Maintaining discipline

Two shorts in the first 1.5 hour

Second short I averaged at a profit.

A very nice short just came about 20 minutes ago and I was not at my desk.

Since I missed this trade, I am itching to chase the short. But I still remember what happened when I did that last week.

I know, I am suppose to trade based on signals in the "present" not what I did last week. But my decision is no more trades the rest of the day to protect this morning's profits and maintain peace of mind. It could go down much more since momentum is ugly. Could bounce also... We are just very sensitive to oil price.
 
Quote from MandelbrotSet:

Ask yourself:

"Why should I take a trade that is outside of my system?"

Whatever answer you get is the secret to your being a consistently profitable trader.

Good Luck
More...

In another perspective:

"Before You Enter Any Trade, Think That You Will Have To Explain This Trade To The World In a Case Study Format.
Trade as if the world was standing behind your shoulders. - The Stock Trader, by Tony Oz "
 
That's a great tip.

Someone told me to keep talking to the "invisible student". When I trade, talk it out loud as if I am teaching someone to trade. Teachers are suppose to "do the right thing" :)
 
Today 3 trades. Short side.

First one was easy. Followed exit rule and that took away 1/2 my profit.

Second one followed entry rule otherwise I would have had better entry price. Followed exit rule and that took away 1/3 my profit.

Third one, I took a very small profit because after seeing how we slush around for 3 hours with big swings, and not wanting to break lows, I am not going to be stubborn ... This is the 5 or 6th time we hit this low.

So overall, good day. Because it was opex, I made sure I followed all rules (besides chickening out the last trade). Even though I am still wishing I took profits at lows instead of following my system's exit rules (which is not good for slushy days).
 
In the 4 mos I've been trading I've made and lost plenty of money several times over as you can imagine, and repeated the same mistakes at least a couple times. Decided it was time for serious discipline to kick in, so yesterday when my SOHU calls went slightly profitable, I remembered what happened to me last month when a trade didn't go exactly my direction, then became a little profitable, and I held on - gap down. So yesterday I closed out my SOHU for $150 and anyone who cares to take a peak at SOHU's opening this morning and their current price, please pat me on the back for not only learning a lesson, but actually heeding it for a change :p
 
Nodoji, congratulations on taking action!

If you are not already doing so, try identify the exit point before you enter the trade.

Ammo, can you rephrase what "taking singles" mean?
 
Quote from nimble:

Nodoji, congratulations on taking action!

If you are not already doing so, try identify the exit point before you enter the trade.

Ammo, can you rephrase what "taking singles" mean?
More...

With SOHU I desired to exit when the underlying hit $85/share. I watched the chart like a hawk yesterday and when it couldn't break thru 83.50 for more than a minute on several tries, and knowing how Fridays have been lately, I took my $150 and bailed. Ammo's referring to taking lots of small profits instead of shooting for "The Big One". It worked great for me this week - all my little profits tallied $1040 and if I'd been greedy on any one of them, my losses could've been in the thousands.
 
Woke up very early in the morning to sell the gap down.

System said signal was late, and I decided to wait for next signal. It turned out short at open and out in an hour would have been a great trade. Missing this trade was a real shame because it was a high odds trade and I would have played many contracts (it is one week's worth of normal trading :)

I waited and waited and finally 3 hours later, the second signal came and I took it. It was good trade nevertheless, but back to ordinary small size.

In retrospect, I could have played the trade late, with reduced contracts.

Have a good weekend.
 
Quote from nimble:

Woke up very early in the morning to sell the gap down.

System said signal was late, and I decided to wait for next signal. It turned out short at open and out in an hour would have been a great trade. Missing this trade was a real shame because it was a high odds trade and I would have played many contracts (it is one week's worth of normal trading :)

I waited and waited and finally 3 hours later, the second signal came and I took it. It was good trade nevertheless, but back to ordinary small size.

In retrospect, I could have played the trade late, with reduced contracts.

Have a good weekend.
More...

My husband knew I liked SOHU, saw the gap down, asked should he go long and I said, "No!" I saw a great short signal at 10:03 and thought, "It's too low to short now". Yeah, right. There's a quote somewhere on this site: "No stock is too high to buy or too low to sell."

You have a great weekend too!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top