Well today sure was better than yesterday on a number of levels. On the gross level, I had more good trades than bad and secondly, I was able to reduce the number of instances where I entered a trade Impatiently or under Preconceived Notions. Which, as you recall were my most frequent and costliest errors yesterday.

I’ve also added a row of very useful calculations underneath each of the error columns. The first row is the number of times that a particular error was made during the trading day. The second row is the total number of Ticks that each particular error cost me. A note here that many of the trades had multiple errors associated with them and so are subsequently counted multiple times. The third row is the average loss rate for each particular error that occured (or simply Row 2 divided by Row 1) [ The numbers in rows 2 & 3 are in 10ths so a reading of -2.5 = a loss of -25 ticks ]

What these rows enable me to do is better visualize the impact of the various trading demons that I’m fighting on a daily basis. I wish there were room to show the entire spreadsheet so that you could see the individual columns along with my entry criteria and post-trade commentary on each one. So I’ll post a link to the full spreadsheet at the end of the post.

Bottom line however, is that while I was able to reduce the quantity of the # of Preconceived Notion & Impulsive plays, the effects of their few occurences were strongly felt with an average of over 10 ticks per trade. So today I will continue to try and be vigilant about these kinds of errors.

That being said, the primary brunt of my concentration will today be focused more soundly on reducing the number of times that I enter/chase breakouts without adequate confirmation as well as the number of plays where I enter a trade when the TRIX is Overbought or Oversold. The TRIX OB/OS mistake is simply due to a lack of concentration and getting caught up in the moment and failing to check the indicator. While it may sometimes be OK to enter a trade when it is OB/OS, conditions must be perfect and often the trade should have a much smaller target and room for error. Yesterday though, I simply kept forgetting to even look at the indicator, or when I did, it was after the fact and often too late for price can reverse very quickly after a big run-up.

That will be my goal for today, as well as having more GOOD trades than BAD+OK trades.

As a side note, I cought some nice trend plays yesterday and they were net profitable, it just seems to be this scalping that I am having the most difficult time with. However, I think that this spreadsheet and journal is just what I need to diagnose & cure that which ails my trading most.

As promised, you can Download Here the full version of the ScalpRate spreadsheet.