I know it's easier said than done, (especially if you're somewhat addicted) but maybe you're overtrading? I didn't do well when I was...no trades for me today, Fridays and Mondays are not my days....
All I am asking for is a Microscopic amount of predictability for a millisecond... that's it.... not too much to ask... Expecting the rally now... Guaranteed we something else..
If you look at the metrics of a specific market it will help any who want to begin their knowledge of the behavior of the market in which they trade or in which they want to trade. Look at YM today. The range for today (Monday Nov 10 2008) was 405. You have to exploit the days gyrations. This means buying the upmoves, selling the downmoves sequentially. The sequence in todays gyrations (up/down repeating 9.30 to 16.00 on Nov 10) produced 19 macro 'legs' of minimum 35 points. The mean average of those 19 'legs' was 93 points per 'leg'. Therefore between 9.30am and 16.00pm, thats more than 1700 points which were on offer. Capture most, or if not just a portion, of each 'leg'. You can start making sense of your trading and begin a logical plan to succeed on a significant scale.
At heart I prefer daily swingtrading but current market not appropriate... therefore I have a preference to make as few trades as possible AND take home... either I get 4 points out of a stock or nothing... anytime I try to do lots of trades to get that 4 points intraday, I am cooked. If I had been flat coming into this morning, probably wouldn't have started this thread.