6 trades -3.00 points More lack of experience i hope than mistakes. Usual too early exit on first short. Got shaken out on the pullback. +3.75 that could have been good for another 10. 2nd trade didn't get the fill i expected so moved stop and ended up exiting -3.75. The good action on my part was the entry was still valid so i re-entered within 30 seconds. That trade ran + 9.75 MFE but my let profit run strategy i didn't do before took hold and i ended up watching it pullback until i exited +2.50 It was the correct exit at that point as price never came back. Other trades just didn't work- no big deal on those. Missed about an hour of good price action to take care of some unexpected personal business. Had to cancel a new floor/carpet install after talking with the wife. She found some shady things about the contractor on the internet ANd my dog all of sudden has really bad arthritis and can barely walk. x-ray showed no tumors though so that's good. Just started once a day meds but doesn't seem frequent enough. will consult with vet thurs of friday OK done venting. Didn't mean to bring all the personal stuff in but i guess it's really on my mind.
No . real $$$'s If you have any recommendation on exits i'd gladly take them. I've considered multiple contracts to scale out. Break of S/R on retrace indicating change of trend- gives back alot of profit. Targets . Mostly rely on my 'skill' to find exit points. Yep, it's not working. I've considered fixed profit targets as well as trailing stop of , say half (? ) of open profits. My most preferred choice is develop constistency then add another car so i can scale out. Thanks
Been waiting and expecting for about a year a drop like today. dow -500 Didn't trade. Dog back to vet. Will be at home with dog tomorrow too. Oh well. the market will be there next week. not so sure about our dog.
Just a personal update. Not really sure what to post. Does my personal life really matter on an anonymous trading journal ? Spent more days at the vet this month than trading. The previously mentioned dog was put to sleep aug. 5. Twelve year old shepard/husky mix all of a sudden lost use of all limbs. Mentally was still smart and alert. Tried some treatment that failed and have some regret i didn't explore other options. The loss devasted my wife and i more than we expected. Next went to Lake tahoe area for 3 nights . missed some wild market action but wasn't in the proper mindset to trade it anyway. Wife and i decided to take last week off to rest, hike and have some nice dinners out. Our other dog then proceeded to tear a ligament in the knee. Guess it's common in big dogs. That required surgery and a night in the hospital. She needs assistance walking right now and we're spending alot of time watching over her. Can't wait for this month to be over. As for trading i'm in the process of switching brokers; over to Mirus. Redoing my home office and bought a new computer. Once i get caught up again at work i expect to trade from home a bit more. It's been a couple weeks since my last trade. I expect to start up again next week. Guess that's enough for now.
Sorry to hear you've so much going on. I have a 100# dog also.... Huge hound of some kind. They surely do become a part of life. HOpe things become more regular for you...
Thanks Hooti. Appreciate your well wishes. I'm easing back into trading this week and expect to be back into my regular routine next week.
OK i'm back. Expecting good things this month after a lousy August. 6 trades today . zero points. Overall good trade management except for my last long which I got nervous on and bailed right away. That would have been the one good trade i needed today to net around 5 points. I think i mentioned i switched to Mirus brokerage for lower commisions. Psychologically paying lower comm is a big help to me. If a trade was only slightly profitable in the past i may have held to try to cover more comm but now i think i can be more objective and just trade what i see without worrying about comm. Also noticed execution of orders appears faster. Advertisement over. My current objective or mindset is to not try to catch 10- 20 point moves. I've always had a bit of swing for the fences mentality. I'm tired of giving up too much in open profits Now i'm just trying to get 5+ points whenever possible, keep my losses small and try to improve my win percentage. Yep, easy stuff, right ? No charts today- nothing really worth posting.
I have a problem with big gap days. Just don't trade them well. The bias was up and i mostly waited for a reversal pattern to get short. Not a great strategy. I took a long late in the day that stalled. (chart attached) Ideal way to have traded it would have been to either use a wider stop or exit at B/E. Given i was buying near HOD with djia +200 i didn't want to widen stop. Instead i sat and took my normal stop instead of a quick exit. Not the way i want to be playing it. Lost focus after that and went and had lunch. My attitude now with trades still near my entry point is to exit as soon as it looks like it's not working. This is a bit different from before when i'd give them more room. I expect if this works for me I'll have more trades but overall a lower average loss. 2 trades -2.00 pts
+ 5.50 pts : +4.75 -.50 + 1.25 Got too cautious after first trade and didn't take a good setup. Made up for it after exiting 2nd trade with a re entry 3 minutes later. Lots of missed opportunities but overall pleased with my focus and results.