wrong call! i do want to improve my discipline. i hope this journal will help me in that. let's see if i am able to enforce the discipline if the market keeps going against me.
Qs high for today 56.05. i chose not to activate my mental stop because i still believe 54 is within reach and the market may not stay for a long time ~56. therefore i don't want to play stop-and-re-enter type of a scenario here. by now it is obvious that the trade is not a great one given the duration, 3% drawdonw and no profits (yet ). i will try to do better next time. QQQQ 55.75
By "discipline" you mean the ability to continue to hold a position as it relentlessly moves against you? That's not discipline -- that's madness!
as it moves against it i actually see more reasons for it to turn around. if i did not have those reasons then i would have exited. as it moves against me i ask the question whether i would have entered a short position here if i had not been in already. if "yes" then i hold my current short. Qs ~56, holding on.
Betting against Intel. Wow, brave move, Intel usually has decent earnings. Could always be different this time of course, but I believe their previous guidance was strong.
Qs 56.56 - still holding... ~3.5% drawdown - this is the size of the drawdown when i should be taking the loss really soon and starting a totally new trade UNDER MOST circumstances. BUT i just re-checked my various secret "indicators" and the good news is that most most likely we will see 54 very soon (a week or a few days) while the upside is extremely limited ~1%. Therefore, I chose to sit through the pain a bit longer. Obviously, the trade went bad and I am just trying to find a reasonably good exit based on what i see in the market.
to summarize, this concludes the trade that had the following characteristics: 1. lasted >1 month 2. showed only limited unrealized profit 3. went into 5% drawdown 4. was covered for -2%. basically, i got humbled by the market yet again. the upward momentum was way stronger than i expected. i do think that 54 is reachable within 1-2 weeks. so i may short again if QQQQ goes to ~56.3 to give myself some room for error. Qs 56.11 AH