Let me start off by saying how unbelievably mad I am at myself. I violated one of my cardinal rules of moving stops with my last trade of the day. It was one of those deals where once it happened...it was like what did I just do? What was I thinking? I can't believe I just did that. I had a pretty good day going with some small mistakes but overall a pretty good day until I screwed the pooch. I give myself a big fat "F" for the day. I had a bunch of stuff to do at the end of the trading day so that is why I am just getting to this now. I really haven't been that mad or frustrated with myself in a long time and I guess Im glad I had some time to cool off before I got back to reevaluating what happened.
Here are the trades:
Trade 1:
7:19- Long 1157.25 Stop 1155.25 Target 1162.50
7:43- Move stop to B/E
7:53- exit at 1159.00
+1.75 pts
I was a bit distracted in the morning. I was trying really hard to focus on the markets but the wife need some help in the morning with something before she had work so I had a hard time only focusing on trading. I missed the proper entry point at 1156.25 b/c I was doing something else and decided to go in anyway on a pullback and a bounce back up. Not the worst idea, but I don't really want to do that, its not what Im trying to do. In the future, I will just put a buy stop if I need to walk away from the computer for a couple of minutes. Further, I got out on nerves/anxiety as it turned b/c I think I didn't like my entry and just wanted to walk away with some profit. I missed out on a bit of profit due to nerves. Lastly, I targeted the gap fill, but i think a more appropriate target would've been the pivot at 1161.50. Kinda a crappy trade that worked out ok.
Trade 2:
7:56- Long 1160.50 stop 1158.50 Target 1162.50
8:30- Sold at B/E
+0.00pts
Im not really happy taking this trade. The idea was to reenter on some momentum to continue upward towards my orignal target of the gap fill. Again, had to push through the pivot point. Not such as good trade and the momentum totally died probably because FOMC minutes so I exited at B/E...not very exciting, but I think it was a mistake to be in this trade. I think some of the reason I went in this trade was b/c I felt I exited early and left profits on the tables from the 1st trade...but I think it comes down to the entry being bad on the 1st trade thus the error trickled through the next couple of my moves.
Trade 3:
11:03- Long 1161.75 Stop 1159.50 target 1164.50
11:11- Move stop to B/E
11:16- Sell at 1164.50 at target.
+2.75 pts
I was very happy with this trade for the most part. I had it nicely planned out ahead of the FOMC minutes and waited till I got good confirmation of the direction. I put in a limit order at my target and after the sell order hit and I reviewed the trade, I was looking at my target and thinking it looked a bit weird. Im not really sure what I did, but its kinda a weird target, it should've been either 1165.00, the high/resistance from earlier in the week or 1165.50 which was R1. Im thinking I must have been thinking 1165.50 and accidently typed 1164.50 and didn't double check after I wrote it down and sent the order. Everywhere I have written down 1164.50 so it doesn't make a lot of sense. Hmmm...not sure what I did there. Regardless, I was happy with the outcome of the trade.
So at this point, the market begins to head back down and chop around a bit...I really debated taking the rest of the day off due to it being a FOMC minutes day and I didn't want to deal with any headfakes and missed/poor trades. For whatever reason, I didn't... I missed a really good looking breakout trade above the 1165.75 level at around 12:20 due to nerves/indecision with it being a FOMC day. I simply decided not to take it. Shoulda walked away at that point for the day.
Trade 4:
12:52- Long 1168.00 Stop 1165.50 Target 1172.50
12:01- Sell at 1164.25
-3.75 pts
So mad at myself. This trade comes back to the fact that I didn't take the original entry and wanted to get back in on a pullback. Its not the worst idea if there was momentum but momentum had died at that point. Had total tunnel vision on. Then I completely compound the error by pulling the cardinal sin of moving a stop. I was indecisive on the stop in the first place and thats why I think I did that. My original stop choice was poor as well. The trade was either going to go my way or it wasn't...shoulda been a pretty tight stop. Also, it wasnt even a move of a stop, it was a delete the stop, watch price shoot lower, hit the sell at market button. It was surreal. As price shot lower, it was a deer in headlights of "what am I doing here!?" Bad bad bad. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about how I handled this trade.
Stats:
Total Trades: 4
Winners: 2
Losers: 1
B/E: 1
Total Points: 0.75
Avg. Win: $112.50
Avg. Loss: $187.50
Total Win Rate: 50%
Total Profits: $37.50
I feel really lucky I walked away in positive territory today. My not too bad of a day turned pretty negative with a major mistake. I started thinking about my mentality towards trading a bit later in the afternoon. I am the type of person that needs some stress and choas in life. My real job is like that and if everything is going hunky dory, I get a little bored and need to find some sort of challenge. I am wondering if that is carrying over to my trading. Golf is a good example for me. Im no golf pro, but if I play well and shoot good shots, I get the feeling of...ya, thats how it supposed to be done, big deal...Im not overly proud or overly confident, just the feeling of I just did it right...so what. I almost have more fun playing golf when Im all over the place and I have to save myself out of weeds that are 1 foot thick. Sorry to go off on a random analogy, but Im wondering if Im approaching trading that way. Am I bored with doing things right or the way they are supposed to be done? I can't even really say Im doing things right at the moment, but Im wondering if it goes back to what Mark Douglas talks about of self sabbatoge. I haven't read the whole book but it does get me thinking about my version of self sabbatoge a little more closely. Do I want to get myself in trouble only so I can prove to myself I can pull myself out?
Lastly, errors compounding on themselves is still a major issue that needs to be addressed. Im wondering if I should maybe just quit for the day as soon as i make my first error. I really don't want to do that, but I need to figure out a way to keep my mistakes from compounding.
J/K NoD, your comments from Friday's trade are really all I was thinking about during this trade. So Thanks.
