Two things transformed my trading:
1) I limited what I traded. First I limited my instruments to 4 stocks (AAPL, AMZN, POT and X), and I was dabbling in futures. I then limited the stocks to 3, then 2, and I was preparing to make a transition to futures. I now trade a single futures contract and trading life has never been easier.
2) I learned how to trade with the trend using the power of price action. Without knowing the specific details of your trades, here are the issues I sense with your approach base on your stories; correct me if I'm wrong:
"i'm watching AAPL and see that it established a pattern. i waited patiently until it formed an obvious pattern."
By the time a pattern becomes obvious, those who trade it are, in the words of Mark Fisher ("The Logical Trader"), the retail bus people. They're ripe for getting picked off by the professionals. You learn to recognize potential setups early and trade them early; you learn to take advantage of the "traps" as the pattern becomes obvious, or wait for a new fresh pattern signal.
"i will buy the bottom of the channel and sell near the top..i buy the bottom with a stop and then bamm!!! it drops under the channel so i stop my self out--DISCIPLINE."
That's good discipline, but it indicates the channel has become too obvious and you need to wait for more clarity. Did you buy/sell the bottom/top of the channel in the direction of the prevailing trend (the larger trend, not necessarily the trend line of the channel) or against the trend, or both? Did you use stop orders to let price itself sweep you in the direction of price off the top/bottom of the channel, or did you assume the S/R levels of the channel would hold and use limit orders to buy/sell there?
"i even widened my stop but to no avail..those damn candlestick tails!"
This is a common reaction to getting whipsawed and the end result is almost always larger losses and often a bout of revenge trading.
"i am in a good stock as it formed a nice consolidation pattern,i think its about to make a sharp move higher but i have in a tight stop in case it moves the other way..DISCIPLINE...WTF ! the volume has stopped,it ai'nt moving.. whats going on. shit, the stock is halted..someone leaked out earnings and it looks like its bad. i have 1200 shares of a $65 stock and its scheduled to re open in a half hour. ok,they are bidding at 53, down 12 points."
If you day trade stocks long enough, this will eventually happen. Since these events are rare and your size on the trade is only risking 13% of your account should the stock drop to $0, it's one of those "sh*t happens" moments. It seems this kind of thing is more common in small cap stocks.
"i am watching a stock and its in a daily uptrend and everytime it hits the daily high it reverses slightly and hugs that resistance. i know its gonna break but DISCIPLINE says to wait til it actually does."
Breakouts should not dip much below/above the breakout level (if at all). If you place a stop order just outside previous S/R to play a breakout in a defined trend, your stop loss should be small and if there's no conviction on the break, you can get out for a very small loss or break even trade.
If price breaks out weakly and reverses back through the breakout level, it's often a sign of a reversal or deep pullback in a mature trend (a trend of 2 large legs, or 3-5 smaller legs). Even when I traded high-priced AAPL, I'd never be down more than $100 or so on full-size trade (600 shares) if a breakout failed.
"the market drops 400 points for the day and i am up 200 bucks."
This leads me to believe that you do not understand how to trade in the direction of a trend. Trend-following is where the easy money is. When you learn how to do it properly, as a day trader you will win in a "Spectacular Fashion." You'll just win!
1) I limited what I traded. First I limited my instruments to 4 stocks (AAPL, AMZN, POT and X), and I was dabbling in futures. I then limited the stocks to 3, then 2, and I was preparing to make a transition to futures. I now trade a single futures contract and trading life has never been easier.
2) I learned how to trade with the trend using the power of price action. Without knowing the specific details of your trades, here are the issues I sense with your approach base on your stories; correct me if I'm wrong:
"i'm watching AAPL and see that it established a pattern. i waited patiently until it formed an obvious pattern."
By the time a pattern becomes obvious, those who trade it are, in the words of Mark Fisher ("The Logical Trader"), the retail bus people. They're ripe for getting picked off by the professionals. You learn to recognize potential setups early and trade them early; you learn to take advantage of the "traps" as the pattern becomes obvious, or wait for a new fresh pattern signal.
"i will buy the bottom of the channel and sell near the top..i buy the bottom with a stop and then bamm!!! it drops under the channel so i stop my self out--DISCIPLINE."
That's good discipline, but it indicates the channel has become too obvious and you need to wait for more clarity. Did you buy/sell the bottom/top of the channel in the direction of the prevailing trend (the larger trend, not necessarily the trend line of the channel) or against the trend, or both? Did you use stop orders to let price itself sweep you in the direction of price off the top/bottom of the channel, or did you assume the S/R levels of the channel would hold and use limit orders to buy/sell there?
"i even widened my stop but to no avail..those damn candlestick tails!"
This is a common reaction to getting whipsawed and the end result is almost always larger losses and often a bout of revenge trading.
"i am in a good stock as it formed a nice consolidation pattern,i think its about to make a sharp move higher but i have in a tight stop in case it moves the other way..DISCIPLINE...WTF ! the volume has stopped,it ai'nt moving.. whats going on. shit, the stock is halted..someone leaked out earnings and it looks like its bad. i have 1200 shares of a $65 stock and its scheduled to re open in a half hour. ok,they are bidding at 53, down 12 points."
If you day trade stocks long enough, this will eventually happen. Since these events are rare and your size on the trade is only risking 13% of your account should the stock drop to $0, it's one of those "sh*t happens" moments. It seems this kind of thing is more common in small cap stocks.
"i am watching a stock and its in a daily uptrend and everytime it hits the daily high it reverses slightly and hugs that resistance. i know its gonna break but DISCIPLINE says to wait til it actually does."
Breakouts should not dip much below/above the breakout level (if at all). If you place a stop order just outside previous S/R to play a breakout in a defined trend, your stop loss should be small and if there's no conviction on the break, you can get out for a very small loss or break even trade.
If price breaks out weakly and reverses back through the breakout level, it's often a sign of a reversal or deep pullback in a mature trend (a trend of 2 large legs, or 3-5 smaller legs). Even when I traded high-priced AAPL, I'd never be down more than $100 or so on full-size trade (600 shares) if a breakout failed.
"the market drops 400 points for the day and i am up 200 bucks."
This leads me to believe that you do not understand how to trade in the direction of a trend. Trend-following is where the easy money is. When you learn how to do it properly, as a day trader you will win in a "Spectacular Fashion." You'll just win!
