Ripley,
I won't add much to your journal. I want to direct your attention to something we have discussed before.
You are too focused on counting the money and not focused enough on the story the market is telling you throughout the day.
Have you noticed that you when you are up a bit, it becomes fairly easy and quick to lose money back? Do you understand why this is?
Consider that when you give money back, and because you are so focused on $$, that your trades following a loss are based purely on the idea that you want your money back. This is a poor approach. It is ultimately futile and will lead to a lot of greys and ulcers.
You will soon want to focus more on hitting the ball consistently. It is a lot like golf. You want to maintain the same backswing speed and strike through the ball at the same speed every time. The main things that change are your clubs, your positioning and inclination. The swing should remain the same in most cases.
Putting what you are doing in golf terms, you focus in the morning on your smooth swing which produces results for you. When you lose on one swing, you start hacking at the ball as if the golf club is a baseball bat. You lose focus and get emotional, I'm sure. This will completely cloud your judgement and will prevent you from having any flow whatsoever.
I propose you take a different approach: Play your plan to build a day. Once you get within distance to your goal, give yourself a loss limit of $200 or whatever is acceptable. So let's say you are up $1000 after the morning and you want to continue trade... tell yourself that you are willing to risk $200 to see if you can improve on what you have. If you go through the $200, then you are done for the day and you bank $800. If you find that you can't stop once you lost the $200 limit, then you have bigger and more urgent issues and have crossed the line from being a trader to being a gambler. That's a whole different ball of wax.
Good luck.
I won't add much to your journal. I want to direct your attention to something we have discussed before.
You are too focused on counting the money and not focused enough on the story the market is telling you throughout the day.
Have you noticed that you when you are up a bit, it becomes fairly easy and quick to lose money back? Do you understand why this is?
Consider that when you give money back, and because you are so focused on $$, that your trades following a loss are based purely on the idea that you want your money back. This is a poor approach. It is ultimately futile and will lead to a lot of greys and ulcers.
You will soon want to focus more on hitting the ball consistently. It is a lot like golf. You want to maintain the same backswing speed and strike through the ball at the same speed every time. The main things that change are your clubs, your positioning and inclination. The swing should remain the same in most cases.
Putting what you are doing in golf terms, you focus in the morning on your smooth swing which produces results for you. When you lose on one swing, you start hacking at the ball as if the golf club is a baseball bat. You lose focus and get emotional, I'm sure. This will completely cloud your judgement and will prevent you from having any flow whatsoever.
I propose you take a different approach: Play your plan to build a day. Once you get within distance to your goal, give yourself a loss limit of $200 or whatever is acceptable. So let's say you are up $1000 after the morning and you want to continue trade... tell yourself that you are willing to risk $200 to see if you can improve on what you have. If you go through the $200, then you are done for the day and you bank $800. If you find that you can't stop once you lost the $200 limit, then you have bigger and more urgent issues and have crossed the line from being a trader to being a gambler. That's a whole different ball of wax.
Good luck.