Goal: Seek and destroy any signs of this viscious cycle: (1) discipline (2) winning (3) addiction to winning (4) taking more chances in order to satisfy need to win (5) losing I have identified this pattern in both my trading and poker playing. Really just (1) and (2) are fine. No need to go to 3-5. Maybe that's the problem. Really just (1) should be fine.
Yes JD, I was doing just that this weekend. It wasn't that easy but it can be done. First I would download an xpo file from Qcharts using Tradestation's Global Server along with "hyperserver" from this site. http://www.hypertrader.it/htools.shtml Then there is another program called hypertools from the same site that will enable you to convert the xpo file to excel or ascii.
Following dB's suggestion I didn't worry about predicting what kind of day it was. I looked for my setups and took them. Two trades, executed both according to plan, no problems. One winner, one loser. The first one was a short after backing off the 1420 high from last week in the morning. Stopped out when it broke thru. I noted later that my trend indicator called for longs only today. Didn't realize at the time of the trade; situational awareness problem. Second one was a long after seeing support at 1415. Also an 300-tick pullback. Exited for a small gain after seeing resistance at 1420. Wrapped it up for the day, for some reason I was convinced the trading day was over, or there would be no more long entries. Turns out there were a couple of great ones on the 875-t in the afternoon. Overall I am very happy with today because I executed the trades according to plan.
Indeed, the best trade was probably a short where I closed my long today, after touching 1420. But I like to keep the option of holding overnight open, on every trade. Supposing I got short today, and the naz closed 20 pts lower, I would still be uncomfortable holding a short overnight with the uptrend in place. A long, that'd be no problem today.