Hey everyone. I'm starting this journal in hopes to eliminate self-defeating behavior in my trading. The most difficult part of trading for me has been the following: 1) Having a plan to trade a specific market going into the trading day, and not sticking to it. 2) Not following my trading methodology. (Entering trades too early, exiting trades too early). 3) Taking trades late in the day, trying to fade large price moves. These 3 things have cost me a great deal of profits, and more importantly have shaken much of my confidence as a trader. So hopefully, if I post my trades the night/morning before the trading day, I will have a better chance at sticking to my plan. We will see what happens. Plan for Monday: Corn made an intraday record high on Friday at 799.75, before coming off and settling at 784.50. I going to be looking to either get long or short on corn in the morning if one of my signals gets triggered, and I will set a take profit target of 20 cents or hold-til-close, whichever comes first. I WILL NOT MAKE ANY OTHER TRADES BESIDES THIS TRADE.
Yesterday, there was no setup in corn for me to trade, so therefore I didn't trade it. I had a good day trading the Russell 2000 today, lost a little bit trying to catch an upside midday move in Natural Gas, but overall was profitable for the day. Once again, I overtraded though and had no business taking the second trade in Nat Gas. Tomorrow should also be a very interesting day for the indexes, and usually after a short covering rally we have seen it carrythrough for a few more days of upward movement. By the degree of steepness that the market sold off over the last two week, I think there is a good chance that the Russell2000 could touch 820 by the end of the week but I certainly wouldn't hang my hat on it. For tomm, I'm looking again at trading Corn or Nat Gas, but find neither of them exceptionally compelling. I'll try to post my trades real time so you guy can see if I'm actually making money or full of shit
Welcome Steve! Discipline is also what I'm working on. About 2 weeks ago I started my own journal (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=221529) in an attempt to improve my trading discipline. I've found that just the feeling of being accountable to the community here at ET is helping me. After every trade I write a journal entry to calm my mind and keep me from taking on another immediate trade. Good luck!