Recent content by pattern traitor

Heh. Trade today? Nope!

Been away from the market for about a week and, looking at the bloodbath and my strategy for going long, that's almost certainly for the best. Had a family emergency on Friday and decided that with my bold, irrational moves earlier in the week I would be well served to take some time off...

Feeling especially Stupid. Still wanted that bounce in JNPR, bought it on open, and kept hoping for it until I was down 3%. I surrender, Mr. Bear.

Disappointing but educational morning. Bought JNPR on the open thinking it would bounce. It did, but hours later, and at that point I got greedy and waited for it to go higher... at which point it collapsed back to below my purchase price. Sold for a small profit, but essentially another +0%...

Though VLO would bounce on the open, it didn't. Selling on the rebound: -2.5%

For my first trade on my new laptop, ETFC! I missed the early swings and bought it at a near term high then watched it whip around for a while and finally sold it at... +0%, a few hundred bucks. Not a disaster on what looks like a crazy day.

Absolutely everything went up today, I happened to be on board AMD and got 4.5% on it. Which puts some happy punctuation on the end to an absurdly good week: up more than 16%. My account is up about 30% since this experiment began and I have no idea what to credit it to other than dumb luck...

Awkwardly timed the QCOM bounce, but still got a little more than +1% off it. Volume on the microcaps is very low this morning. I wonder what's up.

Again my psychology of trading is so bizarre. When I win it makes me nervous, when I lose it makes me bold. That 8% up day has all but completely removed my will to trade. I've been watching potentials all morning and failing to pull the trigger. Maybe I needed a day off, so I'll take one.

Perhaps, but in my experience the hard part isn't making money so much as it's not losing money. Went back to breaking my rules again, but not one so fundamental as yesterday. The market had been selling the rumor for so long on GS that I thought it might buy the news. It did: +2% for me today.

Spoke too soon, I guess. Broke an unspoken rule and bought JVA before the open. Just sold it at +8%. Again, extremely tempting to see this as a signal to make riskier moves and behave irrationally... but it was just a lucky guess. Could easily have gone the other way and I'd have lost two...

Picked up 1% on CSTR after its crash failed on the open. That makes +2.5% on the week, and +12% overall. Still operating on a beginner's high, and I expect some major drawdown in the near future as my luck cracks. For whatever reason, despite my complaints, the market and I have remained in...

None of my potentials went anywhere and I'm not interested in buying for the sake of buying, so this will be another day without a trade. This market feels unfriendly.

Picked up SINA on the morning upswing, told myself I'd hang onto it until it started showing signs of dropping. Couldn't do it... sold at +2.5%. One of these days I'll have the guts to hang onto my winners, but not today.

1% off of JNY on the open. If I were patient I'd give it the chance to go higher, but since it's showing no sign I'm taking my profits and running.