Good, it's tempting to make revenge trades but that leads to blowups. Just got to chip away and not get greedy. Today, I didn't like the tape at all. Sometimes its best to step back and take a break. I made a shitty trade the other day and ate the loss and it burned. Last weeks 2k profits gone cause I tried to get cute I just got up and walked away and shut the computer off and went to sleep but not before I banged my head against the wall.
Here are some personal rules I live by: 1. Learn to eliminate big losses. (Get out before small losses become big losses) Since small losses are offset by small wins , If you can eliminate the big losses, all that will be left are your big wins. 2. NEVER trade on emotions. If you start feeling emotional it's time to stop trading until those feelings subside. Be like Spock or some sort of machine. trade by your rules not by your heart. 3. NEVER trade on news/rumors. Thats what "THEY" what you to do. Everything that is known or can be known about a stock is already reflected in the price. So trade the price.
Sorry to hear about your bad week. but from what i've seen of you on here, you seem to know what you're doing and im sure you'll get back on your game. I will try to chip away going forward and try to increase slowly. Only problem is after a day like this, i dont want to get cocky and make any stupid moves. I also don't know what move to make next so I may also step away and wait for another opportunity.
I like rule number 1. I never thought about it that way. Thats a problem I admit, getting out before the small losses become big. But I will continue to work on that. What do you mean trade the price? if you cant trade on rumors or news, what else is there to trade on? I don't think i understand exactly what you mean by trading the price.
What I mean is you don't need the news. Watch the charts they will tell you everything that the news does in real time and usually before the news does. Not to mention that a majority of the time the news and rumors are either wrong or delayed to the point trying to trade on it has you buying when you should be selling and selling when you should be buying. News that is timely, is correct AND can affect the price will do so on the very next bar eliminating the need to know what the news was. A great example is BSC. Look at a 1yr daily candle chart for BSC (add a 200 period SMA). If you couldn't look at that and tell that BSC was in SERIOUS trouble long before they announce on the news that they were going under then that would be a big part of your problem. Looking at that chart you will see that it crossed under it's 200 period MA back on 5/15/07 and retested that as a resistance level a couple of times and after the last test on 6/15/07 it then died a slow death over a period of about 9 months before the news of it's death was announced over the weekend of March 16 2008. If you had been watching the BSC charts back then and shorted all the way down from about $148 you would have been getting out (buying to cover) when the news finally broke. You would have made a killing all the way down instead of waiting on the news to tell you to get out once it was too late.
Here is a 1yr daily chart for BSC showing what I mean: <img src="http://www.fantasydaytraders.com/eqpics/BSC-Chart-1.jpg">
Specially news stories planted by INSTITUTIONAL TRADERS like Goldman Sachs take the cake. People think Goldman is an Investment bank with some non interest in the market place when in fact they are a trader just like you are on a massive scale. Reading stories about recession , upgrades downgrades is a joke.