Same here, journal writing just wasn't cutting it for me either ... I'm working with "BRS Screen Recorder", it has zoom in and 3d capabilities and takes less than 5 minutes to master. It's free unless you want additional features, the only bad thing is that it records in .avi which takes a lot of hard drive space, but you can change the settings to lessen the quality of the video and take up less memory. A one hour video for me takes around 500mb with the lower settings but I burn the video into a cd at end of day. Another option is "Debut Capture Software", also free.
Day 2 This long weekend could not come in a better time, Olympics could not come in a better time, SWM loss could not come in a better time. It all clicked. It's not that I learned something new, it's just that I finally got serious about my business. I understand probabilities and numbers game but for some reason for a long time I was still fighting it when trading. I was like that overweight person who knew it's important to eat healthy but kept looking at the good food and still eating junk My focus shifted to trade well from trading to make money. All trades are according to my rules. Not worried about pathetic p/l today since I'm still improving my targets. It's all about exits. It was clear it was slowing me down today since I usually wait for a stock to do this and that before exiting. However I'm slowly moving to entering OCO orders right after entry so I can move on to another trade and get as many as I can in the first couple hours of trading. Perfect example of my exit dilemmas was RIMM today, I was long 1000 shares at 69.55 and sold at 69.77. For so long I was against scaling out, but I think I might have to reconsider. There is no perfect exit, so using several levels should improve my bottom line. +52
Thank you NoDoji, I was trading well today. Thankful for the SWM lesson, though I'd rather pay for it less than what I did
ThinkFirst listen... Dont restart every time you mess up... Just go 30 days straight... Why? Because you are going to create a nasty habit by restarting every time you mess up.. And by doing that you will give yourself an excuse every time.. You dont want that.. I used to do the same thing when i was trying to lose weight.. I would start my diet in the beginning of the week and once I would eat mcdonals or something bad, I would say to myself "opps I will start over next week".. But the thing was it became a nasty habit and I got fatter.. Our brains love to feed off of habits.. Especially nasty ones.. Put it like this.. you are going to make mistakes (break your rules once in awhile) but doing it once or twice is not going to hurt you.. You should judge your performance based on the WHOLE 30 days.. So lets say the first 30 days you break your rules 7 times... Well then you know the next 30 days you will try to top that.. Get it? Let me know if this makes any sense..
It does make sense. Thank you for your input. I went through some serious mental makeover over this weekend and I believe I won't have to restart my Day count anymore simply because I have no need to make same mistakes. You are right, I will make some mistakes, we all do, but my attitude is different, my goals are different. I didn't even look at my p/l today during trading just to give you an example. It's like I crossed to another side mentally, now just need to get $$$ confirming it, obviously $50/day won't cut it
I'm glad to hear that.. Actually your thread motivated me to start my own 30 day journal.. But mines isnt public like yours.. Anywho, I believe you can do it... so dont give up..
Dude, you are focusing too much on profit and loss. Work on trading better. If you make $ 50 see if you work on a losing day where you lose only $ 50. Then if you have more winning days, you can start to scale up. Everyone is going to have a losing trade or a losing day, the point is you need to accept that, trading is not like a job where you get a paycheck based on showing up. If you are trading following your methods and staying in control then you are doing what you are supposed to do.
As I mentioned above, I didn't even look at my p/l today because I didn't focus on money today. I think we are talking about the same thing but in different words. P.S. I never was called Dude before, I think Dudette will fit me better This mostly Dude's forum so I understand. But I thought I'll clear this one out sooner than later.