Everyone has a logical excuse, or reasoning, in hindsight...of why their trade did good, or bad. But the only thing that matters is the constant, dynamic, perpetual heat of the moment, The market is a constant battle between good and bad forces, positive and negative forces, Part art, part science...logical reasoning, and/or emotions...dancing and mixing with each other, Trading the market is not necessarily complicated, but it requires a wise, calm, semi-analytical and open-minded person, Make Trading Great Again 2018...High-Five`
There were several sources of errors. 1) Buying the dip thinking it will rebound when I should be shorting 2) A few mechanical mistakes. I was trading 2 accounts. I click buy to cover but it was for a different account that I didn't short. So I ended up long. When I realized that I got out and it dropped another 100 pts! 3) The real problem is risk management again. There were several times where I was making 50pts NQ points by buying the dip and flipping it out. It's that when that didn't work I should have gotten out. But in this crazy environment I couldn't put in 4-5 points stop. I would have been constantly stopped out. Poor discipline. 4) I was addicted to the action. I should have stopped. In, out, in, out. Long. short. long. etc. I could just hold back if the volatility that high. And still preserved my gains. 2 steps forward, 2 steps back. Still got a long way to go. I should have just stayed out when I was up nicely for the day! This is the kind of day I should be killing it!! I'm still so mad at myself. Why did I do that?!
Quote: "Always predicting rather than following prices..." That means you are not in sync with the market flow. Predicting is gambling. The market has been very volatile lately, so your stops won't work unless you make them very big, thus increasing your risk significantly. You can, however, reduce your position size to limit risk to manageable sizes. More to learn! For everyone of us.
I'm so ANGRY at myself! I had a huge LONG position in TVIX! I exited too soon. It would have made my week! Oh well. I don't know why I have to tendency to switch sides. I was short yesterday night. And a little this morning. Then when it went down a lot I thought it will mean-revert and went long. I guess the trend is your friend...
I feel you trader99, I was long march vix future for all of 5 minutes near the close, made $800, holding for 30 minutes would have netted $10k! That said, vol begets vol, so there will be opportunities for a minimum of two days IMO.
Not to sugarcoat a horrible trading day, I like to give myself some constructive criticism. Yes, I did many, many, many trading errors that I thought I got rid of. But apparently, old habits died hard. Even in that rubbles of a mess, I did do manage a few good trades. I made 46.75 NQ points going long in one trade. In another trade I made 28.25 NQ points. Granted it was a crazy trading day with super high volatility. I did manage to short in the morning. But it was my mistake to reverse and go long. I have to get rid of the habit of thinking it's too low it must reverse. It can go significantly lower(or higher when shorting). So my risk management is still bad. The one thing holding me back. I lost -112 NQ points(OUCH) due to mechanical error. Without that I would still be net positive for the day. While the losses are big, in my old days I would have been totally wiped out. Today the losses were painful but recoverable. I made back some of it. Still not all of it. There's always tomorrow. But I have to preserve precious capital to fight another day.
I did something similar ...i thought I was buying dow futures during the big move up from the lows....but I had clicked the sell button. By the time i realised, i had lost 10k. Still made money for the day amazingly.
The great irony was that I lost a lot of money on TVIX, VIX futures, and VIX calls in 2017 anticipating the big crash. Then finally in January I was able to get rid of my short bias and went long. And I actually made money going long. Then BAM! The mother of all crashes came. Just when I needed my short bias(from 2016-2017) the most, I was going long. ACK! Such is the great irony of life. But it's not too late. If 2018 will be the year of great volatility then I'm ready! Practice and be ready to go long or short! BRING IT ON!
Wait a minute. If thought you were going long but you hit the sell button, then you went short. You should have made money. Not lost 10K?