Good month for the Tailz fund, though I did a lot less trading than usual, and a lot more sitting. :eek:
Monthly Total for 06/13 $145.00 *** No of Trades: 10 Win: 8 Loss: 2 Avg Win: $70.13 Avg Loss: -$208.00
+18 gross Today way my first day back after taking the last week or so off. I didn't find it to be a great trading day and am happy to start the month with a non-losing day. Now to review June: What a terrible month June was for me. I was coming off of a great month in May when I had passed my series 56 and just started trading a new account. There was a change in market conditions as the market became more choppy with many directions changes intraday, gaps everyday, and reversals. I struggled to make adjustments day after day. As much as I sucked, I was always able to stick to my loss limits and shut things down when I told myself I would. I still had a bad losing month, but was able to lessen the damage by sticking to my stops per trade and per day. As usual, I did make matters worse by overtrading and forcing trades as I became frustrated. Getting out at my stops and shutting it down has become a simple task for me. I don't really struggle with just getting out and taking the loss. Maybe because I've had so much practice. If my max loss for the trade is hit, I'm out. If my max loss for the day is hit, I'm done. That has been fantastic in limiting my losses. What I really need to work on is making a habit of only taking good setups that meet my criteria. I am very bad about that. I always want to trade and tend to take lots of mediocre setups or total junk just to get into something. I know my trading results would be so much better if I took less trades. Not only would I have less losses to deal with, but I would be in the game more of the time since I wouldn't be shut down for the day so much from hitting my max loss. I know I miss lots of good setups by getting shut down for the day. When reviewing the day, it's frustrating to see good trades I could have taken if I had just been patient and waited instead of getting blown out in the first hour. So here are a couple of things I learned from getting my butt kicked in June. One way of controlling losses I began to implement after a couple of weeks. I kept getting my butt kicked and shut down by hitting my max loss for the day. That's great that I was stopping, but I was still bleeding. When things aren't working, decrease your max loss per day. Since I was sucking, I chopped my max loss per day in almost half. I was still struggling and having a lower max loss saved me some money. It will be bumped back up when some consistency and profits come. The other thing is obvious, but it is simply to wait for good trades. So many times I look back on losing days and trades only to see that most of my trades were crappy setups. I would have loved to have had a P/L of zero those days. Having a P/L of zero is so much better than any losing amount! Fortunately, I made more in May than I lost in June, but it was still a horrible month. June: P/L: -469.73 Win%: 25.00 Avg W/Avg L: 1.79 My win percentage was cut in half compared to May and my W/L ratio was also down a bit. For July, it is all about patience for me. I have to do a lot of sitting and waiting. There will be lots of watching, but I have to be sure to continually scan, evaluate, and pounce on opportunities when they are there.