Starting a new journal as my old one I used Topstep but now I am swing trading with personal money. Since my constraints(instruments were narrowed via topstep e.g. only futures) are now different I am opening my trades to equities but mostly the top companies by market capitalization. This is more in line with the amount of time I have due to my job. The current journal like my previous is to become more conscious of my decisions for a trade, to keep myself more accountable, and to not flee from the feeling of the shame of losing. I will be posting my thoughts on the trades so I may look back and see my growth or a pattern in my thinking that is hindering me. Trades will reported like my previous journal for day trading but for swings. Example: [#21, LONG, ENTRY: 5727.25 @ 10:07:43, STOP: 10pts, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: ] [#21, LONG, ENTRY: 5727.25 @ 10:07:43, STOP: 10pts, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: 5717.5 @ 10:59:14] Here's to my journey and godspeed to myself.
That's the first step, and after cutting losses a few hundred times you will realize it's one of the main reasons your account is going up!
Thank you for asking. If you saw how I traded before I do chase. It is my first time coming back to trading, I had a hard time pulling the trigger on things I wanted to act on so I just pulled on one of the two things. It was either GOOGL or JPM. I am really thinking about how I previously traded which was attempting to capture large moves intraday vs cutting it short which would be adding a target(your question) Honestly though I am not the best when swinging. I think it is some kind of overarching feeling of control. I talk about it a bit in my previous journal(I think or maybe it was with a friend). But since I can't watch the price as it moves(day job) it seems like I must trust my decisions more. I know I didn't really answr your question but I will think about it more and talk after I come back from work.
Let me be more focused on each "?" you have asked. But please note I am not a profitable trader as I have said in my previous journal. Q: Why at 256? A: Honestly no reason, I have been thinking about this one and I think I may have to accept the probability distribution of where ever I enter. Since I can't look at price 24/7 I must accept this randomness when I enter the market. Q: Was I chasing? A: From the standpoint of the daily yes I was. Q: Why discretion? I can see that with a target but not a stop. A: Honestly I do not have a strong answer, I used to put wide stops but in swinging since I am new I am unsure about how I feel about price gapping. Intraday I had very wide stops to swing for the fences, but it seems now, when I look back. I may have been trying to not stick to my trend trading strategy which was where I did pretty well. Master of none as they say. In my previous journal I always had a hard stop to counter large violent moves in either direction. Honestly. I just didn't have a plan. That is truly the reason why. Reflecting about what I am saying right now I truly am just trying to justify my actions like all humans do. I will have a more refined approach as I move forward.
Having a plan changed the way I traded. It took me a while to come up with one. My initial thought was it would take me a couple hours at most. Days later I finally finished the first draft. I consider it my operating manual. It answers the question, "What do I do now?". Now when I review my trades it's easy to answer the question, "Did I follow my plan".
You need to think things through. Ask yourself a question, if you were actually employed to trade, would they fire you due to incompetence, because you don't know what you are doing? Pretend you are trading someone else's money and put pressure on yourself to be accountable for your actions.
Appreciate the help. Yeah, you guys are right. I had plans before when I was trading intraday. I still have them on my google drive about contingencies and scenarios, etc. I think I just jumped into trading after a 3 month break too quickly. I will review my previous plans to start rebuilding. I will just manage this JPM position and exit based on my previous plan. I already have a plan to manage this after thinking it through and rereading my previous plan. I guess I just needed some skin in the game before I started actually thinking about trading again. One of the biggest problems for me is the gap risk for swing trading. In intraday trading I never had to worry about that. I guess I just have to accept the risk when the event is random(e.g. not earnings, CEO getting shot, etc.).
Humans are very strange/odd when they invest in stocks. They like to buy it when it is at a record-high price. In fact, thousands of investors in this planet do such a thing. You hardly see this behavior when humans invest in other things like properties, commodities, precious metals .... Please enlighten us on your behaviour/thinking process