I had a rough day today. I started out well going 2/2 at the open and was 1 scalp away from reaching my daily goal. But I became impatient, pushed my luck on more than 1 occasion and ended the day down -3.46 R-Units after hitting my daily stop limit.

The most recurring problem that I faced today was staying too long in trades instead of cutting my losses or taking my profits sooner in the face of changing market conditions. I also attempted a lot of bad fades today without adequate confirmation to back them up. It is always rather difficult to have a positive result when you’re taking bad entries and sticking with them longer than you should.

I was not as flexible today as I needed to have been in order to have a good day. I became bored & impatient after this morning’s chop and was unwilling to admit a downtrend-day had developed after the breakdown. Monday I will have to pay more attention to

A.) My patience
B.) Make sure that I do not overstay my welcome on any given trade
C.) Ensure that I have adequate convergence before making fade plays.

Consecutive Days Hitting Net Daily Goal: 0
# Days Hitting Goal out of Last 20 (with goal of 16/20) : 2/4
Weekly PnL (Stop = -6.66) : -4.20 R-Units
Total PnL this Level (Stop = -10.00) : -3.64 R-Units

Well its good to have everything back up and running. I’ve finally switched to a hosting company that caters to WordPress users so I should finally be able upgrade my website a little.

Sorry I didn’t get to post my results from yesterday. Wasn’t much to post actually (I hit my Net Daily Goal in 2 trades) so I’m combining yesterday’s results with today’s.

I seem to have been trading much better these past 2 days and I have noticed some interesting contrasts in how I am trading now versus how i have been trading the past 30 days. An interesting side note: until today, it had been 30 days since I last achieved my target Net Daily Goal for 2 consecutive days. May it be the first of a long winning streak to come.

The contrast I have noticed the past couple of days deals with my propensity to sit and wait for my trades to work. Recently, I have been finding it much easier to sit back and wait for either my target or my stop to get hit. Oftentimes when i trade in live mode, I am much antsier and find myself second-guessing my targets with greater frequency.

Of course it sure has helped to actually get a little bit of market movement these past couple of days versus the sideways grind we’ve been seeing. While I still am making some mistakes, I can slowly feel my confidence coming back and look forward to continuing on with the winning :-D

Consecutive Days Hitting Net Daily Goal: 2
# Days Hitting Goal out of Last 20 (with goal of 16/20) : 2/3
Weekly PnL (Stop = -6.66) : -.73 R-Units
Total PnL this Level (Stop = -10.00) : -.17 R-Units

All I can say for today is that I sure am glad that it was Simulated as I hit my daily stop limit for the 3rd consecutive day. It has been 2 months since I last had such a bad string of trades. I’d like to blame it on bad luck or some external market conditions (things have been pretty slow here recently), but the truth is that I have just been making more bad trades than I typically do.

I don’t know that it is lack of patience necessarily as I was very able to wait for trades today. (Hell, I only had 5 total today) No, I think it has more to do with the impulse control in the heat of the moment brought on by indecision.

The biggest mistake I made today had to do with my exits. On the first trade of the day, I stuck around too long and watched a nice profit turn into a loss. On my second trade I didn’t stick around long enough and got scared out of a trade that would have easily taken me to my Net Daily Goal.

#3 & 5 had some good things going for them but my entry was just premature as I failed to wait for a price signal after getting a couple of converging factors going for me.

So going into tomorrow my focus will be:

1.) Wait for price confirmation before any entry
2.) Have a clearly defined exit strategy for each and every trade

Consecutive Days Hitting Net Daily Goal: 0
# Days Hitting Goal out of Last 20 (with goal of 16/20) : 0/1
Weekly PnL (Stop = -6.66) : -2.60 R-Units
Total PnL this Level (Stop = -10.00) : -2.60 R-Units

Today my foray in this second level of trading comes to an end as I have hit my stop loss limit of -10.00 R-Units :-(

Thus starting tomorrow I will once again be trading primarily in Simulation mode until I am once again able to hit my goal of 10 consecutive days of hitting my Net Daily Goal or 16/20. In a way it will be a good thing to once again be trading in simulation mode as it should really afford me the opportunity to hone in on exactly the kinds of mistakes that I seemed to make in live mode that I didn’t make in Sim mode.

The contrast between the two perspectives should prove to be quite illuminating and educational once I have enough data to examine. And while I am disappointed in the short term, I have tasted success before and know that I have what it takes to do so again.

That’s it for today, I need a break from the PC.

Consecutive Days Hitting Net Daily Goal: 0
# Days Hitting Goal out of Last 20 (with goal of 16/20) : 2/7
Weekly PnL (Stop = -6.66) : -3.33 R-Units
Total PnL this Level (Stop = -10.00) : -10.33R-Units

Another day of good news, bad news. Again, I shot myself in the foot early in the morning (first play of the day actually) with a bad trade which I subsequently had to try to make for. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I only shot myself once and I was able to stay vigilant and patient for the rest of the day to trade & make up for loss.

After going back over my records, this pattern of early mistakes & later vindication is not new. This very same pattern occurred during my last level of trading. I remember specifically because it was almost as if there was a part of me that felt it necessary to intentionally sabotage my trading early in the day in order for me to get into the right trading mindset. (You know, because trading’s just too easy unless you start each day in a big hole to climb out of).

Before, once I was able to identify and move beyond this destructive pattern, it was the catalyst for propelling me to this level for the first time. At its root before, and I suspect now, was a tendency to over-trade in the morning session and chase after losses by loosening up on my trading standards after my first loss. Only then would I realize that I was on tilt and plan each and every trade like I should have from the beginning and slowly claw my way back into the day.

Once I eliminated the bad trades, the odds go up considerably I’d have a positive day. Unfortunately, today there was an accident not too far away that took out a power line near where I live & I was without power from 2:30 till a few minutes ago. This is unfortunate because I was in a nice little trading groove in the hours leading up to that point.

Despite being down 3 R-Units since having gone live, I feel incredibly optimistic about my future for despite the negative PnL, I haven’t been trading all that poorly.

Consecutive Days Hitting Net Daily Goal: 0
# Days Hitting Goal out of Last 20 (with goal of 16/20) : 2/5
Weekly PnL (Stop = -6.66) : -.33 R-Units
Total PnL this Level (Stop = -10.00) : -3.33R-Units