9/30/11 (Friday) 2 trades 2 winners +5R WYNN was once again down huge in the morning, I was expecting a bounce, but it kept making lower highs and seemed itâs about to breakdown below the morning low. I watched it break lower, but it immediately bounce back above the support making a doji. It was a failed breakdown, I bought it at 113 and sold it at the 50% retracement. It then made a fast 2 point drop and reversed again. But by time I was looking at BIDU so missed the consequent run up. Bidu had a huge gap down, but it was making HH and HL all morning. After it showed strength after the 10:15 down bar, I bought it. A more prudent move wouldâve been to wait till it breaks the resistance, then buy. But I was looking at a lot of different charts and didnât draw any lines. I sold it after a 2 point profit, which looking back on this chart was a puny gain. If I had drawn the lines like I was suppose to, I wouldâve seen that it retraced back to the resistance line and turned right back up again, showing strength. I wouldâve had more conviction and reason to hold on to it longer.
10/3/11 +1.7R 10/4/11 +7.5R 10/5/11 BE Computer crashed in the middle of the day yesterday, it wouldâve been a much bigger day otherwise. I saw the movement mostly right, the severity of the midday drop surprised me, but I knew there would be an EOD rally. The take away for the last 3 days is that, when stopped out, donât feel the need to get back in. youâre stopped out for a reason, step back and assess the situation. My immediate reaction when stopped out usually is âI got whipsawed, now itâs going to run without me.â Often I jump back in and lose a few more times before I finally give up. Also, when profits come much faster than expected, take it. I had a 5 point profit on CF yesterday, I thought it was safe to let it run. Went to lunch, came back, computer froze and CF stopped me out for BE. It later went to my original target. Same thing today, 3 point profit on NFLX came too fast. Didnât take it and stopped out for BE. Let the winner run, only if itâs not extremely fast.
10/6/11 (Thursday) -7.5R Overtraded 10/7/11 (Friday) +2.5R 4 trades I had computer problems since Tuesday. I thought I fixed everything on Wednesday but when I turn it on Thursday morning, the system malfunctioned again. It took me 2 more hrs before I started trading. All these hassles just made me very irritated, not only did I miss the huge rally on Tuesday afternoon, I also missed most of AAPLâs bounce. Thursday morning. I was very impatient, I knew I wasnât in the right mindset but I didnât stop trading. After a few losses, I became even more agitated, started taking trades for no reason. Finally stopped after I gave back all the gains made on Tuesday. I slowed down on Friday, remind myself to only take setups I see on the charts. I actually took down all the quote fields that are distracting me, leaving only the last price. No more bid/ask, bid size and ask size or even a last size. Iâve read that many people on ET trade base on the DOM only, or tape reading, not even looking at the charts at all. I think thatâs what the old timer did also before the convenience of computerized charting. But I find that whenever I start paying too much attention to the bid/ask, I lose focus of the big picture. I tend to overtrade if I stare at the quotes for too long. Since Iâm already comfortable trading based on charts patterns, Iâm going to stick to what I know and work on improving that.