I concur with Tampa's advice above and perhaps my earlier two cents was just adding to the confusion. I was trying to give you a specific example of fitting your trading to your personality but it looked more like a huckster's "How to Make a Million with Spiders". See if any of this sounds like you; 1) Trading the opening orders. Do okay for a few days, then give back most. Never feel like you're getting it right. Not comfortable with it. Feel out of control and "running blind". 2) Trading off the tick, 1 minute, and time and sales. Every little move will run forever, but doesn't. Every move you get in stops and reverses just after entry, unless you get nervous and bail. Then it runs forever and you worry over it. 3) Try this stock today, that stock tomorrow. Decide you need to learn one stock. Overtrade it. Try another. 4) Try this method for 2-3 weeks, another for 2-3 weeks, how about pair trading like this guy, sector's are the ticket, let's do a basket. 5) Make a little, give it back, make a little more, give it and more back. 6) Blame the market, blame your data feed, blame the specialist, blame your lack of discipline. I'm embarrassed to say so, but that was the spiral I found myself in. I went in with a plan on how I was going to trade, but then I lost my focus in the heat of battle. Going through changing market conditions accelerated my decline. Your specifics may be slightly different, but the results look the same from reading your posts. I quit trading. Didn't even look at the market for 2 months. Then I started watching again. I started to focus on a methodology that felt good to me. I've been dabbling with it, looking for weaknesses in it and in me. I've been writing the plan, the rules, the contingencies. I've done better already with just a few test trades then I did in most months back then. I don't know your situation for sure, but a lot of what I've read sounds painfully familiar. Perhaps it's hit a nerve and that's why I'm trying so hard, perhaps too hard, to help. But perhaps the best advice is to please: STOP and ASSESS. Good luck to you, Tony. I'll leave you alone now.
Please be assured I appreciate all postings here. I may look like I am too dumb to follow directions.. but I am trying to develope my trading style. I know it is a painful process to watch at times, but I actually feel like I am making some progress. ( so it is microscopic, we take what we can get) Good day on opening orders, not so good here. The chart, with commentary.
Slowed my trading way down today. Had a decent opening orders day, just wanted to try to add to it with a more careful trade selection. The C trade would have paid off at 1:1, but I really wanted to hold for more. Unfortunately, it paid too many visits to my buy point, I figured C was weak after the second visit, so I bailed. MSFT, the first big pullback turned out to be a change in trend. here are the charts.
Slowed my trading even more today. One trade... not counting opening orders. But.... I was still going the wrong way. Jeesh.. it is so clear just 2 min AFTER I enter that I should have gone the other way. But I cannot, for the life of me, see it in time. And when I am even more patient, the market is more patient than that. I swear lately, no matter how long I wait, what signals I see, the market has taken my entry as a que to head immediately off in the opposite direction. 58 Trades in the last 2 weeks, only 11 were not losers. Most of the rest were losers with a handful of scratches. It has me shaking my head. I'll keep posting. Maybe after I post enough trades, I will be able to discern what the hell it is that I THINK I am seeing.
dont feel bad I bought a stock on the opening a point higher than i thought it was 4000 times. Took a big hickie trying to pick off a 200 share inca after forgetting to change my preset after buying some bullets......
Tony, I don't know about the other trades, but today it is painfully obvious what you saw - a top. But there wasn't one to be seen. Top and bottom picking will do you in. The trend, Tony, the trend - please!
Just another frustrating day. The one trade that actually worked, I wanted just a bit more out of it, it started coming back.. until... you guessed it, ..I sold it,...then it went merrily past my original target... leaving me seething. My wife thinks I am crazy. I think I agree with her. The trades.