Total Results: -2654.53 Made some bad decisions today. The chief among them being deciding to trade when I'm not feeling well. I don't feel as bad as I felt yesterday. I don't have the aches I had yesterday all over my body and my head but today, I've been sweating profusely for most of the day. On some level, I think it's an improvement. I don't know what the problem is, but I hope it will be gone tomorrow. I'm drinking a lot of fluids. I'll return later with analysis and why I lost money today. I hope those of you that actually trade had a better day.
The key to my losing day yesterday was fading news in VRTX. Don't fade news!!! LFT this am is perfect example! I don't equate earnings with news though. The two tend to trade differently. My .02. I'm taking it slow today. I feel a little better but I'm not going to overdo it.
Today's Total: +5913 Discretionary: +1158.54 (74,500 shares traded) Biggest Winners: NOV +638.60 (fade - good job sticking with this trade from my long entry at 75.07s...not a great job holding -- I've always done a poor job holding my fades for winners...anyone with any ideas? More than anything it's a discipline and psychological problem I have to address and correct.) BHI +360.60 (fade - on the earliest spike to lows around 76 whole numbers...taking profits early on this and not abiding my proper exit rules actually benefited me b/c otherwise I would've taken a loser) JWN +212.60 (fade -- pretty obvious on the chart) Biggest Losers: X -209.20 - tried to pick the bottom on this thingy a few times and it never worked out for me...although I was actually up in it this morning around 9:43 est during the small .30 or so bounce and I didn't take profits b/c I'm focusing on holding my winners better...and it reversed...from then on it was a loser for me I didn't have any other losers today >$100 _____________________________________________________ What I'm Focused On Improving & a few goals to direct this journal to be more constructive for me To Improve Trade bigger each trade -- I have been doing this lately and will start to provide my shares/trade so I can keep track of this info here See the probabilities clearly (a friend of mine destroyed JAZZ today and all he talked about was the setup...period) Focus only on trading my primary strengths and improving upon those strengths (breakouts/downs & fades) Hold my winners on RTM plays consistently Goals (revist these goals in mid-July) make 5 figures/week consistently no trades outside of my primary strategies Those are the only goals and improvements that I can think of at this time. Later tonight, tomorrow, or this weekend, I'll create an action plan to achieve those improvements and the above goals. Thanks.
Mostly b/c the guy that taught me how to trade was an equity trader. Maybe I'll move on to futures someday, but I doubt it. In my relatively ignorant opinion there's more opportunity in equities on a daily basis.