This morning something frustrated me and i just wanted to write it down. Basically i recognized that the dow would retest 400 after it opened, 400 would act as resistance and would then be used by bears for a push lower. For my trigger i was looking for a mini rally over a couple bars to go short on but it didnt occur. The market then broke the premarket low of 370 then proceeded to collapse when panic sellers hit the bids when the data came out. The one thing that has not been working very well for me is playing breakouts and breakdowns and going short at 370 area would have been very similar to a breakdown. Subsequently the market DID fall off roughly 50 points over the nexnt 15 minutes and i missed the bus. Now im left befuddled and have probably missed the trade for the day.
haha, i had to post that pic for my uh cough cough myspace cough cough. Nah i dont work there just thought it was a sweet looking pic.
I fully agree with the $50/day. You are currently averaging around -50/day over the last 10 trading sessions. To go from consistently losing for 10 straight sessions to averaging $125 is not an easy task. Preserve your capital while you are in the early phases. How long before you blow up if you continue with your current performance of losing $50/day? That is a very important question. good luck
Quin i fully understand what you are saying but i have a 1 day anomale that i lost more than is normal. This is because i attempted to trade 2-3 lots instead of just trading 1. I have set a hard position limit that will force me to call the broker to have that changed.
Ok I admit that i am struggling. Wednesday ended up blowing up in my face and today i just took 1 trade which was a loser. Setup looked ok but it had zero follow through. I have decided that for now the best thing i can do is focus on trade selection, since my winners are roughly twice my average loser that means at 50/50 I am making money on average. I guess really the only way I can do this is to be super selective and force myself only to trade at the key zones and avoid the middle like the plague. I have said this many times but when i miss a key zone trade i often find myself chasing. I know what i am doing wrong now i must take corrective measures to fix it.
Trading results for the week, I did not trade on friday. 9 Trades 4 winners 7 losers -$140 net Basically right now I am at the point where i feel like I cant do anything right. I took today off, was up late last night doing homework. My thoughts are really scattered as to what is going wrong. As many of you know I have been speaking to a mentor about trading for the past 10 months or so. His style is similar to mine however he is becoming more and more of a longer term trader. His style has started to considerably drift from mine. The past 5 trades that i have piggy backed off him have all been losers. And the subsequent trade had i taken it would have more than made up for the combined losses. It seems that i give up on his advice right before the big one comes. Wednesday caused a lot of frustration for me this week. I froze up and missed a short opportunity at 13370 and did not go short till 13320. The swing low was 13375, i exited for a profit at 13308, frustrating to give back so much of my profits. I have examined this trade for quite some time and cannot figure out how i could have possibly exited better for the method that i use. Trading 1 contract is frustrating because you have to get all in and all out at the same price. Often i spot chances for a partial profit opportunity but since i only have one i cant take it. At the same time I do not feel I can handle 2 contracts at this point simply because i am not consistently making money on 1 contract. What is bothering me the most is my trade selection. I am trading much more frequently than I would like to. What it appears that I am doing wrong is that I am buying or selling too late into the move. Its as if I want some sort of confirmation and as soon as I get the confirmation its nearing the top of the move. I identified an issue I have is that when I am down for the day that i often take silly trades just to try to get back to even. In the poker world we call this TILT. As much as I feel that the worst is behind me it still seems like I am bleeding to death as I continue to average losing $50 a day. I wont be in this game much longer at this rate given my small account. All the while I know that 1 good trade of 100+ points helps substantially. What I have found that does work for me is to map out possible scenarios for the next trading day that way when certain things develop I will not freeze up. For all of you that took the time to read this i greatly appreciate it. If anyone can somehow make sense of the issues I am having any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.