Here's some advice from Larry Williams. 45 year futures trader, inventor of the bollinger bands, and a man with style. Stop trading. If he can't do it, don't be surprised that you can't. Check out his track record for his newsletter with futures entries: http://www.ireallytrade.com/sp500.html 200 dollars a month, trade all year, and lose 600 bucks. I gotta give it to him for being honest though.
I started daytrading AAPL & POT very recently. I look for confirmed entries at the extremes, so I always use hard stops and pretty tight ones, too. I'm never surprised to get stopped out when price sometimes tests the extreme. If that happens and the test or breakout fails, I'm right back in the trade quick as a bunny. The reversals off extremes with these stocks are great, which is what attracted me to them. I got over my fear of their volatility by trading 100 shares and now trade 200-400 shares.
Yeah I like hard stops too. I found that I lose more money generally if I have to click the mouse to enter the order. Yes some times I get messed with by the MM but it keeps me out of trouble and there's zero chance I will do something stupid in the moment like wait to see if the price comes back. BTW I noticed that you stopped (daytrading?) trading options at some point and went back to stocks. Early on you had some of your biggest days trading options. Do you daytrade options on these stocks or have you left them alone for now and stick with shares?
This statement here indicates that you are "scared money" or trading too large if one or three trades hits your daily limit. Better to trade 200 or 300 shares and have enough room in your stop loss for good trades to pan out. Just my .02
I've only been trading a couple of years myself,but the concept of letting other trade losses you incurred that day affect the way you manage the trade you are in seems like a recipe for disaster to me. Regarding MU on friday I wouldn't have been interested above 8.34 for a long,regardless of position size.
Imo unfortunately there is some way to go still before arriving in the trading heaven. Should be taking clearly defined setups(which have a confirmed and proven edge) and exiting them as planned, day in and day out. Stop tweaking and thinking about money on the table. So the first step would be to make clear rules for entries and exits. Will not catch everything, but something consistent is enough.