BOT 1501.5 CLOSE 10:21:13 I'm just glad to be out of this trade with a minimal loss. I had attempted to cancel my sell order, but it was filled right as I clicked cancel. Anyway, it seems that the market action is pretty strong right now, so I'll probably look for a long entry.
SLD 1501.5 CLOSE 10:30:43 This was basically just a play off of Trade 1, but it wasn't working out as quickly as I thought it should.
There's not much of anything going on right now. I can't really justify sitting and watching because I'm afraid it will lead to frustration. I'm going to take a break and hopefully things will pick up this afternoon.
BOT 1496 OPEN 13:40:50 I think there is a good possibility that the market will go back up to 1500 again.
It's 2:30, but I feel pretty confident about this trade. Somewhere along the line I would like to put a hard stop at 1496.5 and then just hold into the close. Hopefully it will work out that way.
SLD 1499 CLOSE I closed out this position in the after hours session. While I still think the trade has potential, I decided it wasn't worth it. One of the main reasons is that when I hold a trade overnight I find that I become preoccupied with it. As a result my quality of life decreases and the end result usually isn't worth it. When it comes right down to it, I don't like thinking about trading all the time. Also, the market didn't close as strongly as it should have. The NDX closed above 1500 but it was a hollow victory because the NQ never traded at a corresponding level. While I think that 1512-1514 is a definite possibility for tomorrow, there's always the possibility that it could go down. Not to mention that it settled at 1497.5 and 1.5 points is hardly a cushion. While this week has hardly been scintillating as far as numbers go, I have had two positive days. Last week as of Tuesday's close I was down almost 30 points, and the week before it was 20. So an improvement has been made. Hopefully the remainder of the week will have some good opportunities and I will be able to capitalize on them.
I decided to take a break from real-time posting today. I thought maybe it would take some pressure off and help my trading out. It didn't. I started a little later than usual and had already missed the big rally. I made a couple of bad trades with the net effect of -1.5, but then I was able to get my act together somewhat. I was able to get back up to net positive without too much effort, but once again I couldn't resist "one last trade." I went long at 1516 a little after 2:45. I exited that trade at 1512.5, which put me net negative for the day. I'm really starting to hate myself for entering substandard setups after 2:30. That and not being patient enough on the first trade of the day are killing me. A lot of my frustration comes from the fact that I hate the market for never having conviction anymore. It seems like all it does is drift around. There never seems to be any follow through momentum from day to day, or even intraday for that matter. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the one that has changed. I don't know.