I am starting this journal on a trial basis. I intend on posting my NQ trades and any pertinent comments at the end of each trading day. The purpose of this journal is to bring a sense of accountability to my trading; I will continue posting as long as I feel this goal is being achieved. Thank you.
I wasn't feeling very confident this afternoon. I saw several setups that I liked, but I couldn't pull the trigger. Out of frustration, I tried to jump start things, but quickly decided to quit after that failed to work.
You have a hair-trigger finger. You might consider dropping down to 1 contract and come up with a method that you can practice over and over until your fear is erased.
Ok, would you like some help with this? You can PM me and I can try to help. I agree with Icarus. First off, you need to try and stay in trades for at least 15 minutes. No wonder you felt jumpy today. None of these trades had a chance to mature. Go back to one contract and get more out of each trade. You will be less tempted to jump in and out. ES and NQ wiggle a lot, setting tight stops is a good way to not make money. You need to base the stops on a premise not a fixed amount. They are not the same as stocks or ETFs. I had the same problem. Also you were trying to trade "the dead zone"....that is the single worst thing to do! If you don't get it going in the morning, pack it in my friend....it is not a good day to trade! You need to establish a trading style...such as a cross of a MA or channel or pivot or whatever? This is up to your individual taste. But when you are not confident of your personal system is when doubts come in to play. Looking at this, I can see you probably had some good entries. But you left a lot of money on the table by jumping in and out. Show us a chart with your trades on it? This will help us see better. Offer better suggestions maybe. We all have days where we make rookie mistakes. The trick is not to have too many of them. Cathy PS...the best solution for a day when you can't see a trade. Take a 20 minute walk away from the computer. You will be surprised the difference it can make!
I was getting signals to go short, but my gut feeling was that it wasn't a good idea. Something in the tape made me feel like going short was a bad idea. At the same time, I was too nervous to go long, so I decided I had better just quit for the day.
My best trade today was a long from premarket on through to 10. I had the same problem, it took me too long to see that it was a short trend day.
How can you give this sort of advice when you have no idea what his plan is (assuming he has one), what his goals are, whether he's trying to be mechanical or discretionary (or both), whether or not he has targets and, if so, what they are, and so on. While I'm sure your heart's in the right place, telling somebody that they ought to stay in a trade for 15 minutes when they might know almost immediately that they made a mistake is silly. As for tight stops, that depends on the setup. Setting loose stops is just as sure a way to lose money if you're not choosing high probability/low risk setups. At the very least, it is necessary to find out if he has a strategy that he's tested in some way to determine whether or not it makes money.
I won't ask what your strategy is since that is nearly always a non-starter. Instead I'll assume that you've tested it in some way - either paper-trading or backtesting or a combination - in order to find out whether or not it is successful at least in theory. If you do have a strategy and you have tested it and it does make money, then your fear is for some reason preventing you from following it. Had you followed the same signals at another time in a similar situation and gotten slapped? What exactly was the "something" that gave rise to your doubt?
What works for you need not necessarily work for him. First, find out what he's trying to do. There's no reason to assume that he wants to do what you're doing.