with scalping..
Wednesday: Today was a good day- I traded the entire day without getting tired and power-napping. I always tell myself to stay away from the news. I was up around $400 before the oil reports came out, and I got in and vaporized $250 from panic. I took another trade in the frenzy and made back most of it. For some reason, IB didn't reset my trades from yesterday until like 11:30, so half my trades from today aren't shown. Gold was trading in a range again today, but a big range, with alot of frenzy around 10:30 to 11pm. I told myself I'd start doubling my positions if my account ever reached 16K again, but today I went ahead and doubled about half my trades before I reached that mark. My streak continues today, I wonder when it will end...