I didn't expect so many replyes on my question. Thank you all, gentlemen, I really apreciate your help.
So, the day after I opened this thread I think I found the reason why I overtrade. It's not just the luck of discipline, even though it's still the main reason. But, I found out that I trade wrong instrument. Here's what I mean: scalping usually concideres trading slow moving stocks like ORCL, CSCO, etc. or QQQ in my example. And in order to profit nicely one have to trade big lots (I trade somewhat around 2000 shares at a time - there's my 120K shares a day on 60RT). The thing is - it doesn't suit my personality - I love action and when I was a profitable and consistent trader(2 years ago) I traded such stocks as SDLI, QCOM, VRTS, JNPR, SCMR - you name the most volatile stocks - I was in, going for 3-5-10 points and cutting losses at 0.25 - 0.5.
But times changed, so did the Market - I become a prop. trader and I traded those boring slow moving stocks averaging 1Mill. shares a day. I still was making a killing when those stocks moved nicely - 5-10K a day - very decent profits which usually saved my months but trading those stocks almost destroyed my ability to think clearly because I always begin to second guess myself when stocks don't go immediately in the desired direction. Sure enough - I was flipping my position from long to short and back and by the time stock really went somewhere - I was in but with tons of wasted shares and load of comissions.
To make a long story short - last friday I begun to trade QQQ as usually and tryed to pick really certain entry points, I tried to hold longer my profits and gave more room for stop-losses. I traded 3 times less then usually by 2.45pm but still was down about 500 after comissions. I was almost going to stop for the day since it didn't work for me again but then I turned my attention to QLGC (which is still sort of violent stock in my opinion). This stock scares me a little so I decided to trade small - 300 shares and I doubled or trippled my position when a trade went well and I saw where it was going to go. I shorted it few times - initially at 37 - covered at 36.59, shorted again at 36.60 - covered at 36.41, shorted at 36.41 - covered at 36.19. Also I got a couple of bouncec, few scratches, a couple of small losses (no more than 10cents). I made 990 within an hour and on 8K shares. Finished the day with 300 profit after comissions on 45K shares.
I tnink I'll stick to this - I'll try to do what I was doing when I was trading volatile stocks and was making decent money. What I changed - I don't watch Level 2, I watch 5 min intraday chart and 15 min daily chart. No MA's, no MACD or stochastics - nothing except trend tool. I'm going to trade relatively expencive and fast moving stocks.
I'll let you know how it will work for me if you still interested.
P.S. I trade at home with IB
P.S.S. I don't gamble at all - not even a lottery tickets. I've been to casino once - lost 20 bucks and ran away.
