My God.. everyday I miss at least 3 good trades.. either from not being at my machine or even more annoying is not realizing the setup is there until after the fact. The good thing is in the past I'd always jump in late when I'd miss a trade or revenge trade out of aggravation. I'm at least growing out of the urge to do those things.
We all miss signals at some point (based on our methods); the question is how many, how often, and why. If you're not around to take advantage of it, well there's nothing you can do! If you didn't catch/miss the setup, take the lesson learned, see what you missed, and try to be on it next time. I'm more po'd if I happen to 'look away' when one sets up and I miss getting in at that moment (which it then works out), then "not being there" I'm also a lot better on refusing to "get back in" if things go to where I'd have gotten out in profit, then retrace back to where I would have entered originally...revenging is a really bad habit. Now I'll just vent the little steam I have, quickly calm down, and wait for a new signal to hit...since there'll always be another one.
Yes.. there will always be another one. That's a fact. It's still aggravting and frustrating to miss one and then see the market take off in your direction. I put in a sell stop on the ER at 784.20.. but the time I got the order in the price passed through it.. I cancelled the order and had an opportunity to get back in on a limit order but talked myself out of it.. and now the market is at 775.10.. of course I probably would have cashed out before getting to this point. but it makes me feel like a failure and that I need to do something to get out away from that feeling. Well at least I'm learning to deal with those frustrations nowadays. In the past I would have screwed up the entire day after missing a trade like that out of pure stupidity..
I have some alarms that sound off when things are setting up. They have a 60hz component sound to them that reminds me of the first, and last, time I got across the 110 volt lines.. they keep my attention on the screen pretty muchly... I was outside fixing a bicycle tire yesterday and I could hear the thing and get to the screen in time to make a decision.
one other phrase: boredom I can look at an entry signal follwing a setup signal with complete apathy and make excuses regarding why I should not just go do something more exciting.
that sounds like a nice setup maxpi. I need to get a mic and record tons of sound offs like that. hell, it would probly help to not even bother looking at the screen if you had something like that setup so your not waiting to jump into something and over trade.
Next step for me is to have different alerts for different events, currently I just have the one. Hmmm ... there are possibilities in this, it could tell me market conditions, etc... Music!! The Jaws track for when things are shaping up a little not-so-good, some marching band stuff for when I'm in a move and it's going my way, It's a Small Small World from disneyland for when volatility is down...