The hedged positions worked out as planned. 700 CSCO long was stopped out at .50, a -$200 loss. The 1400 AQNT short went down 70 cents for a while, but I was in the meeting, when I was back to the computer, I dutifully covered 800 at 9.50, leaving the right size of 600 to run. But after sometime, it just won't go down any more, I covered at 9.50 also. Later reloaded 600 at 9.72. The late afternoon bounce is a wonder. I participated with 300 IWM (Russell 2000 ETF), and rided a portion of that bounce. Tried 500 QQQ short in the last hour, still holding. I bet on that it won't exceed yesterday's high, if tomorrow it does, great, all cylinder long. That 'd be it. Shorted 300 MO, betting on that the round number 50 is going to stick like a nail in its forehead. I clearly see a progress in my trading. This kind of day would have killed me. Twice, in one day, slaping both side of my face.
The market is having some large and random movement every day. I am afraid both bull and bear will be disappointed. I think the market in coming weeks will be small volume small percentage drifting lower slowly. Sellers have sold, buyers are too scared and there is likely nothing new in the news. I made $600 more since 05/11, spread quite evenly among trading days. I am having a cold and there is a few hours ' commitment for some household tasks for the past few days. So, not bad. Ramp up operation capacity. This is going to be my focus in the coming two weeks. The solution is absolutely not increasing the size, which I believe is a popular pitfall, because the size is determined by your own pain threshhold. As long as one's lifestyle and account balance has changed, the pain threshhold is the same and so the size of each trade. The solution lies with increasing the number of trades, which in turn means to speed up the screening process and pre-trade planning.
Today is a clear breakout of down trend for NASDAQ and then a pullback to fill the gap, like two sessions wrapped in one day. Based on this bullish thesis, I loaded up and wait to see what tomorrow brings. Of course the breakout could be fake, with 1 out of 3 chance, then I will write down a loss and move on to next one. Playing blackjack is the game with the best odds against the house in any casino. If you work really hard on counting cards, you probably get 55% to your favor. Games such as slot machine is like 87% in favor of the house. Another statistics I still remember is that the best trader Cohen has under has the win ration 65% or so.